Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #583, High Flying Hijinks (Sorcerer’s Stone, Chapters 11-12)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Eric Scull: Hello and welcome to MuggleCast Episode 583, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World. I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Eric: Returning this week, in Andrew’s absence, is our wonderful social media manager, Chloé.
Laura: Yay!
Chloé Laverson: Hey, y’all. I’m so excited!
Eric: This is the first MuggleCast episode that Laura and Chloé are both on.
Chloé: Woo!
Eric: We’ve finally proven that they are not, in fact, the same person.
[Chloé and Laura laugh]
Chloé: Yes, I’m really excited to be on with my bestie.
Laura: Yeah, I know. I can’t believe it’s taken this long.
Chloé: It’s okay. It’s too powerful, us together all the time.
Laura: That’s true.
Micah: I feel a takeover coming. I’m just saying.
Chloé: [laughs] Move over, boys.
Laura: Yeah, we may or may not have been talking about that before we started recording today. [laughs]
Eric: Ohh, plotting a coup. Well, we look forward to it. Like Micah was saying, it’s nice to have a week off.
[Chloé and Laura laugh]
Eric: We hope Andrew is having a wonderful Saturday. So we’re doing Chapters 11 and 12 of our Chapter by Chapter reread from Sorcerer’s Stone.
News
Eric: But first, there was some news this week, and unfortunately, yesterday we found out that Robbie Coltrane, the beloved actor who played Hagrid in the Harry Potter series, has passed away. He was 72, and this is a very sad thing.
Laura: Yeah, it’s the kind of thing you never really expect, but it really hits close to home because Robbie Coltrane was a huge part of our childhoods. He was representative of the first real father figure that Harry had in the series, and I think as readers and as watchers of the movies, we just so connected to Robbie because he really embodied the spirit of Hagrid. I think that is why he was so beloved. And it’s just real weird, to be honest with you, to lose a childhood icon like that.
Chloé: Yeah. I think it’s even more impactful because of how recently the reunion came out with Robbie Coltrane actually talking about the fact that while he won’t be here forever, Hagrid will be, to comfort. And I mean, he’s synonymous with Hagrid at this point. I don’t know, I feel like out of all the actors, it’s just the one that he is so similar and so lovable and caring, and it’s clear that he affected the cast in a really special way as well. But definitely a really sad day for Harry Potter fans everywhere.
Micah: Yeah. And going off of what you were saying, Laura, in terms of him being that first father figure for Harry, he was also our real introduction to the wizarding world, because he’s the one who accompanies Harry on his first trip to Diagon Alley; he’s there to meet Harry when he gets off the train in Hogsmeade for the first time. So it was just really… it was tough, and it reminded me of when Alan Rickman passed away, and just how the community was in shock, and responded as it always does: all these heartfelt tributes, both by actors and by fans. We saw a really nice tribute down in Orlando at the Wizarding World, people raising their wands, as well as pink umbrellas, in tribute of Hagrid, or I should say in tribute of Robbie. But as you said, he is synonymous with Hagrid. Yeah, this is a tough one, and I agree, Chloé, with what you were saying; it hits a little bit harder having to watch back that video from earlier this year, because we talked about it. I don’t think there was one of us who wasn’t in tears when he was talking about him not being here, but Hagrid kind of lasting forever. So yeah, it’s definitely a sad day. But he was clearly extremely well loved.
Eric: Yeah. And talking about that, we have some excerpts from some of the cast. Actually, many – if not, I think, all of them – have posted a statement by now. But we just have a couple to read that really moved us. Dan Radcliffe said,
“I’ve especially fond memories of him keeping our spirits up on Prisoner of Azkaban when we were all hiding from the torrential rain for hours in Hagrid’s hut and he was telling stories and cracking jokes to keep morale up. I feel incredibly lucky that I got to meet and work with him and very sad that he’s passed. He was an incredible actor and a lovely man.”
I mean, picture this: You’re 13, you’re with a bunch of other young actors, it’s the third movie, so you’re kind of confident, but crazy because the set might melt because it’s raining so hard. You’re inside Hagrid’s hut, and suddenly the actor that’s in charge of… the adult in the scene is keeping you entertained and laughing and not so scared anymore. I mean, there’s an opportunity for Robbie to really embody, again, this role of kindness and warmth, and from what I understand, he was just the picture of that.
Micah: Emma Watson said,
“Robbie was the most fun uncle I’ve ever had. His talent was so immense it made sense he played a giant – he could fill ANY space with his brilliance. Robbie, if I ever get to be so kind as you were to me on a film set, I promise I’ll do it in your name and memory.”
And she went on to say that Robbie really just made them a family.
Chloé: Tom Felton said,
“One of my fondest memories of filming Harry Potter was a night shoot on the first film in the Forbidden Forest. I was 12. Robbie cared and looked after everyone around him. Effortlessly. And made them laugh. Effortlessly. He was a big friendly giant on screen but even more so in real life.”
Laura: Bonnie Wright had this to say:
“I’m heartbroken by the passing of Robbie Coltrane. Hagrid was my favorite character! Robbie portrayed Hagrid’s warmth, sense of home, and unconditional love for his students and magical creatures so brilliantly. Thanks for all the laughter. Miss you, Robbie. Sending love to your family.”
Eric: And in talking about Robbie and how he’ll always be the voice of Hagrid, the one that says, “You’re a wizard, Harry,” we’ll hear it in his voice for time and again. The director of the first two films, Chris Columbus, said this:
“Truly a sad day for our Potter family. One of the warmest, kindest souls I’ve ever met, Robbie Coltrane, has left us. Loved by millions, he was not only a truly great actor, but one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. Hope you’re having a helluva time up there, laughing your ass off with Griffiths, Rickman, and Harris! Love you!”
Chloé: Wands up for Hagrid and for Robbie Coltrane.
Laura: Yeah, that’s so sweet.
Eric: I guess we still have an episode to do.
[Chloé and Eric laugh]
Laura: Yeah. Well, and I feel like it is kind of poetic that we do see a couple of really specific moments with Hagrid in these chapters, so I’m glad that we’ll get a chance to honor Robbie through these discussions.
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary (“Quidditch”)
Eric: So we are about to break into Chapter by Chapter, Chapters 11 and 12 of Sorcerer’s Stone. Chapter 11, “Quidditch.” It’s the Seven-Word Summary.
Chloé: Can I just say, I think it’s so funny that you’re like, “Oh, just for funsies, let’s make Chloé start, and then end later, because she’s never done one of these.” [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, that’s right.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: So Chloé, in our honored guest status here, you get to start our Seven-Word Summary. What will it be for “Quidditch”?
Chloé: Okay.
Laura: You’re going to do great.
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Chloé: Gryffindor…
Laura: … surprises…
Eric: … Hogwarts…
Micah: … with…
Chloé: … winning…
Laura: … very…
Eric: … tastily.
[Chloé laughs]
Laura: There we go! We did it. We did it.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Chloé: I thought “winning the game.” “Winning very tastily” is quite the ending.
[Chloé and Laura laugh]
Laura: Well, and it was quite the ending for this Quidditch match, right?
Chloé: True, true, true.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion (“Quidditch”)
Eric: And this is a very Snape-heavy chapter, I was quite surprised to find out. As much as it is about Quidditch – and it’s very successful at that – there’s a lot of stuff with everyone’s least favorite Potions Master, because the book is in full speed getting us to suspect him as the main villain. So it’s very beautiful. The first big point that I want to touch on here is that Snape confiscates Harry’s Quidditch Through the Ages book in the beginning of the chapter. Harry actually has the idea of going to get it back; very bold, very Gryffindor. But there’s this confrontation in the staffroom when Harry walks in, and he finds Snape with this mangled leg complaining to Filch, and Filch is handing him bandages. And it’s revealed that Snape was bitten by the three-headed dog, Fluffy.
Micah: So I just want to take one step back, because the whole way in which Snape goes about taking this book in the first place really rubbed me the wrong way. Snape goes up to the trio and he takes Harry’s book because “Library books aren’t allowed outside of the castle.” Now, I’m calling BS here, because are you telling me with every passage that we read in the Harry Potter series about students studying on the Hogwarts ground on a beautiful spring day…
Eric: Under the beech tree.
Micah: … that not one of them, not one of them, ever studied with a library book? Also, how does Snape know it’s from the library? It could be Oliver Wood’s.
Eric: Well, do you know in the back of the original Comic Relief books there was that sign-out sheet for the library book, and it was 100 names, and they were all scribbled on top of each other? Maybe he saw that list.
Micah: I just think this is Snape being a bleeping, bleeping, bleep, bleep.
Chloé: Yeah, absolutely.
Laura: 100%.
Eric: I could not have said it better myself.
Chloé: Absolutely.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Yeah, but he suspects that they are up to something, according to… because they are plotting. They’re actively plotting to get to the bottom of the Nicolas Flamel stuff, I think. So he kind of sees their guilty faces and then makes up this excuse. It’s like inventing probable cause, almost, or inventing a way to be a bully.
Micah: Yes, but I was also just thinking about how it’s his House that’s playing Harry later on in the chapter, and what better way to mess with Harry than to take away a book called Quidditch Through the Ages, which he’s probably trying to learn a few things from?
Eric: That’s actually a really great… it’s a partisan, if you will, way of just digging… because Snape relentlessly supports Slytherin. It’s gotten to the point where even McGonagall wants to punch him in the face over it. [laughs] So I think that that’s exactly right, Micah, that he’s trying to hobble Gryffindor’s chances in the upcoming match. Bleeping, bleepity, bleep, bleep.
Laura: Yeah, he’s also just petty. I mean, this guy is just extremely petty.
Chloé: He just wants any excuse to take away points from Harry. Think of all the times he takes away points from Harry, and it’s unjust. This is just another one of those times.
Eric: Yeah. When he happens to come across Draco and Ron fighting, and he’s like, “Weasley! Fighting is strictly not…”
Chloé: Even though they both are?
Eric: Yeah, yeah. It’s unbelievable. Going back to the staffroom, then, I guess my question… and this is sort of just an interesting… again, I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it from this perspective prior, and I’ve read this book as often as we all have. Why is Snape confiding in Filch about his injury? And Laura, I know you’ve done so much to advance the cause to make us feel…
[Laura laughs]
Eric: We feel bad for Filch. Is there a glimmer of hope I now have that Filch has a friend at Hogwarts and it is, in fact, Snape?
Laura: I don’t think so. My take on this… first of all, I think part of this could just be…
Micah: They’re lovers.
[Chloé and Eric laugh]
Eric: Wow.
Laura: I’m sorry, say that again?
Micah: They’re lovers.
Laura: Oh. Maybe. I mean, consenting adults, right?
[Chloé laughs]
Laura: But my take on this from a writing perspective is that it was early enough in the series that it was just convenient to write it this way. But if I’m trying to think of a way to justify it in terms of the story and the characters, I can really see Snape finding Filch to be a convenient ally in this moment, or at certain times throughout the series. Because as a person, as a Squib, Filch is overlooked all the time, and he has near-zero influence at Hogwarts. So I can see Snape not seeing Filch as any kind of liability, whereas maybe confiding in another member of the staff would be more of a risk.
Chloé: Yeah, it’d be suspicious, which is exactly why he doesn’t go to Madam Pomfrey. I mean, even though he is a teacher and one of the teachers that are protecting the Stone, it’s still like, “Okay, well, why would you go to Fluffy? It’s a three-headed dog. You’re obviously putting yourself in danger.” So I think Madam Pomfrey would be suspicious and also think he’s dumb for putting himself in that situation. And I was thinking about it; he can’t heal himself either, necessarily, because we’re not sure what effect Fluffy would have, right?
Eric: Well, it’s a dog bite. I mean…
Chloé: It’s a magical creature, though, so it could be beyond just a dog bite. We don’t know. And we know that wounds from creatures heal differently than spells.
Eric: Well, so we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here, but as alternate options, would he go to Madam Pomfrey? Would he heal himself? He is the Potions Master; I think that he should be able to come up with a potion or some kind of a salve or something that would at least take the edge off of his gaping wound. I mean, then again, this is Snape, and this is a consequence of early writing for sure, I think, but he heals Draco from Sectumsempra. He’s the only one who can. There’s a verbal component, and he’s murmuring, and these wounds that are just absolutely worse than even a dog bite, even from a magical dog, are healing up on Draco. He still needs a lot more blood and is still going to the hospital wing. But Snape should be able to, either by magic or by potions, by some kind of thing that he whips up downstairs, be able to take care of this himself. So it just strikes me as being more of a plot thing. And also, he’s very clearly under Dumbledore’s orders to watch Quirrell. We find out about this from Snape’s tale, right, in Book 7? Dumbledore has that line: “Keep an eye on Quirrell.” We don’t know exactly when it occurs, but I think it’s safe to say it would have occurred after Halloween, which is the time we’re in now. So Snape is under Dumbledore’s orders to follow Quirrell around, basically. If he thinks Quirrell is going up to the third floor, Snape is definitely going to go up there and just make sure Fluffy is still there doing his job. He’s going to get bit, but no teacher would think twice about, “Oh, yeah, Snape got bit because he’s continuing under Dumbledore’s orders to protect the school.” It’s just not a big deal, I think.
Chloé: I don’t think the other teachers know that Snape is under those orders, though. I can’t imagine that it went beyond Dumbledore and Snape.
Eric: We never see Pomfrey being anything more than discreet, though. She doesn’t… Hermione’s cat transformation isn’t a bigger deal, because she’s so discreet.
Chloé: That’s true.
Eric: So I think that between Pomfrey and Dumbledore, Snape would be well taken care of. It’s just Filch giving him bandages? Filch can’t do magic, so it’s really just sort of Muggle remedy. You might as well get him some needle and thread and have him stitch you up. Not to say that Squibs can’t, but it’s just sort of your last option to get some kind of magical remedy in a school full of magical, capable wizards.
Laura: I think Snape is so prideful that he probably wouldn’t want to admit to any of his peers that he got bitten by this three-headed dog, given what an accomplished wizard he is. It’s kind of a rookie move, right? The kids manage to not get bitten by this dog…
[Eric laughs]
Laura: … and Snape is a 30-year-old man, and he gets mauled by it. So I can see him having so much pride about it that he doesn’t want to tell anyone that he sees as being on his level about what happened. But Filch, he does not see Filch as on his level or anywhere close to it, so he’s safe.
Micah: Unless they’re lovers.
Laura: Unless they’re lovers. And plus, Filch is scared of him, right? So would he say anything?
Micah: No, and I had a couple thoughts about this too. I mean, sure, Snape could look to heal himself, but with Sectumsempra, I felt like the reason why he had to heal Draco was because, number one, it was his spell, so he likely knew how to go about healing him. And it was a do or die type of situation in the moment he had to step in. The other thing that came to mind, too, is Dumbledore goes to him after the Horcrux starts to infect his hand, so clearly Snape does have some type of healing ability. But in this moment, I just feel like he probably made his way back to the staffroom; Filch was there. To the points raised, he could confide in Filch because Filch is not going to go telling tales on Snape, because he is afraid of him, as was mentioned. And I think he would have known if he needed more attention, if he needed somebody like Madam Pomfrey or even Dumbledore, or to go to St. Mungo’s, right? He’s smart enough to know the impact of getting a bite like this, I think.
Eric: That makes a lot of sense. So as a self-assessment… it’s going to make him uncomfortable and a menace the next couple days, but it’s not Pomfrey level or any other teacher level of damage. The pain he feels in his leg keeps him alive and reminds him how sad and upset he is about life in general.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Yeah, I just think going to Pomfrey, too, would raise higher levels of suspicion, and then it’s likely that Madam Pomfrey doesn’t know that there’s a three-headed dog in the castle, so alerting her to that fact…
Eric: [laughs] If Dumbledore didn’t tell her that, then that’s a huge security nightmare. “Hey, Poppy, prepare for a few possible bites, dog bites maybe, from students coming in if they’ve disobeyed my rules.” You have to tell your head school nurse what kind of injuries to look out for, I think. But I digress. The other big thing that happens during this scene, though, is once Snape realizes Harry is there, and this is kind of… I know the book goes into all caps every once in a while, but this is the one that I hear to my soul, when Snape screams, “POTTER!” And the book says, “Snape’s face was twisted with fury as he dropped his robes quickly to hide his leg. Harry gulped.” And Harry says, “I just wondered if I could have my book back.” He says, “GET OUT! OUT!” And “Harry left, before Snape could take any more points from Gryffindor.” But later that night, when Harry is in bed, it says, “The expression on Snape’s face when Harry had seen his leg wasn’t easy to forget.” So I want to delve into this a little bit more. What feelings is Snape feeling about the whole situation of Harry seeing his wound?
Chloé: I think it goes back to Laura’s point earlier about Snape not wanting anyone to see him vulnerable. I mean, even in the Discord, people are pointing out Snape’s ego. I don’t think anyone seeing his leg would be something that Snape was okay with.
Eric: Well, least of all Harry, though. It’s specifically Harry.
Chloé: Right, I was getting to that. I think the product of the fact that it’s Harry, and the product of Lily and James, and it’s still fresh. It’s Harry’s first year; I don’t think Snape has quite gotten used to this image, basically, of a mini James running around the castle, running amok.
[Eric laughs]
Chloé: I don’t think he wants to see basically the worst thing that’s happened to him, the product of it, seeing him vulnerable. Because he has this reputation of being scary and untouchable and really awful. So I think the fact that it’s Harry makes it worse, but Snape doesn’t like to be vulnerable anyways.
Laura: Yeah. This also reminds me of how he reacted when Harry saw his worst memory in Order of the Phoenix.
Eric: Ooh, good tie-in.
Laura: Because he’s just… he’s got an enormous ego on him, to the points we’ve already addressed. But in particular, Harry is the one person that he would prefer not know any of this. I mean, honestly, he doesn’t want anyone to know any of this, but if he had to pick, “Who’s the number one person I don’t want to be privy to my vulnerability, my insecurities, and dare I say, my emotions,” it would be Harry, right?
Micah: Let’s not forget, too, that Harry is just waltzing into the staffroom, a place that he shouldn’t be.
[Eric laughs]
Chloé: So true.
Micah: Did he even knock?
Chloé: Yeah, he did.
Micah: So maybe if Filch or Snape hobbled over to the door and just opened it, none of this would have ever happened then, obviously. But yeah, I agree. Snape’s ego is just one that… and he’s got this reputation about him; there’s no question. He’s kind of the badass, in a negative way, of the castle, and vulnerability is definitely something he doesn’t want his rival’s son to see. But again, at the same time, he’s reacting like a bit of a baby too.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: Maybe. I think too, though, the shock part of it for me that still hits is Harry is totally innocent to this. Yeah, he shouldn’t be in the staffroom, but he has no idea about all the boiled-up anger that Snape is feeling toward him in general. He thinks it’s more in just anti-Gryffindor, pro-Slytherin type thing at this point. He has no idea the years of pain that his own father inflicted on Snape, and so much so that this moment is brought up with Dumbledore at the end of the book. Not this specific moment, but just Snape’s relation with Harry has to come up, because if Snape turns out to be a good guy, and later in this chapter completely does a 180 and starts protecting Harry, saving Harry’s life, Harry’s got to know why there’s all that anger and all of that look. And Dumbledore tells more than Snape would want him to about that whole situation.
Micah: Right. But what if somebody…? What if a student really needed somebody in the staffroom? How would that have gone down?
Eric: I mean, Memory Charm? Do you think Snape would have…? Say Neville Longbottom walks in at that exact moment. So it’s not Harry…
Micah: Poor Neville.
Eric: Poor Neville. But yeah, let’s hypothesize there. Would Snape…? I mean, Snape wouldn’t have had the, “Oh no, my rival’s son has seen me in a vulnerable state.” He’d probably say something like, “Longbottom, if you ever mention a word of this to anybody, I’ll make sure your toad never recovers,” or something like that.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, I think he would straight-up bully Neville into compliance in this case. Whereas with Harry, he has such a visceral reaction to this because of Harry being James’s son, right? But with Neville, I don’t think he would… I don’t think that filter would exist for him, so I think he would just go straight-up bully.
Eric: That makes sense. Let’s move on to the Quidditch match and what happens. The thing that I want to touch on is just how bold and brazen it is for Quirrell to be jinxing Harry’s broom during his first match. I mean, this is in the view of most of the school; Dumbledore is weirdly absent. If Quirrell had succeeded in getting Harry off of his broom, which is to say tumbling to the ground and dying, what would the explanation be? Wouldn’t this in fact out, once and for all, that there is somebody at Hogwarts…? The troll attack is questionable, whether the troll was just… somebody left the door open. But by this point, somebody directly affecting Harry’s broom like this completely reveals and shows your hand. Somebody at this school is actively trying to kill Harry Potter specifically. So is it really worth the risk to do what Quirrell attempts to do? In our opinion.
Laura: Probably not, but I wonder if he’s banking on a couple of things here. One, Harry is a first year, and typically first years aren’t allowed to play Quidditch, and they’re not allowed to have broomsticks. So the narrative that would come out of a tragedy like this would very likely be, to begin, “He was just 11. He was allowed to play a sport he shouldn’t have been allowed to play, he wasn’t ready for it, and he tragically died.” I could also see the Ministry… because we know how the Ministry really likes to come in and sweep things under the rug to keep things moving so that they don’t have to deal with some unpleasant realities about people who are at Hogwarts, potentially. I could see the Ministry potentially wanting to cover something like this up and really pushing the narrative that it was just a tragic accident because Harry was too young.
Eric: I can just imagine the first huge news to come out since Harry Potter’s defeat of Voldemort in the Daily Prophet was that “Harry is dead in a broom accident. This hero of the wizarding world who just started his first year of Hogwarts. We don’t know… this amazing person that everyone knows his name just fell off his broom. I’m sorry, everybody.” Can you imagine breaking that news? It would be nuts.
Chloé: I think it would be nuts, but not to be that person, but I feel like in no situation would Harry die, because Snape was watching, and Snape was doing the counter-curse. So if Harry fell, Snape would be able to save him, just like I think Dumbledore does in the third book.
Eric: Arresto Momentum.
Chloé: Yeah, exactly. So I think that while it would have been really, really scary, and it might have changed quite a bit of the plot, I still think that Harry survives this.
Laura: Yeah, I agree.
Micah: Right, because you have to imagine in the sport that people get knocked off their brooms all the time and fall. So this made me think of something, though – and it is actually briefly touched on in the book – but you would think that there’d be more protections in place, particularly at a school, so we can definitely throw in a security nightmare sound effect here.
[“It’s starting to sound like a security nightmare!” sound effect plays with sirens]
Micah: Because how easy is it for a more advanced student to curse the opponent’s team, right? Let’s say you’re in Ravenclaw and you’re playing Hufflepuff, and you really don’t want Hufflepuff to win. They have really good players, and you’re a really advanced student. I’m sure you could come up with different curses, spells that you can throw at the other team. So I’m actually surprised… now, yes, it is referenced that you have to be very accomplished, and only a Dark wizard would be able to do the likes of what we see done to Harry, which should have been a flag as well. I know we all go to Snape, but it is literally the Darkest of all wizards who is trying to knock Harry off of his broom. But again, I think more rules, please. More rules.
Eric: More rules. A net, maybe. What is Hooch’s job? Just to call fouls? She’s got to be up there actively doing these types of counter-curses and things herself, I think.
Chloé: And I know it’s higher stakes, but even the Quidditch Cup only has one referee, which is insane for a game like that. Most sports have more than one referee, or at least assistant referees.
Eric: But the audience hates them. [laughs]
Chloé: Well, sure, but that doesn’t matter because they’re necessary for safety and for rules. And I also think it’s crazy that you can fly as far away from the actual pitch as you want, because there should at least be some sort of boundary where you’re out of bounds and you’re no longer in the game. Quidditch has so many problems. It’s very fun, and I like that there’s a sport, but it’s not a good sport.
Eric: So getting back to my central question, we all talked about now how there was no chance Harry would die. He’s surrounded by people that are capable and accomplished, and there’s… yeah, there needs to be more safety. But given that there’s no way Harry could die, doesn’t that then make what Quirrell is doing a flawed attempt? It can only serve to do exactly what it does, which is put everyone on high alert. That’s why Dumbledore comes to the next match. I don’t know why he was missing this one. He can support Harry without making it look too much like he’s supporting Harry by coming to his first Quidditch match. Is he busy? Is he doing something more important than going to see Gryffindor win?
Chloé: Probably, actually. He’s probably doing something more important. [laughs]
Eric: What? What is he doing? He’s not securing the school.
Chloé: He’s still the head of the Wizengamot, right? He’s still…
Eric: Oh yeah, Supreme Mugwump.
Chloé: Yeah, he still has all these other side hustles.
Micah: I think he’s just staring off into the Mirror of Erised, if you know what I mean.
Eric: Aww.
Chloé: Probably that too. [laughs]
Laura: Maybe, but bringing up the Mirror of Erised is a great point because we see in the next chapter that the Mirror of Erised is not yet in place as one of the obstacles protecting the Sorcerer’s Stone. So potentially, we don’t know when all of these various… the chess match, the potions riddle. We don’t know when any of that was set up. Those things might have been set up progressively throughout the year, and that could be something Dumbledore is working on during this Quidditch match when nobody’s in the school.
Micah: I do like what Evelyn Blake said in the Discord. She said, “Remember, it is the ’90s. No snowflakery.”
[Chloé laughs]
Laura: Wait, what’s that in reference to?
Micah: I think the rules.
Laura: Oh, I see.
Chloé: There’s no way they improved Quidditch in 2022. It’s still absolutely bonkers. [laughs]
Laura: And I think that’s the point, right?
Chloé: Yeah, yes.
Laura: That’s the point.
Eric: Yeah. I’m a Quidditch advocate. I think it’s great.
Odds & Ends (“Quidditch”)
Eric: Let’s get into some odds and ends for this chapter, “Quidditch.” Somebody had a point in here about Quidditch, just how J.K. Rowling hates writing sports, or she grew to hate it because she felt that each match was repetitive.
Micah: Yeah, I mean, she’s made a lot of comments on Quidditch over the years, but I do remember her saying that it was a challenge for her to write. She’s creating a completely new sport, and it’s also about how do you keep it entertaining, right? That’s the biggest piece for a reader, is, “Well, if I’m going to be writing this sport now over the course of seven books…” Basically she needs something important to happen in most of these matches to keep the reader’s interest. And I think also the addition of Lee Jordan in particular is great for these matches; having that kind of sassy commentator definitely keeps it fun and enjoyable. But she did note that it was a challenge for her to write, and that’s really why we don’t see it as much in the later books.
Eric: So here’s another mention of something that Scabbers is doing to the sheets during the Quidditch match.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: It says, “Ron and Hermione joined Neville, Seamus, and Dean the West Ham fan up in the top row. As a surprise for Harry, they had painted a large banner on one of the sheets Scabbers had ruined. It said ‘Potter for President,’ and Dean, who was good at drawing, had done a large Gryffindor lion underneath. Then Hermione had performed a tricky little charm so that the paint flashed different colors.” They used one of the sheets that Scabbers had ruined. What is Scabbers doing to these sheets? He was biting them, chewing on them the other day when they first came to Hogwarts. What is going on with Scabbers?
Chloé: My first reaction to this… and I love this passage, and I’ll talk about that in a second. But my first reaction is like, why is Ron sleeping with his rat? Maybe this is me being really discriminatory against rodent owners, but I feel like it’s different to sleep with your rat than it is to sleep with your cat or your dog. Why is Ron sleeping with Scabbers? Scabbers should have his own little area where he goes to sleep. And I mean, he’s probably doing what any other rat does, chewing on it because he’s anxious and really actually Peter Pettigrew, and then probably taking a shit.
[Chloé and Laura laugh]
Chloé: I’m just being honest.
Eric: Without a pen, yeah, where will he go to the bathroom?
Chloé: Exactly. He needs a pen.
Laura: I think, too, don’t rats and any kind of rodent…? Don’t they have to chew because their teeth perpetually grow? So that’s probably what this is. He’s chewing the sheets because he has to, and he presumably doesn’t have anything else to chew on.
Eric: That is brilliant. And I just looked that up, and apparently that’s true. Rats must continuously chew to keep their teeth…
Chloé: It’s so weird he sleeps with his rat. I’m sorry. [laughs]
Eric: When you were saying, “This is about to be offensive to rat owners,” I was like, “No good sentence starts this way.”
[Chloé and Laura laugh]
Eric: “It’s only going to be downhill from there.” I think that Scabbers… I mean, it’s not a cat, sure, but I love when my cat curls up next to me and is a warm body. I mean, Scabbers is one of Ron’s only friends. [laughs] Let’s just let him sleep with it.
Laura: Yeah, and I’ve never had a pet rat, but I know people who have, and…
Eric: They’re brilliant.
Laura: Yeah, domesticated rats are actually very sweet, from what I’ve heard. So I guess I could see this, but rats are… they’re so small.
Chloé: That too. What if Ron rolls over his rat in his sleep?
Laura: Yeah, exactly!
Chloé: Poor Scabbers. Bye-bye. I get that it… it’s really weird to look back on this because I think I’m also prejudiced because I know it’s Peter Pettigrew, right?
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Chloé: So to me, I’m just like, “Oh my God, Ron is sleeping with Peter Pettigrew that happens to be his rat? Vom.”
Laura: Yep, and let’s not even get into the fact that Fred and George have the Marauder’s Map. [laughs]
Chloé: They are allies. They are gay allies, Laura. They support their brother.
Micah: I don’t know how early on in the series J.K. Rowling knew that Scabbers was going to be Peter Pettigrew, but if she knew at this point, then I wonder if it’s more so just to establish the presence of Scabbers being in the dormitory. He shows up on Harry’s pillow, I think, a little bit later on in… I think it’s the next chapter. So I think it’s more of just “Pay attention to him” type of…
Eric: Yeah, remind the audience of the plot points, yeah.
Chloé: And then it also makes you think way in advance – this is connecting the threads a little bit – but Scabbers is always there watching Harry, Ron, and Hermione. He knows everything that they do for the first entire three books, their first three years. He then can bring that information to Lord Voldemort later. He sleeps with Ron. It’s crazy to think about.
Eric: Scabbers the spy.
Chloé: I love this passage, though. I was reading it and I kind of had such a moment because “Potter for President” is so utterly American to me, and I even did some googling last night because I was like, “Maybe they have presidents, some sort of idea of a president in the UK,” but no, not really; maybe a president of a club. So it just feels so American. And I’m also obsessed with the fact that Dean designs this poster, Hermione puts a cute little charm on it… it’s just so cute and such a good bit of magic, and I’m also kind of upset… Dean is badass. He’s athletic, artistic, and unbothered, and I’m mad that it doesn’t come up more that Dean has this talent.
Eric: Well, that’s a good point about “Potter for President.”
Micah: Is it different in the Philosopher’s Stone?
Laura: That’s what I was wondering.
Chloé: I’m not sure. But it’s in the illustrated version. It has a huge “Potter for President” banner in the MinaLima one.
Laura: Yeah. Also, “Potter for Prime Minister”?
Chloé: It’s not as cute. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, it’s not as snappy.
Eric: Well, they could have said, “Potter for PM.” If you just abbreviate it “PM.” That works, I think.
Laura: Yeah, PM.
Eric: That’s so interesting. Does anybody else have any other points?
Laura: Yeah, so I thought something that was really interesting from this chapter was the sequence we see with Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid in the stands, and we’re really seeing things from their perspective, the conversation from their perspective. We watch this bounce back and forth between Harry flying, and then all of a sudden we’re in the stands. We even follow Hermione over to where Snape and Quirrell are, where she sets Snape on fire. And I just thought it was interesting because it’s another example of the style earlier in the series being more third person omniscient, but then later on in the series, it’s more third person limited, and we’re usually locked into what Harry is doing.
Eric: Yeah, even his diving for the Snitch happens from that far away perspective. But yeah, there’s some weird moments, more than I remember there being, more moments where we’re just not with Harry at all.
Micah: And going off of that, Laura, just because it’s related: Early in the chapter, Harry, Ron, and Hermione are outside. It’s very cold out. This is when Snape comes to take Quidditch Through the Ages away. They’re actually all huddled around this blue flame, right? Or maybe they each have blue flames that Hermione has casted for them. And it’s the same spell, presumably, that she uses a little bit later on in the chapter to put Snape’s cloak on fire, and I thought, if Snape had seen this when he first came across them earlier in the chapter, would Hermione have been as inclined to use it on Snape during the Quidditch match? Almost like he would know who was responsible for it.
Laura: Yeah, I wonder too, because I don’t know if Hermione is at the point of development in the series where she would say, “Well, he may know that I did it, but he also knows that I know what he was doing, so is he going to say anything?” That feels more like Order of the Phoenix level Hermione. I don’t know if she’s there yet.
Eric: Well, in the book, she actually scoops the flame up.
Laura: Yeah, she takes it.
Eric: He might not have a chance to see what color it is. She sets fire to his robes to burn him, but then it seems like as soon as he yelps, the flame would have put itself out because she puts it back in her jar. So that’s really interesting.
Chloé: Well, she doesn’t want to lose it either, because it’s not an easy bit of magic, especially for a first year, right?
Micah: Yeah, that’s true.
Eric: I just have a headcanon now coming to me right now where Hermione names it. It’s her pet blue flame.
Chloé: Love.
Laura: Ohh.
Eric: Ron’s got a rat. She’s got a blue flame. I think she’d name it something French.
Micah: It’s also comical, though, too, right? That she inadvertently stops it all from happening before she even gets to Snape because she knocks into Quirrell.
Chloé: Yes, I love that point. It’s so easy to miss, but reading it back after you know what Quirrell is doing, it’s so good.
Laura: Yeah, I think… because the movie-ism on this is that when she sets fire to Snape’s cloak, in him trying to stomp it out, I think he knocks Quirrell over.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: So I think it can be easy to forget that little piece of nuance. Something else I thought was interesting – and this is me harping on a point I made last week about Harry being a Seeker and that potentially being representative of his role as the Chosen One – there are two mentions in this chapter about Seekers being attacked the most.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: First he gets it from Oliver Wood, and then he gets it from Quidditch Through the Ages, and I just felt like, “Wow, Seekers being attacked the most, just like the Chosen One. Sorry, Harry.”
Chloé: Doesn’t that connect to your theory about how important it is that Harry is the Seeker throughout the entire…? [laughs]
Laura: Right, exactly. Is it something that drives the plot? No, but I think that it’s a really cool piece of symbolism.
Chloé: Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, the whole reason these books conclude is because he seeked things out to destroy them.
Laura: Yeah, for sure. And ultimately, there is not a single space where Harry gets to exist where he’s not the subject of, at the very least, a high amount of attention, right? He very rarely gets privacy, he very rarely isn’t the center of attention, and he very rarely isn’t the one being attacked.
Eric: Good point. Let’s finish our discussion for Chapter 11 on a Hagrid note. The trio afterwards goes to Hagrid’s hut, and under pressure, Hagrid lets slip the name Nicolas Flamel. So were any of us the real life Hermione? I’m looking at Laura this way. Did you know where we had seen the name Nicolas Flamel before the first time reading this chapter? Do you remember if you remembered?
Laura: No, I definitely did not pick up on this.
Eric: That’s such an indicator that what J.K. Rowling is doing with these books is so successful, when all the readers who independently… and I’m curious if anyone in the Discord figured this out, because that name is totally in the book. It’s on the Hogwarts Express when Harry opens the Famous Witches and Wizards Card and reads on the back of Dumbledore’s. But I certainly didn’t remember reading that name ever before, or didn’t catch that. So it’s just amazing.
Micah: Right. Yeah, it’s one of those blink and you’ll miss it moments. Just like we were talking about before with Hermione bumping into Quirrell, Nicolas Flamel being mentioned on the Chocolate Frog Card is a blink and you’ll miss it type of moment.
Eric: It’s the hiding in plain sight thing that really just gets me.
Chapter by Chapter: Seven-Word Summary (“The Mirror of Erised”)
Eric: Okay, so now we’re getting into Chapter 12 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – an amazing chapter, possibly one of the best of the book we’ll see – “The Mirror of Erised.” And Micah, you’re starting off our Seven-Word Summary.
[Seven-Word Summary music plays]
Micah: Dumbledore…
Laura: … gives…
Chloé: … Harry…
Eric: … some…
Micah: … advice…
Laura: … about…
Chloé: … life. [laughs]
Eric: Okay.
Micah: All right.
Eric: That’s not not true.
Laura: Yeah, no, it is very true.
Eric: That segment rates an Acceptable.
Laura: I’ll take it. Being acceptable is great.
Chloé: I like how Eric has become the person that rates these. [laughs]
Eric: Well, I don’t think our friends over on the patrons Facebook group have taken up the cause as valiantly, as quickly, as I thought they would after returning to Seven-Word Summary. So forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’d love to see each week’s Seven-Word Summary over there being ranked the way it used to be.
Chloé: You hear that, patrons?
Eric: That’s a call to action. [laughs]
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion (“The Mirror of Erised”)
Eric: But I thought… so the chapter is called “The Mirror of Erised,” but of course, it happens to take place over the Christmas holiday when very few people are in the castle. And Harry wakes up Christmas morning – going ahead a little bit – to see that he’s got presents! The most unexpected thing for him to possibly imagine – poor, abused Harry – that people love him enough to give him presents.
Micah: Yeah, I just thought it was really nice to see Harry experience a proper family style Christmas with the Weasleys. He not just spends it with Ron; the Weasley twins are there as well; Percy is there. He gets presents, as you mentioned. All the food that’s talked about; they even get into a snowball fight. And he also gets to see a different side of some of the professors as they’re in the Great Hall, right? There’s a lot of fun going on with Dumbledore, and Hagrid and McGonagall. So it’s just kind of cool to see Harry get something nice for once, something that he’s never experienced as well.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Something I thought was interesting about this as I was reading it was Ron saying, “Oh yeah, I’m not going home for Christmas because Mom and Dad are going to visit Charlie in Romania,” and I was like, “Well, you have this thing called the Floo Network. I think it would be pretty easy for all of y’all to go if you want to.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: I could see Ron talking to Mrs. Weasley and saying, “Yeah, I could go, but this is going to be Harry’s first Christmas in the wizarding world, and he’s going to spend it alone because he’s not going home, and I don’t want to leave my best mate.” That’s my headcanon.
Chloé: Oh, that’s so sweet. That’s so sweet. And then all the brothers, too, are like, “Okay, we’ll stay with Harry as well.” And I mean, I think that checks out because then Mrs. Weasley sends him a gift, and I wonder if Ron, in one of his letters, told Mrs. Weasley what Harry was used to. I always… I remember the first time I really was jealous that I didn’t celebrate Christmas and didn’t get to experience Christmas was actually reading about Christmas from Harry Potter books. I had many more moments later in life where I was like, “Dang, I really wish that I celebrated Christmas,” [laughs] but this was the first time I remember being like, “Oh, I want a tree.”
Micah: Aw.
Eric: Micah, did you ever feel that that way?
Micah: No, we celebrate Christmas. I’m half and half. I’m a Cashew, is something somebody called me one time?
Eric: Cashew?
Laura: What?
Chloé: No.
Micah: Half-Catholic, half-Jew.
Chloé and Laura: Ohh.
Eric: Cashew! Okay.
Chloé: I was like, “I’m not following.”
Micah: Anyway.
Laura: I know, I was like, “Is this turning into a pejorative that somebody threw at you, Micah?”
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: But I still celebrate Christmas. Anyway, the point that I was going to make is, yeah, I don’t think you’d have to… certainly not convince the Weasley twins to spend probably, what, a couple of weeks in the castle where they can get free reign and do whatever they want to do. And I think Percy may have to stay for prefect duties, but I’m not sure about that. But yeah, I was wondering, too, when we were… this may apply more so to college years, but did we ever stay for holiday break? This reminded me a lot of just staying at college over holiday break, or maybe going back with a roommate’s family for holiday, and just it changes the whole dynamic. There’s a different feel to it. There’s something very nostalgic about it.
Eric: Absolutely, or being somewhere after hours or after you’ve graduated. Just the same classrooms, but they take on a totally different feel and meaning. Least of all because there’s so fewer people that Harry and Ron are finally able to get the good armchairs.
[Chloé laughs]
Eric: It just is a totally different vibe.
Chloé: I stayed back almost every holiday, and that’s beyond just being Jewish, because a lot of my holidays were over school anyway, and Hanukkah was actually over finals most of the time. And I was thinking about it, and it’s probably true of all of the students that aren’t Christian at Hogwarts. Diwali, for example, is this weekend, and probably still at school. I think that a lot of people stayed behind for holidays, but even Thanksgiving, we would just ski instead of going back to school.
Micah: That’s cool.
Eric: You know, when you just ski.
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Chloé: Well, no, no, no. Well, I went to school in Utah, and instead of going back for the holidays, we would like, “Oh, well, we’d much rather ski and be here,” because it was a lot more fun. So I think it could be fun to stay back with your friends and shoot the shit.
Laura: Yeah, when I was in grad school, I never went home for Thanksgiving because I was living in New York for school at the time, and it just didn’t make sense to go through the most hectic travel holiday in the United States for just three days to go back to Atlanta.
Chloé: So true.
Laura: So I always stayed in New York, but my brother at the time was living in Maryland, so he would always take a bus up to New York and we would do Thanksgiving.
Chloé: Aww.
Laura: And we would just pick a restaurant to go to. One year we did… we wanted to pick food we hadn’t tried before, so one year we did Ukrainian food.
Eric: Oh.
Chloé: Love.
Laura: Another year we did Turkish food. And there was actually something really special about that; I’m glad that we got that experience.
Chloé: Friendsgiving can be pretty epic too. Harry is doing a friend version of Christmas, and honestly, it’s really beautiful because eventually Ron, Harry, and Hermione become family.
Micah: Yeah. I think this chapter also shows us why Tom Riddle really enjoyed spending his time at Hogwarts as well.
Laura: Ooh, yeah.
Micah: Particularly during the holidays.
Eric: I think that’s 100% true, because even though the school can accommodate at least a thousand people, it can also accommodate if you’re the only one. It’s as warm of a home if there’s everybody there as if it’s just you.
Laura: It did make me wonder how many people were staying over the holiday, though, because the Christmas feast, the way it was described, was huge.
Eric: [laughs] A thousand chickens or something.
Laura: Yeah, I was like, “There’s no way there’s enough people here to eat this.”
Eric: Or hundreds of chickens, yeah.
Chloé: Well, and it definitely changes in the later books because we find out how many people are actually at the feast, and I think it’s 13?
Eric: There’s only 13, yeah.
Chloé: Clearly, the feast was downsized, so maybe JKR changed her mind about how many people stay over. [laughs]
Micah: Maybe Fluffy got some leftovers.
Eric: [laughs] The rest of the chickens were for Fluffy. Yeah, no food waste when you have a three-headed, very big dog. A very big boy needs a very big supper.
Chloé: Exactly.
Eric: I thought it would be fun to rank the gifts that Harry receives as his first ever Christmas at Hogwarts. I think this is going to be great. I’ve made it needlessly complicated with mathematics, so we’re rating them on three factors: how thoughtful the gift is, how desirable each gift is, and the gift’s utility, which is a fancy way of saying how useful is it to the person receiving it. So you guys ready?
Laura: Yep.
Eric: Okay. From Hagrid, we have a roughly cut wooden flute. “Hagrid had obviously whittled it himself,” the book says. “Harry blew it – it sounded a bit like an owl.”
Chloé: I mean, it’s obviously thoughtful.
Eric: It’s very thoughtful.
Micah: Very thoughtful.
Laura: Five on thoughtful.
Micah: Utility score is high because he uses it later on in the book.
Chloé: Absolutely.
Micah: Little Poké Flute.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Oh man, that’s a throwback. The Poké Flute. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, man. Do you think Hagrid is going against his own wishes in carving this for Harry? Because he doesn’t want the trio to explore, he doesn’t want them to find out about Nicolas Flamel, but yet he really enables them to put Fluffy to sleep with the flute later.
Chloé: I don’t think Hagrid was thinking about that. I think Hagrid was like, “This is a nice thing.” He’s probably made it before, he knows that it works, and I feel like he was like, “Oh, I’ll make this for Harry.” I don’t know if he was like, “I’m going to give Harry the one thing that he is going to use to get past Fluffy.”
Eric: Well, I would be thinking about that nonstop, nothing else.
Chloé: But Hagrid clearly doesn’t think some things through in that way. We know that.
Eric: Okay, so can we agree that the thoughtfulness score – it’s handcrafted – can we agree that that’s a five of five?
Laura: Yeah.
Eric: Okay. Utility score, again, five, right? Because Harry definitely uses this at a very crucial moment. And then, okay, but desirability. Can we take any points off for a shoddily crafted…? I’m just being mean.
[Chloé laughs]
Eric: For a flute, where Hogwarts doesn’t have a music program. Harry would annoy all of his dorm mates if he tried to practice this without proper instruction.
Micah: Oh, he’s like the neighbor whose kid has a recorder and doesn’t shut up.
Laura: Ohh.
Eric: Yeah! When you give your kid drums and…
Chloé: Doesn’t Hogwarts have a music program? They have a choir.
Laura: No, that’s a movie-ism.
Chloé: Oh my God.
Eric: Yeah. Remember, music is a magic beyond all we do here, as Dumbledore said.
Chloé: Right, so they should have one.
Eric: They should absolutely have one.
Micah: Yeah, Rohan was all over that a couple weeks ago.
Eric: As far as desirability, what are we giving this handcrafted object?
Chloé: A three.
Micah: Three.
Laura: Yeah, let’s give it a three. Somewhere right in the middle.
Eric: Okay, total is…
Chloé: Because it’s nice. It’s so sweet. You have to… you want to desire something that’s handmade, yeah.
Eric: I was surprised by how good all of these gifts are, except for the next one we’re about to do. It’s really a matter of preference. They’re all very, very good, except for, from Vernon and Petunia, a 50 pence piece. So in order to rate this against utility, I decided to really do some research here, because I’ve never known what 50 pence is worth. 50 pence, for those who don’t know, is half of one British pound, one pound sterling. It’s basically the equivalent, not value-wise, but in math-wise, of half of a dollar. It’s half of a pound, 50 pence piece. So I looked up… according to MacroTrends.net, at the Christmastime era of 1991, one British pound sterling was equal to $1.86, and I’m sorry for all the UK people listening because the exchange rate has fallen way the hell down since then. A 50 pence piece, then, was worth half as much of that, so the Dursleys, in sending Harry the 50 pence piece, basically gave him 93 cents, to American audiences. So not even a whole dollar, and definitely half a pound.
Chloé: I appreciate the effort behind this. [laughs]
Eric: Thank you. I knew it was bad, but I wanted to know how bad it was.
Chloé: Yeah. Just don’t send a gift.
Eric: Right?
Micah: Yeah, I mean, I think utility is 93 cents.
[Everyone laughs]
Chloé: Which is less than one, so yeah.
Eric: So on a score of one to five, it’s point nine three. Okay, okay. I love that.
Laura: I feel like it’s the Dursleys saying, “Don’t have too much fun and forget that we hate you.”
[Everyone laughs]
Chloé: “By the way, we still suck.”
Eric: Well, do you think that they are contractually bound to send…?
Chloé: No.
Eric: Even if it’s a coat hanger or a bit of fluff. I really think they are. In order to keep the magic protection going around Privet Drive, I think they…
Chloé: Oh, interesting. But he’s at Hogwarts with Dumbledore, so wouldn’t he have more protection there? Also, still his blood is protecting him, right?
Eric: Well, only as long as he can call Privet Drive home is that protection going to keep up, so I think they need to regularly check in in intervals to give him something. That’s always what I thought, because otherwise it’s forced. Why would you do it? It’s exactly what you’re saying; “Don’t forget we hate you” is basically the message that gets sent.
Chloé: They’re petty enough, though. They’re petty enough to be like that. [laughs]
Laura: Do we see other instances of them doing this in the books, though? Or is this the only time?
Eric: They send him a wet sock, I think, at one point. I could be wrong.
Micah: No, no, they definitely do.
Laura: Okay. I also wonder, too, if it’s like Hedwig going to Privet Drive and harassing them until they give her something.
Eric: And pecking them until they… [laughs] She carries a newspaper, or it’s a cutout of just the word “Christmas.”
Chloé: Laura, you’re being so cute in this episode. I’m obsessed with that. Can you imagine Hedwig was like, “I’m going to go. I’m going to get a gift for Harry. He deserves it.” That’s so cute. [laughs]
Laura: I think she would.
Eric: Well, does Harry get Hedwig anything in return?
Micah: It’s a good question. I didn’t see him going up to the owlery to give her anything for Christmas.
Laura: I know. He didn’t even visit her.
Micah: Messed up. It’s all Dumbledore’s fault.
Eric: Desirability, 50 pence piece. Kind of nothing.
Micah: One.
Eric: It’s the kind of thing you find in your couch.
Laura: That’s a zero.
Eric: Wow, zero.
Micah: Can you do zero?
Eric: I guess we can do zero.
Micah: Thoughtfulness is zero too. Let’s be real here.
Laura: Is it…? I was going to say, are we going to have a “I wish I could give it a zero, but because I can’t, I give it a one” moment? [laughs]
Eric: All we’re going to do is simply compare the final math. So okay, the Dursleys, out of a possible 15 points, get a point nine three for their gift.
Micah: Yeah. I mean, they were probably just happy to have Harry out of the house, so that’s why they sent gifts.
Eric: Yeah, okay. I still think they were forced to, but we can investigate that in later books. Let’s move on to a better gift from Mrs. Molly Weasley, an emerald green Weasley sweater with a big giant H on it, and a box of homemade fudge!
Laura: This is so cute.
Chloé: Precious.
Laura: It goes along with my headcanon about the Weasleys wanting to make sure that Harry has a good first Christmas.
Chloé: Yes.
Laura: It feels like she’s welcoming him with open arms to the family as well by including him.
Chloé: Agreed, and it also shows just how observant Molly is. She sends him an emerald green sweater to match his eyes, and she wants to go out of her way, even though the Weasleys don’t have enough money for themselves – we hear about that a lot – but she still purchases the yarn, or however wizards and witches get yarn. I don’t know. [laughs] But she acquires the yarn to make that for Harry, and it’s just so sweet. She’s only met him once at this point.
Micah: Right.
Eric: Yeah, she knows he’s good friends with…
Micah: This reminds me a lot of when, again, going back to the whole college conversation, you have a friend or a roommate whose family starts to take you in as their own, and there’s no way I can’t rate all of this five. If I could give it a higher score, I would.
Laura: Yeah, agree.
Eric: Wow. Yeah, I mean, even Fred and George come in, and everybody’s got a sweater, but they look at Harry’s and they go, “Wow, she obviously tries even harder and made yours even better.” So we’re giving it a perfect 15. It’s a utility because it’s cold out, right? Could definitely use a sweater. It’s desirable because it means you’re loved.
[Chloé laughs]
Eric: And it’s extremely thoughtful. So 15 out of 15. Okay.
Micah: Yeah, and I mean, this is probably one of the first pieces of clothes that Harry has gotten that actually means something.
Eric: And might fit.
Micah: And fits.
Eric: The first part that fits. [laughs]
Chloé: Oh my God, that is a such a good point.
Micah: Chloé is wearing it right now.
Chloé: I am.
[Laura laughs]
Chloé: I’m kind of mad that it’s not green, but this is the movie-ism.
Eric: Headcanon versus, yeah, book canon. So Molly has given Harry a sweater. Harry is free. Hermione, Harry’s most recent friend, gives him a box of Chocolate Frogs, and I’ve just got to say, I love this to death. This practice… Hermione is clearly a good egg. She gives her friends a Christmas gift, and they don’t even know her that well. She just became their friend, but she gave Ron, I think, some beans, and she gives Harry a box of Chocolate Frogs. I don’t think they got her anything, but it’s very nice.
Chloé: Ron should have gotten her an apology for all the times that he bullied her.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: True. Do you think this was also the author’s way of head nodding the Chocolate Frog Cards again?
Chloé: Absolutely.
Eric: Ohh.
Chloé: And I think it also shows that Hermione… they’re still at the start of their friendship. She just got them candy. She does not do that for the rest of the series; she gets them personalized gifts that make sense for the two of them. But in this one, it’s a new friendship, they’re young still; it’s like, “Oh, what do I get a boy?” So she gets them candy, and I think it’s sweet. And it also still shows how similar her relationship is to both Ron and Harry. I think her relationship with the two of them… obviously best friends, but very different in the later books.
Eric: So in terms of utility, it’s candy. You’re going to eat it. It’s probably very good too.
[Chloé laughs]
Eric: Do we give that a five? You can definitely use candy.
Laura: Yeah, I give that a five.
Chloé: Wait, in utility? No. There’s no way.
Eric: Okay.
Laura: No?
Chloé: I would say a three or a four. Candy’s not nutritious. The only value is joy, so utility… [laughs]
Laura: But it’s nutritious for my soul.
Chloé: Okay, but is that utility? Okay, that’s desirable, sure.
Eric: I mean, if Harry and Ron eat candy the way I eat candy, it’s gone in a few minutes, and I don’t think about it again.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: So maybe it’s not a long-lasting gift like the sweater, so maybe this…
Chloé: Compromise on four?
Laura: Yeah, let’s say four.
Eric: Okay, four. Desirability… everybody loves chocolate, right? Unless you’re allergic. I’d say it’s pretty desirable.
Chloé: Do you think chocolate would take down Fluffy like any other dog?
Eric: Oh my God.
Chloé: [laughs] I’m just curious, because he’s so big.
Eric: Then we have to bump utility up to five.
Micah: A lot of Evanesco.
Chloé: Yeah, they should have used these Chocolate Frogs to get rid of Fluffy in the last chapter.
Eric: Oh, we’re triggering a lot of dog owners right now.
Chloé: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but it’s true.
Eric: Okay, so desirability of this candy? Of this Chocolate Frog. We’re not going to rate the beans because that’s a tricky thing. Four? Five?
Laura: Yeah, I’ve give it a five.
Chloé: And he collects, right?
Eric: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. And then thoughtfulness. I think it’s extremely thoughtful, so I would probably rank it five.
Chloé: I think the fact she got them a gift is thoughtful. I don’t know if these gifts are thoughtful. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah. Well, they don’t get her gifts.
Chloé: Yeah, yeah, that’s true.
Laura: That we know of.
Chloé: It’s extremely thoughtful that she goes out of her way to get them gifts.
Eric: Without an explanation of…
Laura: Yeah, let’s give it a five.
Eric: Okay, five. Micah, you agree?
Micah: Sure.
Eric: Okay, so that’s 14 out of 15. And finally, what I think might be the best gift, from… question mark. We don’t know. Anonymous gives Harry Death’s own Cloak of Invisibility, but we don’t know that yet. It’s just an Invisibility Cloak and a little personalized note. Now, as far as utility, I think this has to be the most utility, like, five point five? Six out of five? Do you guys agree?
Laura: Yeah, I mean, but we should use the original scoring we use for everything else.
Eric: So just five.
Laura: Yeah, I would give it a five for sure.
Eric: It’s highly desirable.
Laura: Sure.
Eric: And I don’t think it’s just desirable for people looking to break rules. I think that because it comes from Harry’s father, it’s that connection that he so desperately seeks. He doesn’t even know he’s seeking it yet because the Mirror of Erised comes momentarily later. But I think that this connection of “This used to be your dad’s” really bumps it up way more than even what it would normally be. It’s a connection to his past. So with your guys’ agreement, I would also put it at a five for desirability.
Laura: Same.
Eric: Okay. And thoughtfulness. Now, we’re not breaking the rules here, but we know who sent it. It is Dumbledore that sends Harry this. So was this thoughtful of Dumbledore to do this for Harry, or…
Micah: Self-serving.
Eric: … was it self-serving?
Chloé: I have such a hot take. I know that we just got a DM about how we’re too hard on Dumbledore, but I’m about to be hard on him again.
Eric: Oh no.
Chloé: It’s not thoughtful at all.
Eric: What?
Chloé: He kept this Invisibility Cloak from Harry’s father, and it honestly probably could have saved his life. I think that’s something we don’t think about a lot. He just withheld the cloak, I don’t know, to inspect it, or why Dumbledore was holding onto it, but it’s his father’s cloak. It was already Harry’s. He’s just returning it, at this point, 12 years late? Hello? [laughs]
Eric: 12 years late! He got James’s permission to look at it.
Chloé: No, I know, but… okay, yeah, but imagine returning something that you borrowed from a friend 12 years later.
Eric: Look, I have books from friends I… well, I shouldn’t say that.
Chloé: I was about to say, what does that say about you, then, Eric? [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, yeah, I’m not thoughtful at all. For anybody who’s lent me a book – also, new people, don’t ever lend me a book – but I apologize, and I’ll read it and get it back to you. So you’re saying it’s not thoughtful. Let’s hear from Micah or Laura. What do you guys think?
Laura: I think Dumbledore is playing chess here, which does… it requires thoughtfulness to do it and do it well, but it’s not thoughtful for Harry, I would really say.
Chloé: Yeah, that’s valid.
Laura: So I’d give this a three.
Micah: I’m good with that too, yeah. I think that… especially because it comes anonymously.
Eric: Oh, right. You don’t even have the courage.
Micah: You can’t even own up.
Laura: He’s probably sitting there going, “Old age,” as he writes it.
Micah: Yeah, exactly. And that brings up something that I know we’re going to get to, but I think this lends itself to Harry’s tendency of using gifts from anonymous sources.
Eric: Oh, that’s such a good connection! Harry is like, “Oh, heck yes!” [laughs]
Micah: Right? This is the first of many, right? We see it… I mean, not that the diary was gifted to him in the next book, but he doesn’t know whose it is until he starts interacting with it. And then we get into the broomstick that he gets in Prisoner of Azkaban, and then the Half-Blood Prince’s book, and… yeah, Harry just needs to learn not to trust people who send things to him anonymously.
Eric: So there’s a tie in the overall gift giving. So while we’re still on the subject of the Cloak of Invisibility, do we want to adjust anything? Because I’m going to say Dumbledore was a little bit more thoughtful. It’s still like… Dumbledore has one of the few pieces of Harry’s past, and giving it to him is the right thing to do, especially because he knows that the cloak was passed from father to son, so this is a way… if James had the cloak when James was killed, he wouldn’t have just hid from Voldemort; he would have confronted him, so the cloak gets buried under the rubble.
Micah: Okay. Yeah, I mean, look, if you’re going to give 14 points to a Chocolate Frog…
Chloé: I was about to say, Chocolate Frogs are too high. [laughs]
Eric: Oh, so we’re taking down the…? I was going to say, “So are we upping the thoughtfulness score or getting rid of the Chocolate Frog score?”
Micah: I still think Mrs. Weasley’s gift has to win out no matter what.
Laura: Yeah, I agree.
Eric: Listen, we’re going to do the math. Come on, guys, we’re doing the math here.
[Chloé laughs]
Eric: What are we ranking…? I’m giving… okay, three point five to thoughtfulness because Dumbledore… otherwise, the cloak would be buried under…
Chloé: I think that it’s the right thing to do. Yes, I will give you that.
Eric: Okay, and are we adjusting the Chocolate Frogs? If we do, we have to do it by at least one.
Chloé: We gave it that thoughtfulness score because it’s Hermione doing it, and she really didn’t need to, and I think that that’s valid. I think it’s more about who it’s coming from in that situation.
Laura: Yeah. Honestly, if I had to just quickly rank these from best to worst, I think we would probably agree, right? It would be Mrs. Weasley’s gift, then the Invisibility Cloak, then…
Micah: Then the flute.
Laura: I don’t know. I feel like Hagrid’s gift and Hermione’s gift are tied, or should be.
Chloé: I don’t know, because the flute really is needed for the plot. [laughs]
Laura: It really comes in clutch later.
Eric: It comes in clutch and was hand-crafted. But here’s how we ranked them mathematically, getting done with this longer than expected segment. We ranked first the sweater, got 15 out of 15. Chocolate Frogs got a 14 out of 15; unexpected, happy, fun gift from your new best friend. The cloak received 13 and a half out of 15; it’s very useful. The flute, equally useful, got 13 out of 15. And then the coin got a point nine three out of 15.
[Chloé and Eric laugh]
Eric: There is a cliff that the scoring falls down when it comes to the Dursleys. And I think if we ever were to continue this again in future segments when Harry gets gifts, I think we’d see the Dursleys ranked consistently last, just as a prediction.
Laura: Oh, yeah. For sure.
Eric: But that was fun. So this whole mirror thing happens in the chapter. You know what happens. [laughs] Harry, while discovering his brand new Invisibility Cloak Christmas gift, happens upon a disused classroom, after running from Filch from the Restricted Section, and there’s sort of a beautiful and sad sequence of a couple of nights where Harry discovers this even larger link to his past.
Laura: Well, I know Micah brought up the point about Harry’s tendency of using gifts from anonymous sources. We’re also seeing Harry’s tendency to be mesmerized by magical objects that he doesn’t really know enough about to be spending that much time with. And Eric, you pulled some key excerpts about the Mirror of Erised for us to share.
Eric: What shocked me was Dumbledore’s line specifically: “Men have wasted away before it.” What men? And “hundreds before you have discovered the delights” of it, and I’m like, “Really? How many people are in either this classroom or where it was before?” It turns out that J.K. Rowling on Potter-No-More had actually done a segment that answers some of these questions, so I thought that was really interesting.
Micah: Yeah. I would just say, when Dumbledore makes that comment, I think in part he’s referring to himself. We know a lot about him now from the Fantastic Beasts series, and I do think knowing what he sees in the Mirror of Erised, when he says that men have wasted away in front of it, I wonder how much time maybe he himself has spent looking into the mirror and seeing himself and Grindelwald.
Chloé: It’s such a good point. I mean, I think I would waste away in front of it, if I’m being honest. I think that it’s just your deepest desires.
Eric: It’s something you would want to spend time with.
Chloé and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: For some people, if your desire is really maybe a stretch, it’s as close as you’re ever going to get to it.
Chloé: Sure.
Micah: And I think, too, it probably extends beyond just Grindelwald. It’s probably his sister, his mother… I think that he would probably see much of the same looking into the mirror – depending on which version of Dumbledore we’re talking about – as Harry, which is his family.
Eric: That’s a good point.
Chloé: I think probably after his defeat of Grindelwald, he would see his family and not Grindelwald anymore. So at this moment, I think he would probably see the same thing Harry does.
Eric: It’s a great point.
Laura: I think so too.
Chloé: Well, this is from Wizarding World: “The Mirror of Erised is a very old device. Nobody knows who created it, or how it came to be at Hogwarts School. A succession of teachers have brought back interesting artifacts from their travels, so it might have arrived at the castle in this casual manner, either because the teacher knew how it worked and was intrigued by it, or because they did not understand it and wished to ask their colleagues’ opinions. Only after Professor Dumbledore makes key modifications to the mirror (which has been languishing in the Room of Requirement for a century or so before he brings it out and puts it to work) does it become a superb hiding place, and the final test for the impure of heart.”
Eric: We get a lot of answers here. Where it came from, nobody knows, but it’s been in the Room of Requirement for a very long time, confirming that Dumbledore knows about the Room of Requirement and has used it before. Dumbledore didn’t create it. He has simply… he’s a skilled enough wizard to figure out how it works so that he can add to and augment the magic surrounding it to make it the perfect protector of the Stone.
Laura: And the passage goes on to say, “Albus Dumbledore’s words of caution to Harry when discussing the Mirror of Erised express my own views. The advice to ‘hold on to your dreams’ is all well and good, but there comes a point when holding on to your dreams becomes unhelpful and even unhealthy. Dumbledore knows that life can pass you by while you’re clinging on to a wish that can never be – or ought never be – fulfilled. Harry’s deepest yearning is for something impossible: the return of his parents. Desperately sad though it is that he has been deprived of his family, Dumbledore knows that to sit gazing on a vision of what he can never have, will only damage Harry. The mirror is bewitching and tantalizing, but it does not necessarily bring happiness.”
Eric: Yeah, I found this to be really profound, just in the way that old age has wisdom. Not old age, middle age. [laughs] But just even looking back on our childhood and kind of just trying to have a little bit more of a sensibility to it than what your sense of wonder as a kid would look at it, because I think Harry would have been perfectly content to come back for weeks, if not months, had Dumbledore not moved it or had this conversation with Harry.
Laura: And I think it’s something that we can all relate to, right? Who has not fantasized about an alternate reality of something that happened in our lives that we wish had happened differently?
Eric: And it’s consuming. It can really distract you; you do not get anything done. It’s like what Dumbledore says: “This mirror does not offer truth.” It is fiction. It’s fun as a thing, but is not as useful as you think it is.
Laura: Yeah. And I thought it was really interesting to think about the mirror and compare it to the Resurrection Stone and Harry’s use of both of these things.
Eric: Oooh.
Laura: So we know Dumbledore says, “Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.” In Deathly Hallows, in “The Tale of the Three Brothers,” the second brother who had the Resurrection Stone – which would show these shadows of people who had died but who weren’t actually there and didn’t belong in this world – was “driven mad with hopeless longing,” and killed himself so that he could truly join her, her being his dead love, the woman that he was once engaged to marry. And I thought it was just interesting to look at the contrast of how Harry is using the Mirror of Erised, and he really is all consumed by it in Sorcerer’s Stone, but by the time he gets to Deathly Hallows, he doesn’t allow the Resurrection Stone to consume him. He uses it as a tool, but he knows when its use has fulfilled its purpose, and he lets the stone go and drops it in the woods. But also thought it was really interesting because in Sorcerer’s Stone, when Harry is staring into the Mirror of Erised at his family, it says that “he stared hungrily back at” his family. Then in Deathly Hallows, when he uses the Resurrection Stone to summon the shadows of his family, of Lily and James and Sirius and Remus, Lily is described as searching Harry’s face “hungrily.” So I just thought it was a really nice connecting the threads moment between the way these two devices share this similarity in that they can really become all-consuming for people and cause them not to live, and ultimately cause people to be driven to madness or death, or any variety of unfortunate endings, right? Because they’re not living; they’re consumed by a fantasy. And I love seeing that Harry in Book 7 has reached the point where he can let it go because he knows what he has to do.
Eric: Amazing.
Chloé: Wow, yeah.
Micah: That’s an amazing connecting the threads. One other thing that I just wanted to mention was Dumbledore cautions Harry specifically to not go looking for the mirror again, but if he should come across it, that he’s now prepared. So it’s almost like he knows.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: I don’t know what he knows, but he clearly thinks that Harry is going to encounter this mirror at some point again in the future.
Eric: Oh my God.
Chloé: Dumbledore knows all.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: I’m just waiting for the epic showdown where we discuss Dumbledore going to London when this all goes down at the end of the book. It’s pretty inexcusable at this point. [laughs] He knows Harry is going to do the mirror again. He gives him the cloak; I think it’s absolutely strategic to do that. It’s pretty egregious to just let him face Quirrell at the end of the year alone.
Laura: I also just have to say, Micah, when I read this point of yours in the doc, I was shook, because my original interpretation of this has always been, “Oh, Dumbledore is wise.” Here I am thinking that he’s giving Harry genuine advice to protect his psyche and his mental health, and that may be part of it, but again, he’s playing chess. He’s constantly playing chess with people’s lives throughout these books. [laughs]
Chloé: That being said, even if he did know, the quote is still so powerful, right? “It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.” I mean, I remember being so emotional when I first read this chapter because… and I think Dumbledore is feeling the same way that Harry is in this moment, just not as obviously. But I immediately started crying because I had never felt so seen by a book. I don’t remember my birth parents, and I remember wanting so badly to get my hands on this mirror or something similar. To want to know where you come from, that is such a deep desire for children that are adopted or children that have lost their parents early on. To know where certain quirks come from, where your looks, where your talents… that’s something we see Harry throughout the book desire and want to learn where certain things that he has come from, and it’s really sad and really meaningful to see your parents and your extended family, because in the books it’s his extended family. It’s all of them. It’s seeing all the people that he’s related to and that he comes from, because he doesn’t know any of them. And as an adult, my heart still breaks when I read this. And when Harry actually… when Dumbledore finally tells Harry what it shows, oh, God, what a moment. His deepest desire is unattainable because they’re gone.
Laura: The way you described that, Chloé, it’s just so… it’s tragic and beautiful at the same time.
Chloé: Right. [laughs] Harry Potter.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Yeah, and I think that is this chapter. That is really the takeaway from this chapter.
Eric: Absolutely.
Laura: Well said.
Micah: Yeah, there’s something to be said, too, for this happening specifically around the holidays, and the fact that this is when he does, in fact, find the mirror. But I also think there’s something almost invasive about Dumbledore watching. It’s said that he’s able to make himself invisible without a cloak, but the fact that he was just watching this, to me, is almost like a violation of privacy, because of how deep and meaningful what Harry is seeing is. I don’t know if you guys feel the same way.
Eric: I agree 100%, and it is a violation, and Dumbledore should know better too. He knows what this mirror does, so… I mean, it’s possible that Harry and Ron, 11-year-olds, were just bursting in, and Dumbledore was caught off-guard by the whole thing so he quickly just made himself invisible and then didn’t peace out because he was still a little shook. It’s possible. But by the third day that Harry does this, it’s like… maybe Dumbledore feels that way, and that’s why he made himself visible. He feels he needs to caution Harry about not wasting away, so that’s why he doesn’t just leave.
Laura: Yeah. I also think because he’s the one who gave Harry the cloak, he probably figures here at the beginning of Harry having an Invisibility Cloak that he needs to monitor him for at least the first few nights. Because he knows he’s going to sneak out.
Chloé and Eric: Yeah.
[Chloé and Laura laugh]
Chloé: Of course he is. I’d sneak out, hello. The first thing I’d do.
Laura: Yeah, same.
Eric: But I wonder what the odds are of him coming into this classroom.
Chloé: Zero odds. I feel like there’s not odds. I feel like he knew exactly where Harry was going to end up.
Eric: That’s so surprising, though. Well, one good thing about this chapter is that we can actually say definitively that Dumbledore has lied to Harry. Hello, we’re going to play the sound effect.
[Dumbledore Lie Count sound effect plays]
Eric: Dumbledore’s Lie Count now, I believe, goes up to five, because he straight up lies to Harry about what he sees in the Mirror of Erised. And in fact, Harry even knows probably he was being lied to, but he excuses it by saying it was somewhat of a personal question. That said, Dumbledore straight up lies to Harry to his face, so it counts.
Laura: Yep. Something that came up for me is wondering, “Wait, is Nicolas Flamel not well known for the Sorcerer’s Stone?” Because he’s not in any of these books that they’re initially looking at, and I know that the way it’s written is very careful to say it’s modern magical discoveries, recent magical history, and all of these things. But I’ve got to push back on that because at this point in time, Nicolas Flamel is still alive, making whatever he’s doing modern history. So it made me wonder… and I actually ranted about this to Marc last night, because I was like, “This doesn’t make sense.” It would be like if you were reading a book about American history and you talked about women gaining the right to vote, but there was absolutely no context, not even a small paragraph talking about the history that led up to that. It doesn’t happen. So we were chatting about this, and we kind of landed on maybe there is this unspoken agreement. Maybe it’s a Ministry decree on book publishers that they just don’t include Nicolas Flamel in modern or newer textbooks because of how dangerous knowledge of the Stone would be.
Chloé: It has to be, yes.
Laura: But it still feels so flimsy, I have to admit. I don’t like it.
[Eric laughs]
Chloé: It has to be that. It has to be that. I’ve always hated this. My one excuse is maybe they don’t start learning alchemy until much later, but even then, he created a stone that makes you immortal. I feel like that’s something people would talk about as being a really cool piece of magic all the time!
Eric: You’re right, every day that Nicolas Flamel draws breath – and his wife – is a modern magical discovery. [laughs] It’s proof of a wonderful magical thing. But yeah, it’s kind of like if we ever really found a fountain of youth, it would very quickly be the number one most sought-after cure for everything in the world…
Laura: Right.
Eric: … and would therefore be dangerous, and that kind of thing. So it’s got to be something like Nicolas Flamel is a very private person, and he did successfully create this thing. If you’re old enough, you will have heard of him at some point. But they’re not flaunting it, just in case of a security risk. And also, anybody who could find him or track him down would want some of that elixir. “Give me some of that. Hey, buddy, can I borrow some elixir? It’s not for me; it’s for a friend,” kind of a thing. Nicolas Flamel wants to be able to live his life such as it is.
Micah: Yeah, I feel like he would be the number one most sought after wizard in the entire world. So it would make sense to hide him, but at the same time, it would make sense that everybody knows about him.
Laura: Yeah, how do you hide an immortal guy? Everybody knows how old he is.
Eric: Can I just say, it is really successful that that’s based on a real legend. It’s the first Harry Potter book, and it was based on a real living legend. Nicolas Flamel really was an alchemist.
Micah: Yeah. I think that’s the title of the next chapter, too, isn’t it?
Eric: Yeah, which is why… we’ll save a lot of discussion about this guy for that chapter for sure.
Odds & Ends (“The Mirror of Erised”)
Micah: I had two quick odds and ends. The first – and this is one that I think, Eric, you love and you’ve brought up before – the Weasley twins unknowingly pelting Voldemort with snowballs…
[Laura laughs]
Micah: … because it’s mentioned how they were throwing them at the back of Quirrell’s turban.
Eric: There is a web comic I think I saw about this or something. It’s why I love it so much. I’ll have to ask Meg.
Micah: Yeah, and then another reference to the number 12. Andrew brought this up, I think, when we were doing the first couple of chapters. But it was said that there were no less than 12 Christmas trees in the Great Hall, so keep track of that number. I know seven is a popular number, but clearly so is the number 12.
Eric: And Chloé, you had one final point as well?
Chloé: Well, I just think it’s funny that there’s two instances of physical damage done to Quirrell. Clearly, JKR thought about it and she was having fun. It’s a nice touch to be like, “Let’s abuse Quirrell a little bit.”
Eric: “Yeah, he kind of sucks. Let’s abuse him.” [laughs] And then Hermione asking her parents makes sense too?
Chloé: Yeah, I just think that Ron asking Hermione if she should ask her parents about Nicolas Flamel is a little clueless and insensitive. Obviously Hermione is Muggle-born and Nicolas Flamel is very much a wizard. And there could be some crossover – we’ve seen that a little bit – but it just feels like Ron not thinking and being like, “Oh, ask your parents,” because in his brain, everyone’s a wizard, and everyone has wizard parents because that’s how he grew up.
Eric: Well, it’s interesting to get this other perspective of maybe Muggles have heard of him. Given that Nicolas Flamel is very popular in Muggle legend/history kind of a thing, it makes sense.
Chloé: I love the snark, though. [laughs]
Eric: “It’d be safe to ask them,” he says, and she says, “Very safe, as they’re both dentists.”
Laura: I wonder if this was written specifically so that Hermione could say what her parents do.
Chloé: Yeah, maybe. It doesn’t really come up until later on, but yeah.
MVP of the Week
Eric: Okay, it’s time for most valuable chapter/wizard of the week.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Micah: I am going to give it to the one and only Mrs. Weasley for her Christmas gift to Harry.
Chloé and Eric: Aww.
Laura: I’m going to give a most valuable chapter to “Mirror of Erised.” This is a biased moment because this is actually my favorite chapter in this book, and it’s also one of my favorite chapters in the entire series.
Chloé: Yeah, so good. I’m going to give mine to Hermione, actually, for first chapter, “Quidditch.” I just love how far Hermione has come, and I know I’m known for being very critical of her, but I mean, amazing how just a few chapters ago she was like, “Get your priorities straight; we could have been expelled,” and she thinks that’s worse than dying. And in this, she so quickly jumps to Harry’s aid to set a teacher on fire.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Chloé: She’s like, “Okay, no problem. I’m going to go; I’m going to set Snape on fire. Screw the rules.” That is epic growth, so shout-out to the BAMF that is Hermione Granger.
Eric: I completely agree. And credit where it’s due; I don’t know that I could carve a handcrafted wooden flute that actually plays or sounds like anything, so props to Hagrid. I’m going to give him that one. I think that’s the coolest thing he’s ever made, is this wooden flute for Harry, that I know about. So MVP to him for sure. Okay, next week on MuggleCast, we’re going to be talking about Chapters 13 and 14 of Sorcerer’s Stone. Those chapters are “Nicolas Flamel” and “Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback.” If you have feedback about today’s MuggleCast or next week’s chapters, please pen an owl and send it to MuggleCast@gmail.com, or use the contact form on MuggleCast. To send a voice message, record it using the voice memo app on your phone, and then attach it to an email, or use our phone number, 1-920-3-MUGGLE in the US; 920-368-4453.
Micah: And for that episode, we’re going to be joined by our friend Andy from Harry Potter Fan Zone.
Eric: Nice.
Micah: So look forward to having him on next week’s episode.
Eric: Be great to have him back.
Micah: We’ll add an accent to the panel, an Aussie accent.
Eric: Yes, and the panel’s always better with accents.
Chloé: Could have done this whole entire episode in a French accent if you asked.
Eric: Well, why don’t you do the rest of the episode in a French accent?
[Chloé and Micah laugh]
Laura: Do it.
Chloé: I have no speaking parts. [laughs]
Eric: Well, no indicated speaking parts.
Micah: Say, “I’m Chloé.”
Eric: Say, [in a French accent] “I’m Chloé.”
Chloé: I’ll do the social media…
Eric: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Chloé: “Follow us on socials” in a French accent.
Laura: Yeah, let’s do that. [laughs]
Quizzitch
Eric: Chloé, do you want to introduce the next segment?
Chloé: Quizzitch? [laughs]
Eric: Yeah.
Chloé: That’s you! You do Quizzitch.
Eric: Okay, it’s time now for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Last week’s Quizzitch question: In Chapter 9 of Book 1, which secret passage out of Hogwarts do the Weasley twins suspect that Lee Jordan has found?
Micah: Smarmy-Smarmy, right? Or something like that?
Eric: Smarmy-Smarmy. [laughs] You’re right, Micah. Did you participate this week?
Micah: I didn’t, no.
Eric: Oh, okay.
Micah: Sorry. I’ve got to get back on it.
Eric: Well, many people did. We have over 20 winners this week. It was the passageway behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy. And just to show how far ahead Fred and George are from even their closest friends, they found it in their first week in the school, so it’s not impressive at all. But what is impressive is these names, of course, including Fred’s Not Dead; Funny Folk in the Hog’s Head; Hermione Is My Spirit Animal; Hey Y’all, it’s Gryffindork; Hehehehe, or hihihihi; Magizoology 101; Moody’s Peg Leg; “POTTAH!”; Slytherin from Nebraska; The Borterer’s Stone; and Artemus Fido Junior the Second; as well as Boopa Charlie. [laughs] That’s my favorite one, Boopa Charlie. Okay, and next week’ question is as follows: According to Book 1, how old is Nicolas Flamel at the time of Harry’s first Hogwarts year? Submit your answer to us over on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or click on “Quizzitch” from the main menu nav bar. So we recently recorded a great bonus MuggleCast where we gossiped about Alan Rickman’s diaries, which have now been published this coming week, and his real feelings about filming the Harry Potter movies. That segment is actually 40 minutes long, of bonus MuggleCast, and is available to all of our patrons at the correct tiers, so do check that out over on our Patreon.
Chloé: Do you want me to do this whole thing?
Eric: Yes.
Chloé: [in a French accent] Make sure you’re following MuggleCast for free in your favorite podcast app, and leave us a review if they allow you to. Also, don’t forget to follow us on social media. Our username is MuggleCast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. [laughs] [back to normal voice] You’re welcome.
Micah: That was great.
Laura: That was beautiful.
Chloé: That’s my exact mother’s accent.
[Chloé and Laura laugh]
Eric: And you could have done the whole show like that. I’m so upset.
Chloé: It would have gotten so annoying. You would have hated it. [laughs]
Laura: I wouldn’t have hated it. I could listen to you talk like that all day.
Eric: Me too.
Chloé: Oh, Laura.
Laura: Honestly, I could just listen to Chloé talk all day. I could talk to Chloé all day.
Chloé: Oh my God, babe, love you.
Eric: Well, we want to thank you, Chloé, for joining us again. Always lovely to have you.
Chloé: I always have a good time. I adore all of you very much, and glad to be with my girl.
Laura: Right back at you.
Eric: Thank you all for listening to MuggleCast number 583. It’s been great. We’ll see you next week. I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: I’m Laura.
Chloé: And I’m Chloé.
Laura and Micah: Bye.
Eric: Au revoir.
[Chloé laughs]