Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #677, Lawn Enthusiast Dumbledore (OOTP Chapter 3, The Advance Guard)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: And this week, keep your wand out of your back pocket so you don’t blow your buttocks off! We are discussing Chapter 3 of Order of the Phoenix, “The Advance Guard.” And to help us with today’s discussion, we’re joined by one of our Slug Club patrons, MuggleCast listener Katie! Hi, Katie. Welcome to the show.
Katie: Thank you! Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.
Andrew: We’re excited to have you. We’re excited your plants are making a cameo on today’s podcast as well.
[Katie laughs]
Andrew: Katie is hailing from the beautiful northwest. And can we get your fandom ID?
Katie: Absolutely. Well, you can get most of it. So my favorite book is Prisoner of Azkaban, and I very much do not have a favorite movie. I was just telling Micah, if I were to pick one, it would just be out of the hat, and so I’m not going to. I actually have really not watched the movies that often; I’m really, really a book reader. So I’m not going to pick one, but if I had to, it would be whatever one I watched most recently, which is Goblet of Fire with the movie commentary, so there you go.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Love it.
Andrew: Good answer.
[Andrew and Katie laugh]
Katie: My Patronus is a wolf. My Hogwarts House is Gryffindor. I feel like those are tied together somehow, but I’m not quite sure how. And my favorite Order of the Phoenix member, up through this point, is Remus Lupin.
Andrew: Okay. Do you think…? Do the movies just sort of let you down as a reader, as a big Harry Potter reader? Is that why you’re…?
Katie: No, I like them. I love them. I just, in general, read more than I watch any media. I’m always behind on TV shows, movies, everything like that. But I read a ton.
Andrew: So on a scale of one to ten, how excited are you for the Harry Potter TV show? Do you not care?
Katie: Oh, I’m really excited. No, I’ll watch that, yeah, for sure.
Andrew: Okay. All right, sweet. It should be more loyal to the book too. At least, that’s what we’re hoping for.
Katie: We can hope. We can hope.
Andrew: Well, welcome again, Katie. Thank you for your support on Patreon, and it’s great to have you. Before we get into Chapter by Chapter, the day after we recorded last week’s episode, Maggie Smith, who played Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, passed away. Died on September 27 at the age of 89 years old. This one hurt a lot of people, I think, because Maggie Smith has felt like a motherly figure to many fans, in part because of her role as Minerva McGonagall, but also she’s had such a storied career, film career, including in Downton Abbey, both the TV show and the two movies. I was a huge fan of her in the Downton Abbey series. And obviously, she’s just an amazing actress as well.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Eric: The first thing I saw her in was Hook in the early 1990s, and they actually aged her up for that. I’m so glad that we got several more decades with her.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Laura: She’s an incredible talent. And I will say, I heard the news when my mom texted me first thing in the morning with the news article, and I responded to it by just being like, “No!” It’s such a bummer, because you’re not expecting it, right? When someone gets older, you know that time is going to come eventually, but you don’t expect the day that it happens to be the day, right?
Andrew: And you don’t even want to think about it happening, even though it feels inevitable.
Laura: No, you don’t. And we hadn’t heard anything about her health recently, so I think that adds to the feeling of shock that comes with it. But I will say, I have absolutely loved all of the Downton Abbey “Best of” moments coming out with her.
Eric: Oh my God, the supercuts they make. [laughs]
Laura: What an incredible homage to her. She was just a phenomenal talent, and yeah, we’re worse off without her.
Andrew: Yeah, she is so funny in Downton Abbey. And I mean, to your point, Laura, about being a shock, she had a very active career up until the last couple of years. I mean, I mentioned Downton Abbey the movies; Downton Abbey: A New Era came out in 2022, only two years ago.
Micah: Yeah, I think I first saw her in Sister Act. That was my introduction to her, as Mother Superior. And she was just… as we saw in other roles she played, including in Downton Abbey, just the wit, the sarcasm, it came through as McGonagall, too, for sure. And it’s going to be hard – we talk about this a lot with the upcoming TV show – to separate the actors from the movies and whomever is going to take their part in the TV show, because so many iconic British actors and actresses portrayed these roles. It’s really British royalty of acting that was in so many of these Harry Potter films. So I just, as was stated, enjoyed the time we got to watch her, because she was really, really good.
Andrew: Yeah. And speaking of British royalty, people on social media pointed this sad fact out: Michael Gambon, who played Dumbledore in most of the Harry Potter movies, actually died exactly one year prior to Maggie Smith. He passed away on September 27, 2023. Kind of eerie that they died exactly a year apart. Well, rest in peace, Maggie Smith, and thank you for everything you gave Harry Potter fans and all your contributions to the Harry Potter film series. We will not be forgetting you anytime soon, in part because we still love the Harry Potter movies very much and everything you contributed to them.
Chapter by Chapter: Time-Turner
Andrew: So let’s move on to Chapter by Chapter, and this week we’re discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 3, “The Advance Guard.” And first, we’re going to hop in our Time-Turner, right, Eric?
Eric: That’s right! We last spoke of Chapter 3, “The Advance Guard,” on Episode 435, which was on September 23, 2019; and before that, on Episode 229, which was May 27, 2011.
[Ticking sound]
Dumbledore: Three turns should do it, I think. Good luck.
Ron: What the…?
[Bell dings]
[Whooshing sound]
Robotic voice: Episode 229.
Micah: Last part of the chapter, they all arrive safely at Grimmauld Place. “Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix,” is what it says on the paper that Harry gets.
Eric: Yeah, paper.
Andrew: Hmm.
Eric: Hmm, interesting.
Andrew: Pen and paper, hmm.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Priorities.
[Bell dings]
[Whooshing sound]
Robotic voice: Episode 435.
Andrew: I like how Mad-Eye cleans his eye like beer pong players clean their ping pong balls.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Just throw it in the cup, swish it around a little bit, it’ll be fine. There won’t be hair in your beer the next time it lands in a cup.
[Laura laughs]
Cristina: You know, it’s funny; we never find out what happens to that glass of water afterwards.
Eric: [laughs] It’s just sitting on the dining room table.
Andrew: You know Petunia would put that in the dishwasher.
Laura: Immediately, yeah. [laughs]
Andrew: This foreign glass.
[Whooshing sound]
[Ticking sound]
Dumbledore: Mysterious thing, time.
[Bell dings]
Andrew: That’s a pretty funny bit. I forgot we had discussed that.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Were you going to bring it up again? Because it’s still funny. [laughs]
Andrew: No, no, I’m glad we played that, because I totally forgot about that. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Well, and actually, shout-out to the Slug Club member Christina, who helped us on that earlier episode. And Katie, welcome, welcome.
Katie: I listened to that episode, actually, earlier today, and… big shoes to fill. It was a great conversation.
Andrew: Oh, really? Aw, love that.
Katie: Christina was great.
Laura: Look at this preparation.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Unbelievable. This is exactly the kind of preparation that we lack and love.
Micah: It’s more preparation than I did.
Eric: Yes.
[Andrew and Katie laugh]
Micah: The sound effect, though, the warping sound effect; they actually use that in Cursed Child. Is that where you got it from, Eric?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: No?
Micah: No, it’s just I’d recently seen it.
Eric: Is it really?
Micah: Yeah, when they go back in time, there’s this really cool effect that happens on the stage, and that’s the sound they use.
Eric: That’s the exact one?
Andrew: Is it the exact same? It can’t be the exact same.
Micah: I mean, it’s pretty close.
Eric: Well, okay, because there’s obviously different… it’s from FreeSound.org, and it’s…
[Micah laughs]
Eric: No, really.
Andrew: I heard the budget was tight for Cursed Child.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: A.k.a. the Lyric Theater.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Micah: So a lot happened in the last chapter; a lot was revealed in the last chapter, and we start this chapter with Harry feeling really further alienated than he probably did prior. And one of the things that jumped out to me right away was just his treatment of Hedwig. With everything that he’s going through, he really could use a friend in this moment, and his first thought is he needs to get letters out to Sirius and Ron and Hermione. He really wants to make them feel guilty for everything that he’s going through. Sure, now there must be a response that’s going to come back to him, but he doesn’t have the means to which to send the letter. And I feel like we’ve probably all been in similar situations before where we’ve taken something out on somebody who doesn’t deserve it, and Hedwig is the one who feels the brunt of this particular situation.
Eric: He doesn’t even let her get her dinner. She’s brought… what is it, a frog in?
Micah: A frog.
Eric: And he’s like, “You drop that down, and you go take these three letters to people!”
Laura: How rude.
Andrew: And it’s even worse when you have to take it out on your pet, on your beloved pet. I mean, that’s when things are really bad, when you have to take out your anger on your pet. But yeah, I’ve been in this situation; I’ve carried grudges, and then I let it get in the way of how I treat other people. But I try to check myself; I try to realize that they’re not the actual problem, and I need to let things go instead of holding these grudges that I hold for way too long.
Eric: Yeah, and I think Hedwig has had her share of times when she’s pecked at Harry and sassed him a little bit. She’s a bit temperamental herself, so maybe this is karmaic? But I just feel devastated at the thought of Sirius, Hermione, and Ron’s hands, you guys. Hands! He instructs Hedwig; he says, “You peck their hands until they write a sufficiently long reply.” What is it with damaged hands in this book?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: My God, Harry is a mini Umbridge here.
Laura: You think it’s foreshadowing?
Eric: Well, I think it’s terrifying. I think it’s painful.
Laura: It is such an interesting connecting the threads moment, because he’s literally asking for Hedwig to do that while they are writing, to make them write nice, long responses, and then, of course, Umbridge’s punishment of Harry is when he is writing.
Eric: Well, and Ron and Hermione have already told Harry that Dumbledore will not let them say much, and he clearly glosses over that fact when he’s like, “You’ve got to damage their hands until they write me long and well back.” What are they going to do? They can’t do anything! Hedwig is just going to have to attack… Hedwig hasn’t even eaten.
Andrew: He doesn’t really know that at this time, though, that they can’t do anything. I mean, he’s so in the dark. They do explain this in the next chapter, but at this moment, he’s just like, “Why are they ignoring me?”
Eric: Well, I think it’s in their letter. I think it’s in the letters they have sent him already that they can’t say much.
Katie: Either way, I picture it… even if they are trying to write him a longer letter, “I’m so sorry; we can’t explain,” but they’re literally pen in hand and Hedwig is still pecking. The letters get all messed up. They’re trying to write the letters. I mean, I don’t really know how that would have worked anyway if she’s pecking at their hands.
Eric: She’s just trying to do her duty. Yeah, he made her skip dinner. She’s hungry.
Laura: Yeah. I also think it’s just unfortunately common, like we talked about here at the top, to take things out on the people closest to you when you’re having a hard time, and a lot of times it’s not even intentional. I’ll put it out there and say I had some tough times in the last couple of years, and I have to imagine that I was not a terribly easy person to live with when I was going through some tough times, and I think that’s what Harry is seeing here.
Eric: Apology accepted, Laura, by the way.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: Well, okay, is this how we’re revealing that we’ve secretly been roommates for the entire time?
Eric: Yeah, we were on an episode of… we did that whole season of Big Brother together.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: No, but it’s true. Look, who among us has not done this? Maybe not quite so intense. I still just… I feel really bad for Harry here, because he’s just not in a good place. Like Micah said, he’s worse than he ever was now that something exciting has happened and continually he’s been pushed back into the dark.
Micah: He has. But Andrew, you’re happy, though, that Harry is a take charge person in this chapter.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Well, yeah, because I mean, the chapter just straight up opens up with what he writes to Sirius and Ron and Hermione. “I’ve just been attacked by Dementors and I might be expelled from Hogwarts. I want to know what’s going on and when I’m going to get out of here.” Period. Blunt. Straight to the point. He’s had it. I just love the tone that he strikes right there.
Laura: Honestly, I could see that being a Slack message you send to everyone, Andrew.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Be like, “I’ve had it!” [laughs]
Eric: @channel. @here.
Andrew: [laughs] @here: “I’ve just been attacked by Dementors, and I still need to edit the darn podcast. I might be expelled from MuggleCast if you don’t get me these files soon. I want to know what’s going on. Where are the files?”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: “Where are the show notes?”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: That hits too close to home.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I wasn’t going to say it.
Laura: Yeah, I wasn’t directly attacking anyone. I was just going down the checklist of things Andrew needs to be able to produce the show.
Eric: Yeah. Hey, listen, it takes a lot.
Andrew: Hey, while we’re on the subject, Eric, you have show notes this upcoming Tuesday. Do you know that? Just checking.
Eric: Thank you, thank you.
Micah: And going back to Harry, it’s a bit ironic that having been isolated for so much of the summertime, in this moment where he could have somebody who does mean something to him and is close to him, he chooses to isolate himself even further in his actions by sending Hedwig away.
Eric: He’s got no choice if he wants answers, and has to ask for them, though, because she’s his only way to do that to get them.
Micah: It’s true, but I’m just not sure what he’s expecting to receive in return that’s going to be any different from what he got previously.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, not from Ron or Hermione. There’s no way they can properly explain anything more than anything, but an adult? Sirius, maybe? But…
Micah: Well, to make matters worse, Hedwig doesn’t return. She’s like, “Screw you, Harry. I’m taking my frog, I might go pick up a few more frogs on the way, and you are just going to suck it up at Privet Drive for the next couple of days.”
Eric: [laughs] Do you think it’s possible that when she arrives, they’re like, “We get it,” and they just… they’re saying, “We can’t write you a sufficient reply that you’ll like, but we’re going to go get him.”
Micah: “But Molly is cooking in the kitchen, so go enjoy yourself.”
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Yeah, exactly. I feel like at that point they would have said to Hedwig, “Look, we know he’s pissed. Just hold on and he’ll be here.”
Andrew: “Just stay here with us and we’re going to go and grab him in a couple days.”
Micah: You think they held her captive? Like, Hedwig is trying to squirm away, and Ron and Hermione are holding her down?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, I do love the idea of them having to keep her in a room because she keeps trying to bite their hands. I like that idea.
Micah: Or they Stun her and say, “Don’t worry.”
Eric: That’s too soon.
Laura: Although, I don’t know; I could also see her being fed up with the whole situation, and showing up there and being like, “You know what? I’m going to roost here. Y’all go pick him up, because I don’t want to deal with him.”
Micah: So it ends up being four days before anything of significance actually happens, and Harry’s anger, his confusion, his paranoia, is entering next level territory. Nobody’s telling him what’s going on. And I know I’ve experienced this many times; your irrational mind just starts to spiral. Do we think this was the right move by Dumbledore? Should he have come for Harry the night of the Dementor attack?
Eric: Ooh.
Micah: Or in fairness to Dumbledore, did he need time to actually implement an exit strategy for Harry without drawing suspicion from the Ministry?
Eric: Probably that.
Andrew: Yeah, given how many Advance Guard members end up being involved in this extraction, I think Dumbledore saw this as a very serious, risky situation that he wanted to be well-prepared for, and that was going to take a little bit of time. Did Dumbledore have to go and speak to Harry himself? I don’t think so. I wish he got some sort of message to him sooner, but in terms of the timing of it all, it seems acceptable to me. Again, considering how many people show up to extract Harry, that implies that they were very nervous about Ministry officials, or maybe even Voldemort getting in the way.
Eric: Absolutely. I think also the night of, or the day of, you’re not sure if that’s the final bit of the attack. Think about the lull between when the towers fell in New York; there was a brief period of time where you probably could have assumed that was the only one. Maybe that’s an extreme example, but Dumbledore would be right for assuming because Privet Drive is now… Harry is stating it’s untenable; it’s not going to work for him. Fine, they’re making other arrangements, but until he absolutely hits his breaking point that he’s doing in this chapter, it’s still the best option to keep him there. And so Dumbledore is not going to act rashly, no matter how pissed Harry might be in the moment, to remove Harry from this situation, because it’s still the safest place for him, and you don’t know what else is coming down the line. If Dementors can make it a Little Whinging, anything can.
Katie: It just seems kind of crazy to me, though. In the previous chapter, we’re seeing owls from everywhere finding the exact locations within the house and delivering new messages, and then no messages for four days. It could not have been that hard to give Harry a little bit of an update. “Hold tight; we’re coming.”
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Yeah, oh, a “Sit tight” message would have been great. Signed, everybody.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Then he’s like, “All 20 of them are together without me?” [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, I feel like that would have made it worse. But yeah, some sort of short message to let him know help is coming sooner rather than later.
Micah: I agree with that. I think that’s the big missing piece here, is that four days is a long time, especially for somebody who is not allowed, never mind to leave his home, but probably is not leaving his room. And we know what Harry has been through up until this point this summer; we know what he went through at the end of last school year. The fact that he’s getting zero information and zero correspondence after everything that transpired the night before? To me, that suggests that Dumbledore should have stepped in and done something to make Harry just feel a little bit more comfortable. Andrew, I know you mentioned, though, that the level of the extraction, the amount of people that were asked to partake in this or volunteered to partake in this, suggests that this was a pretty big undertaking. And Eric, you agreed as well.
Eric: Yeah, as far as exit strategy, I kept going ahead to Book 7’s “Seven Potters” chapter, because the level of security, the level of precautions that we see the Advance Guard deploy in this chapter are quite similar; in fact, lesser than they end up being in Book 7. And it just really speaks to how necessary this level of precaution is, because they don’t know as much about, like, “Would Voldemort really stage an attack right now?” In Book 7, they know he’s going to, but they have to take this level of precaution. And so even though nothing happens except they get a little bit of frostbite – they’re going to lose a few toes – ultimately, this is a lot safer, but the precautions have to be in place all the same. So I think that the later chapter informs us that the precautions taken in this chapter were actually appropriate.
Laura: Yeah. Lupin also, later in this chapter, mentions that they’ve been setting up headquarters, and that that in and of itself has taken some time. And I think I mentioned this, not last week but the week before, that I could see Dumbledore not wanting Harry to be around as a potential window into the movement that was going into securing Grimmauld Place as headquarters.
Eric: It’s interesting because, what, Harry is just going to breathe in dust and Dumbledore cares a lot about…? Because all they’re doing as far as setting up is you needed the Fidelius Charm, but that had to have been in place before anyone can use headquarters. And they’re just decluttering, right? That’s all they end up doing the rest of the summer is just decluttering. So I like this idea that, “Oh, we have to set up headquarters; Harry can’t…” because he only needs to be there, what, for 24 hours on Privet Drive, we said. But at the same time, he could have come a little sooner, I think.
Laura: He could have. They’re also having a lot of very… they’re having grownup conversations that they’re very sensitive about the kids, particularly Harry, having access to, which, given the connection to Voldemort, makes a certain amount of sense to me. But I agree; there was a more careful and caring way that this could have been handled.
Eric: Yeah. It’s interesting because the reason that not only Harry, but Fred and George and everyone are highstr… all the kids want to listen in to these meetings because there’s so much hubbub around them, and Harry has been kept in the dark for so long. So maybe if they had invited him over sooner, his friendship with all the other kids… it would have had maybe a more relaxed air about it, and so they wouldn’t need to pay that much attention to what’s happening. But the big feature when they get to Grimmauld Place is “We’re not being allowed in these meetings,” and it makes it worse.
Andrew: Well, we will discuss the Dursley angle here as well as the Advance Guard themselves in a few moments, but first, this show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
[Ad break]
Micah: All right, this is something that we definitely touched on a bit when we did Episode 435, but I thought it was worth revisiting, because we have talked so much about how the Dursleys treat Harry in prior discussions in Sorcerer’s Stone, in Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry is being really badly mistreated here. He’s being fed through a cat flap in the door. Vernon is about to lock him in his room as they go out for the evening. He is explicitly told not to steal from the fridge; don’t touch any of their possessions. This is somebody who’s lived in their home now for the last 15 years? 14 years? This is really just nastiness, isn’t it?
Andrew: It is; it’s really rough to see. And I think it’s fair to say at this point that Harry is suffering from depression. Some of these lines really stuck out to me as signs of depression. Quote, “He could not even summon the energy to get up and turn on his bedroom light.” And this other quote, “Harry lay there in a kind of stupor, thinking of nothing, suspended in misery.”
Eric: He’s staring at the ceiling for hours at on end. He’s lost in the injustice. He’s feeling helpless. Yeah, these are all markers.
Andrew: Dark times, dark times.
Katie: And maybe it’s the helplessness and that lethargy that he’s feeling, but I was impressed in this chapter that he actually acknowledges that if he were to go venture out, then he would get into a fight with the Dursleys, and that would not be helpful, whereas last chapter, he was actively picking a fight with Dudley. So even though he is taking out some frustrations on Hedwig, I think the fact that he is aware enough to avoid that extra fight with the Dursleys I was pretty impressed with.
Eric: You’re right, Katie. That’s a great point. He’s got some perspective now!
Andrew: Well, and his temper was up in the last chapter, too, so that’s probably a factor. And I think in this chapter, he even tells himself that he will do some magic he doesn’t intend to do again, or he says he could potentially get himself in in trouble with the Ministry again. He knows he’s in the doghouse right now, so he can’t risk it. He hopes that he can go back to Hogwarts or undo what has occurred, and getting himself in more trouble is not going to help. Now, on the other hand, he’s very much in the dark, so if he acted out again against the Dursleys, I would certainly understand where that rage was coming from. Unfortunately, the Ministry would not.
Micah: But it’s not the worst thing in the world for Harry for the Dursleys to leave the house.
Andrew: No.
Micah: I’m sure that’s probably at the top of his list of things he would want during the summertime. But presumably at other times, he would be able to leave his room.
Andrew: Right.
Katie: So are we to think that the Dursleys have also been home for these four days continuously? I mean, presumably Vernon is going to work; Dudley is going out. I don’t know. Maybe Petunia has to do the shopping.
Andrew: Maybe, but also, they want to do this under the cover of darkness, I assume, as well; get Harry out of Privet Drive, so that’s going to require getting the Dursleys out of the house at night, so maybe that’s why they’ve been waiting as well. Because to your point, yeah, maybe Petunia went out for a little bit, but it’s going to be during the daytime she’s going out, presumably. I, for one, love doing my food shopping during the day, so I assume Petunia would as well.
Micah: Yeah, you two are thick as thieves.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Laura: Yeah, two peas in a pod.
Andrew: We both want our Hogwarts letter, okay? [laughs]
Micah: Well, let’s switch gears a little bit here and talk about the party that arrives to rescue Harry from Privet Drive. Thought we could kick things off with a little bit of a name origin.
[Name origin sound effect plays]
Micah: So an Advance Guard is a body of soldiers preceding and making preparations for the main body of an army, in this case, an army of one being Harry Potter. [laughs] But I did think this was cool, that they were referred to in this way, and this is what the Advance Guard represents. Now, where do we think this particular rescue attempt ranks in rescue attempts from Privet Drive?
Eric: I love this question. This is great.
Andrew: [laughs] Give us a rundown first of all the ones we know.
Micah: All right, so not exactly Privet Drive, but Hagrid shows up in Sorcerer’s Stone to rescue Harry and to tell him that he’s a wizard.
Eric: Okay, okay.
Micah: Fred and George show up via Ford Anglia in Chamber of Secrets; the accidental summoning of the Knight Bus in Prisoner of Azkaban; the Weasleys doing their best Santa impression and showing up via chimney in Goblet of Fire…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: We have the Advance Guard here showing up in Order of the Phoenix. Dumbledore, the man himself, finally steps foot again on Privet Drive…
Eric: Amazing.
Micah: … after many holidays in Ibiza, in Half-Blood Prince.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: And then something we’re going to talk a little bit more about later, the Seven Potters in Deathly Hallows. So this is kind of the original version of the Seven Potters; like the Seven Potters is part two.
Eric: Yeah, I would rank this in around the middle. Nobody dies. I think it gets points for the fact that nobody… or is seriously injured the way last year Dudley nearly died in that horrible manner because of Fred and George’s prank. It’s really, really nice that Harry has all of a sudden gone from nothing to finding himself surrounded by seven or eight wizards, and they’re clearly there to take care of him. From the outset, he doesn’t know who all of them are, but they’re clearly there for him, and that gives me warm feelings. I don’t know how I’d rank the others, but I’d say this is right in the middle. Do you guys agree? Katie, do you agree?
Katie: I don’t know if I agree. I think if I were Harry, I would have been questioning whether they were truly there to take care of me a little bit more. I mean, it’s like, you don’t really know how much time is passing, but it is minutes before Lupin asks Harry, “How are you?” They’re not even really calling out to him to check where he is when they first get there, and they’re not prepping him to go; they are doing their own thing. And I was just reading this chapter thinking if I were Harry, I think I would have been throwing off curses, thinking, “Are these more Dementors? Am I getting attacked again? What’s going on here?” But he accepts them very calmly, which I don’t know if that would have been my reaction.
Andrew: I think this is actually why it does rank higher for me. I don’t want to put it in a particular place in this list, but I think it ranks high because it is so interesting that Harry thought he was completely in the dark, and then all of a sudden, here’s the Advance Guard, many of them showing up at his doorstep after they successfully got the Dursleys out of their own home by tricking them into thinking they were winners in a lawn competition. And then just the angle of like, “Wait, this is the real Moody? This is bizarre for me to be interacting with the real Moody for the first time.” And then Lupin, yeah, he does take some time to speak with Harry, but Lupin is kind of like his father in the scene, because Lupin at one point does say, “Hey, don’t worry, Harry. You can trust that this is the real Moody.” And I also love – and this is at Harry’s expense, so I’m sorry, Harry – but I love that all of them are just staring at Harry when they arrive like he’s a zoo animal. [laughs]
Eric: They’re starstruck, yeah.
Laura: Some of them definitely are. I think what makes this particular jailbreak from Privet Drive unique compared to everything that came before it is this is the first time that it’s actively dangerous to be transporting Harry from Privet Drive back to the wizarding world. I feel like the examples we get in Books 1 through 4 are presented in a far more lighthearted fashion than this one is. And this really is… Book 4, Goblet, getting into Order, it really is the turning point of the series where things get really dangerous.
Eric: That’s a great point, yeah. Because Voldemort is back.
Katie: Yeah, you can use a little bit of that lightheartedness, even if you think too hard sometimes it might feel out of place, but it feels good to have a little bit of that too.
Micah: For sure. I really liked the Ford Anglia, but if I had to vote, I would say probably Dumbledore’s personal escort service would be at the top, just because of the conversation that happens in the Dursleys’ living room, and then Kreacher shows up, and it’s just so good. But I do like what’s being said. And if you look to the last jailbreak being the Seven Potters, there’s no higher risk involved, and all of those people volunteered to come knowing that they may not make it back to their respective locations alive. It feels like, compared to this, the risk is much higher in Deathly Hallows than Order of the Phoenix.
Katie: Yeah, yeah. And here it still very much has a feeling of “The grownups are in charge, and the grownups are handling it and they’re the ones taking the risk, and they’re here to protect Harry,” but talk about Seven Potters, and it’s all Harry’s generation that’s at risk as well, and so it really has a different level of responsibility involved.
Micah: Yeah, that’s a great point. So what message should it send to Harry that nine wizards, including three Aurors, have been sent to safely transport him from Privet Drive? I mean, this is a big contingent of people.
Andrew: “We do love you, Harry! See, we weren’t ghosting you.”
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: “We just needed some time.”
Micah: Do you think Hedwig should have been there?
Andrew: Hedwig should have been there. That would have been the icing on the cake.
Eric: And her frogs. She should just have a half-eaten frog in her mouth.
Andrew: No, I think… this actually gets back to what I was talking about during Make the Personal Connection last week. Things do get better. You think people aren’t behind you, you think you’re in trouble, you think you’re doomed… things do get better. All you got to do is wait it out sometimes.
Eric: Yeah, I feel like there’s nothing wrong with that, but the idea that he would have been cursing at them or spelling them… they’re ultimately not really that much authorized to say more than Ron or Hermione, or anybody via letter would be, so if he had taken this time to be cross with them, they would have taken him to Grimmauld Place in, like, a cage.
[Eric and Katie laugh]
Eric: They would have just constructed, blindfolded… I feel like they could overpower and subdue him, but I hate to think that they would have to.
Katie: Yeah, totally agree; they could have fought back if he did fire off curses. But I don’t know. I think my reaction to the nine wizards… not the nine wizards themselves, but Moody’s comment about… he said, like, “Never too many,” or “More would have been better.” He said something like that, and I just had the thought that Moody has never heard the phrase “There’s too many cooks in the kitchen.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Katie: Because now I’m picturing so many wizards circling around Harry in the air, and I can’t imagine that would be a great thing for secrecy’s sake, either. But it is nice to show how many people are supporting.
Eric: You’re right. That’s a good point.
Andrew: It is a little strange, too, because they’re so concerned about being spotted up in the air, but they don’t seem to be concerned about going from the ground to getting above the clouds…
Laura: Right.
Andrew: … and that seems like the most obvious place for them to be spotted, right in the front yard of Privet Drive.
Laura: Yeah, it’s not very inconspicuous, that’s for sure. [laughs]
Andrew: No.
Eric: Meanwhile, the Put-Outer has already been used once on Privet Drive for that reason, but it doesn’t make an appearance until they land in London. It’s the beginning of next chapter that it gets used. But one of them’s got it on him; I think it’s Lupin actually has the Put-Outer on him.
Micah: I think it’s… isn’t it Moody? Moody uses it at the end of this chapter.
Eric: There you go.
Andrew: Even still, I don’t see that as a great excuse or a great way to explain how they’re not spotted on the ground.
Micah: Yeah, I’ve never understood how that really works either. It’s like, “Oh, you put out the street light.” There’s still other lights.
Andrew: Coming from the homes?
Micah: People can still see in the dark. [laughs] It’s not like you’re up in the Northwest where at night it gets pitch black, right, Katie?
Katie: Right.
Andrew: Privet Drive is not a dark sky certified area of land.
Micah: No, it’s a suburban street.
[Andrew laughs]
Katie: And it’s also summertime, right?
Laura: Yes!
Katie: So when is sunset? It’s probably only really dusk here. I imagine this award ceremony isn’t at 10:00 p.m.
Andrew: Well, and in Europe, the sun sets very late. I’ll never forget watching Game of Thrones over there at 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. and it was still broad daylight. I’m like, “This is weird.” The days are long over there in summer.
Eric: Well, I feel the need to mention that we’re forgetting how overcast and cloudy England always is, so even in the summer, there’d be cloud cover.
Micah: True.
Andrew: Nah, this is one big plot hole. We just unearthed a major plot hole.
Eric: Well, why do they use the Put-Outer when they land?
Andrew: What’s with this book? No longer my favorite. [laughs]
Eric: Wow, the stakes are real on this read-through.
Micah: We’ve talked a little bit about Mad-Eye. We mentioned Remus in terms of members of the Advance Guard. We’re introduced to two new characters in Nymphadora Tonks and Kingsley Shacklebolt, which will become more important a little bit later on throughout Order of the Phoenix, but later on into the series; you could probably throw Elphias Doge into that mix as well, as he appears in Deathly Hallows.
Eric: And Hestia Jones.
Micah: Yeah. Sturgis Podmore, Emmeline Vance, Dedalus Diggle, and Hestia Jones – as you mentioned, Eric – round out our Advance Guard. And I thought it was a bit ironic that it’s Mad-Eye Moody who questions if Harry is actually Harry; that was clearly thrown in there as a throwback to Goblet of Fire.
Eric: [laughs] Well, it’s a great opportunity to mention it. The last time Harry saw Moody, he wasn’t him.
Andrew: And maybe he’s trying to teach Harry something here, like, “Be on your guard. Remember, I was fake as hell last book, to you at least.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: “So you should be asking me this question. Wink, wink.”
Laura: I also feel like there were just Dementors here; you don’t know what all the Dark side is up to, so I think it’s actually really smart that he does this. And it could also be foreshadowing to the Seven Potters in Deathly Hallows as well, where we also know there are other examples of characters forcing each other to prove they are who they say they are when they show up at the…
Eric: It’s how we get Mollywobbles.
Laura: Aww, yeah.
Eric: When they’re at the Burrow, it’s how we know what Mollywobbles is. So again, yeah, here’s an example. They’re leading by example and instructing Harry how to verify somebody’s identity. It comes into play two years from now.
Micah: But you’d be checking your breakfast, right, Eric?
Eric: I would be checking for anything in my cereal if I were Moody proper.
Micah: Oh, if you were Moody. That makes sense. What if your eye fell into your cereal?
[Andrew and Katie laugh]
Eric: Then it would be lubed up?
Katie: Then it’s extra checked. That’s how you check it, right? Just throw it in there?
Eric: Yeah, milk’s a lubricant, right?
Micah: We touched on this little bit earlier with Lupin being this familiar face; do we think specifically that’s why he was sent as part of the Advance Guard? And kind of as a follow-up question, given that Harry had just performed the Patronus Charm days earlier, is Lupin’s safety question really that safe? We’re in this whole mindset of making sure Harry is Harry, and not trying to get tricked and accidentally smuggle a Death Eater back to Grimmauld Place, but I don’t think this safety question really stands the test. It’s a poor safety question on the part of Lupin.
Eric: Wow. Wow. I mean, most wizards are shocked to learn Harry can even conjure a Patronus. But for Lupin, it must be a case of just asking the one question he himself knew the answer to. Nobody knows the answer to this question more than Harry himself and Lupin, so that’s…
Andrew: It’s kind of a throwback, isn’t it? [laughs] Just like…
Eric: Yeah, to last time they worked so closely together.
Andrew: Yeah, for the reader.
Eric: But my question is what if Harry had said a moose? Or a deer, right? A deer is not incorrect, but stag is the way that they know James. It’s always called a… it’s never not called a stag. But what if he got close but didn’t nail it? What would that…?
Andrew: That’s a good call.
Eric: How would that play out? Because anybody around the street, or anybody that’s seen Harry cast it from afar, any of the other Hogwarts students… I don’t know. It’s getting into murky territory here.
Laura: Yeah, but I could see somebody calling it a buck, for example, instead of a stag.
Eric: A buck. It’s specifically a stag, is why I’m like, “Okay, yeah, clearly this is Harry, because he calls it the same thing that they called it.” But stag is such a… I don’t know when I’ve had many opportunities to come up with “stag.” I probably would have gone “buck” first as well.
Katie: I kind of took this as Lupin… half safety question, half just getting comfortable with Harry again, kind of joking around, maybe showing Harry we don’t have to take Moody all that seriously. Hopefully, it sounds like Lupin was already pretty confident in Harry’s identity.
Eric: It is a great question as far as “Was he brought along because Harry has a relationship with him?” And I think it’s got to be, because he actually doesn’t have a relationship with these other people. I mean, he’s met Dedalus Diggle twice before, once in a shop and once in the Leaky Cauldron in year one, but there’s no real personal connection here. These strange wizards are going to take him away. What if they’re all Death Eaters? In fact, last year, one of them was disguised… was a Death Eater!
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: So Lupin is really the one that Harry is meant to trust, I think, to go with them.
Micah: Yeah. And I think, though, in the movie the question is different, right? Lupin asks him what was in the tank in the first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson?
Eric: Grindylow! Yeah, that’s right. Well, maybe they identified that it’s a bad question.
Micah: Or am I thinking about Deathly Hallows – Part 1?
Katie: I think that’s a Deathly Hallows question.
Laura: I think that is, yeah.
Micah: Okay. Never mind then. But I still think it’s a weak question.
Laura: But it is funny because in Deathly Hallows, Lupin is the one who really doesn’t believe it’s Harry. He’s a lot more aggressive towards him than he is here.
Eric: Is Harry so desperate that, if Lupin weren’t here, he would go with these strange adult wizards who claim they’re with Dumbledore?
Andrew: Yes. 100%.
Katie: Yeah, he didn’t ask any of them a safety question, right?
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: But he’s so desperate to get out of there.
Micah: He wants to go, yeah.
Eric: We’re all agreeing Harry would just… Harry doesn’t care at this point.
Andrew: He’d go with it anyway, yeah.
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: But you also have to assume, if you’re Harry, that Dumbledore now has even more eyes on you in light of what happened, so I’d be more inclined to believe that these people are who they say they are.
Eric: Okay.
Micah: Well, we are introduced to one of the coolest characters in the Harry Potter series in this chapter in Nymphadora Tonks. And while we’ve been talking a little bit about the fact that Lupin being there disarms Harry, I really think Tonks is the one who grounds him in this chapter, when they go up to his room. And I think it’s important for Harry to see someone close to his age who’s an Auror, and somebody who recognizes her mistakes, her shortcomings, and is willing to own them. I mean, she’s very truthful in her conversation with Harry for just meeting him for the first time.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: Tonks is great. Tonks is great.
Andrew: And I think it’s a nice moment for Harry because Tonks is pointing out, “This house is almost suspiciously clean, isn’t it?”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Which I think says a lot about the Dursleys, and it kind of tells Harry that she immediately understands the type of people that Harry has been living with, these fake people.
Micah: True.
Laura: She also talks to him like a human being. She treats him like a normal person, which isn’t something he’s getting from the other people that he’s meeting for the first time here.
Eric: Yeah, I mean, it is complete with this… she does make him uncomfortable by looking at his scar this one time, but that’s sort of a natural thing that everyone does at this point. But you’re right; she’s just normal. And knowing that Auror is the only career path he’s ever thought of, which is what this chapter says, knowing that she’s an Auror, that somebody so close to him in age and so cool and so flawed – in terms of having, like you said, weaknesses, like she’s clumsy – can become an Auror, and also has this Metamorphmagus thing going on… she’s an immediate role model for Harry.
Katie: I think “grounds,” that Micah said earlier, is also such a great way to describe what she does here, too, because she’s kind of getting to know him on a more personal level. She’s joining him away from the group. I don’t want to say “taking” him away from the group, because that sounds nefarious, but maybe she can tell he’s super overwhelmed with all these new people, so she kind of puts him in a little bit more of a relaxed setting. He can tell that she’s not super worried about the outcome, so maybe that calms him down a little bit as well. So yeah, I think it was a great way to introduce Tonks here.
Laura: You know what? I feel like she has big sister energy here. I think that’s what it is. She’s being a big sister to Harry in this moment.
Eric: Aww.
Micah: How about Moody? Do we feel like he’s overreacting at all? We know about him at this point. We know how he behaves normally, never mind when he’s being impersonated by a Death Eater, and certainly last year would lend itself to him behaving even more paranoid. But he jokes about not breaking rank should one of them die, and I just couldn’t help but think about Deathly Hallows.
Katie: I don’t think he was joking.
Eric: He wasn’t joking, yeah.
Laura: No. [laughs]
Eric: But he mentions it. He’s the hard boiled, straight one. He’s literally the funniest. The funniest thing about Mad-Eye is he’s not funny. There’s no… in a crowd, he’s the most serious one, and that’s funny. So Tonks…
Andrew: And this is why Dumbledore trusts him, I think.
Eric: Yes.
Andrew: And he’s the military guy in the operation, no BS, straight to the point, “We’re going to do this, and we’re going to do this right, and we’re going to save this kid.” I like the tone that Moody strikes here.
Eric: I agree, because you believe also that he’s motivated to do things right, especially after how he spent his last year. He’s motivated to make sure that that doesn’t happen to him again, so you’re extra inclined to trust him. And Tonks is the one who takes him down a peg when she’s like, “Who do you know that’s lost a buttock? You’re being too over-serious here.”
Katie: Yeah, and he does seem to respond well whenever Tonks does push back on him too. It’s like he’s going all in, but then when she pulls him back, it seems like he’s kind of okay with it. I think he wanted to double back at some point, and Tonks was like, “We’re all freezing!” and I don’t think that they ended up doubling back. So maybe he just goes hard all the way and knows that the team will do what’s necessary.
Micah: She’s his protégé, though, isn’t…?
Katie: Mentee?
Micah: I always had the sense that she studied under Moody. Maybe I’m making that up in my head.
Eric: Yeah, I don’t remember where in canon, but I had the same inkling. I had the same thought for…
Micah: So he has a deep level of respect for her. And I think, to your point, Katie, it comes through in this chapter and at other times in the series. But does this whole rescue situation seem overly dramatic?
Andrew: Micah.
Eric: Hindsight is too…
Micah: “We’re going to lure the Dursleys away and we’re going to send nine people, and then we’re going to do all these charms, and then we’re going to go up and fly…”
Eric: I’m going to send you a printout of Deathly Hallows‘ “Seven Potters” and you…
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: I’m sorry, yeah, next chapter: “Number 12 Grimmauld Place.” They make it! It was a successful operation. There’s nothing wrong with this successful operation!
Micah: Well, in fairness to the Advance Guard, I think it was Lupin who mentions how they can’t risk using the Floo Network, and something about Apparating would set off alarm bells, so…
Eric: Well, Harry can’t do it.
Micah: Well, he does it in Half-Blood Prince, right?
Eric: Well, side-along is not invented yet by the author. It’s not a thing.
Micah: Ah, that must be it. Well, surely there could have been another option. We just talked about how he’s rescued in all the other books. [laughs]
Eric: That’s true.
Katie: But Floo Powder would have too much Ministry oversight, right? I mean, I could see the reasons. The one thing that I just… actually, the reason I went back and listened to the previous episode was all of the magic happening at Number 4 Privet Drive.
Eric: Oh! I’m so glad you brought this up.
Katie: How does this not alert the Ministry? I don’t understand.
Eric: There has to be… you know how when you’re coding and you want to put a secret comment in the…? Mark will know; he’s not here.
Laura: Yeah, commenting your code?
Eric: Commenting your code, and stuff that helps for context. I wonder if there’s a way to do a spell where it masks itself, like the way that you do a nonverbal spell when you don’t want your opponent to know what you’re about to cast on them. But there must be a way in which the adults are masking, because they’re using a ton of magic inside the house, but it isn’t getting picked up by a Ministry who would look for this as an opportunity to further penalize Harry.
Andrew: It’s a good question.
Eric: I had that thought.
Katie: I could take that as a headcanon solution. There’s a way to cast your magic in secret.
Andrew: Hide. Yeah, because there’s got to be a lot of interest in being able to do that for a variety of reasons, so you would have to think that adult wizards have figured that out by now, how to trick the system.
Laura: And I’m sure it’s illegal.
[Katie laughs]
Andrew: Yes, for sure.
Laura: It has to be.
Eric: Well, there’s good illegal and bad illegal, right? This is useful to not get Harry in trouble.
Laura: Sure.
Katie: The coding analogy is a little funky because when you comment out code, it no longer is effective, right? But this magic is still being executed.
Eric: There must be a way to subtly… or go incognito with your spellcasting so that the trace can’t…
[Laura laughs]
Eric: There we go. That’s a better…
Andrew: Draw a parallel to a Chrome tab.
Eric: One thing I thought of, though, if we’re really comparing Books 5 and 7 here, Harry does actually flat out ask the adults, “What’s going on with Vol -?” And he doesn’t say Voldemort, and they all stop him from saying it, and I wonder if they, in that moment, are thinking that there’s a possibility that his name might be tabooed the way that it is in the books, and that’s how the Death Eaters find them.
Katie: It’ll be interesting to see how the speaking out loud of the full name “Voldemort” comes up in the rest of the book, if we keep tracking that. Because yeah, they definitely cut him off here, but I wonder if Dumbledore continues to use it like always…
Eric: Yeah. Oh, that’s a great point. Yeah, yeah. I know it’s definitely all adults are squeamish about it, so this scene makes sense, but I was thinking, because Harry is unprotectedly… they’re about to rescue him; the stakes couldn’t be higher. It made it seem like they jump on him.
Micah: This is certainly a precursor for the Seven Potters in Deathly Hallows, and I wonder, too, if Dumbledore was alive, would he have allowed this same kind of rescue attempt to happen? Because there’s a lot of risk, obviously, in doing this, and they’ve already tried it once in Order of the Phoenix; why try and duplicate the effort in Deathly Hallows? So maybe we can talk a little bit about that when we get to our Book 7 reread. But as we mentioned, Harry and company make it safely to Number 12 Grimmauld Place. If I remember correctly, a very fun sequence of events to play in the Lego Harry Potter games.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: Stuff in the fountain. Stuff is all messed up. You’ve got to smash everything to advance.
Micah: But before we head over to hear from our patrons on the Lynx Line, I did want to ask one final question. We hear about the Rear Guard, so there is supposedly another guard that is in place to take over should anything happen, should all nine of these people be killed…
Andrew: Agh!
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … in transit to Grimmauld Place. And I was curious; I don’t remember ever learning about who the members of the Rear Guard were. Who do we think is stationed to collect Harry and bring him safely to Grimmauld Place should something happen?
Andrew: So I feel like the Advance Guard are the A team, right? They’re the good people; we’re feeling confident they’re going to pull off this mission successfully. Once you fill up the Advance Guard with all the good people, there’s the people who aren’t so good, but you’ve got to have this backup plan just in case. Dung. Dung’s got to be in the Rear Guard. And also, Arthur. I’m sorry, but Arthur is not the strongest weapon, so he’s on the backup team. Those are my two guesses.
Katie: I like to picture Hagrid on his… well, I don’t actually remember where the motorcycle is at this point in the story, but I think I like to picture Hagrid just a couple hundred yards back in the sky, alone on the motorcycle, just making sure everything’s going okay.
Andrew: That’s a good idea.
Micah: All right, well, we’re going to hear from our patrons in just a minute, but we need to hear a word from our sponsors first.
[Ad break]
Lynx Line
Micah: So on this week’s Lynx Line, which is our newest benefit on Patreon… of course, thanks to those who support us over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast for answering this week’s questions. In the spirit of the Advance Guard, we asked: What five Potter characters – because nine is too many…
[Laura laughs]
Micah: … would you choose for your own Advance Guard? And I figured we could read these in host order. So Andrew?
Andrew: So this first one comes from Jennifer:
“Picking an Advanced Guard? Heck yes! I’d start off with Dumbledore – if Voldemort fears him, everyone should. Kingsley – he’s just a badass. Lupin – smart and also a werewolf! McGonagall – she’s freaking smart! She’s amazing! Finally, I picked Dobby – he would do anything to save Harry Potter!”
Aw, that was a really cute answer overall.
Eric: Really cute answer. From Carly: “Kingsley: If he protected the Muggle Prime Minister, he’s good enough for this.” Darn good point. “Flitwick: Bro was a dueling champion, so he probably has killer reflexes.” Oh, another great point. “Moody: I relate heavy to his hyper vigilance. McGonagall: Badass + Animagus.” And, “Angelina Johnson, assuming she’s old enough to consent, because being awesome at Quidditch tells me she’s a very skilled flyer.”
Micah: All good choices. Asia says,
“Remus Lupin and Sirius Black (because Wolfstar), Minerva McGonagall (she’s a badass mother… you know the rest).”
[Laura laughs]
“Bill Weasley (he’s a talented wizard who knows about curse breaking), and Hagrid (he’s caring and would be very protective).”
Katie: And Shannon says,
“One: Dumbledore (as long as he’s not too busy ignoring me), Peeves (he would be dedicated to destruction if anyone tried to get in the way of the mission – and he respects Dumbledore, so that’s another reason we need him), Fleur (she could use her Veela powers if needed for a distraction).”
That’s a great idea.
“Mad-Eye (CONSTANT VIGILANCE! And serious dedication), and Lupin (very intelligent with lots of knowledge in various areas of magic).”
Laura: Good choices. Jason says,
“I’d have to say Fred and George (completely unpredictable, which makes them perfect), Kingsley Shacklebolt, Luna Lovegood (who is a totally dedicated friend and would be surprisingly laser-focused), Professor McGonagall,” and also Jason adds, “Snape, but I would assume that he needs to maintain his cover,” so that might be a tricky role for him to play.
Eric: “My Lord, I have something to do tonight between the hours of seven and nine.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: “Don’t ask me again in two years, and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
Micah: Can I just call out to ZN in the Discord says, “Dobby bringing that dirty sock.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: That’s what Dobby brings to the whole ensemble.
Andrew: Leah’s team would be,
“Viktor Krum, Charlie Weasley, Oliver Wood – three super attractive and talented Quidditch players. It’s a flying mission, after all. Am I secretly hoping they’d fight over me in the process? Absolutely.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: And then she added,
“Flitwick and McGonagall, arguably the two most talented and nurturing professors. I can count on them to care about my well-being and I can definitely count on their defensive wandwork, as evidenced by the Battle of Hogwarts.”
Eric: Nice. The Quidditch thing is amazing. It is a flying mission, of course. Rachel S. says,
“I’d have Sir Cadogan cause a crazy diversion. Then the four I’d travel with would be Mad-Eye, McGonagall, Lupin, and Kingsley.”
Awesome.
Micah: Stephanie says,
“I would choose Lupin, for his magical prowess. Hermione, because she’s the smartest person in the series. Charlie Weasley, because dragons! Grawp for his physical dominance. And Kreacher, after Sirius commands him to protect Harry at all costs.”
Laura: Oooh.
Eric: Love to see Grawp on a broom.
Laura: I was just thinking that. How does Grawp become airborne?
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: A bigger broom.
Katie: Also, does Charlie get to ride a dragon during this rescue mission?
Eric: Ohh!
Laura: That would be cool. Grawp could ride on the dragon.
Eric: Everyone would see that. The whole country would see that.
Laura: Yeah, but what if you got an invisible dragon? Aren’t there some dragons that can make themselves invisible? There has to be.
Katie: Just disillusion the dragon. It’s fine.
Eric: Yeah, that’s fine.
Laura: Eleanor says,
“I’m going for the people who we know sacrificed themselves for or choose Harry over themselves in some way: Dobby, Hagrid, Snape, Ron, Draco, who didn’t give Harry up to Bellatrix,” in Book 7. So that’s an interesting choice.
Eric: I love how much thought people are putting in.
Laura: I love the thought behind it.
Katie: And Michael W. says,
“Viktor Krum because he’s a boss. Sirius because he’d distract and enrage the Death Eaters. Dobby, super underrated in a pinch. And Dumbledore, because he obviously doesn’t have anything better to do. And Mad-Eye because duh.”
Eric: [laughs] So glad they mentioned Dumbledore not having anything better to do.
Where’s Dumbledore?
Micah: Well, speaking of Dumbledore, where’s he at?
Andrew: Where you at? So I think he’s sitting at the 12 Grimmauld Place command center waiting to watch the extraction take place. Imagine that photo of Obama in the situation room waiting for SEAL Team Six to take down Osama? That’s the scene going on in the situation room at 12 Grimmauld Place.
Micah: I like that a lot.
Eric: Oh, I’m picturing that scene in The Santa Clause where the elves have the sleigh tracked on a pin board with LED lights, and they’re tracking it.
Andrew: And Hillary Clinton in that photo is Professor McGonagall.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Okay, I think it works.
Micah: We got the AI on that.
Eric: My answer for where Dumbledore is is that he’s the one who shot up the sparks! There were red, then there were green; someone far off in the distance that tells them the coast is clear shoots off sparks. It’s probably the Rear Guard, if we’re being honest. And I said that Dumbledore stayed behind and probably shot off purple, yellow, pink sparks, too, but that was for a nearby Pride Parade. It is summertime, after all.
Micah: I think Dumbledore is just hiding out in the bushes of Privet Drive drinking it all in.
Katie: Are these the same hedges that Harry was hiding in at the start of the book?
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: Exactly.
Katie: Perfect.
Micah: But he doesn’t hit his head on the window.
Eric: Dumbledore is trying to really get in Harry’s head and see what he sees and feel how he feels, so he thought he’d lay in the bushes too.
Laura: He’s just so messy. Well, here’s what I think: So I know a couple weeks ago, I said that I thought Dumbledore was chillin’ on a yacht in the Bahamas, and I think he’s back from that trip now. I think he’s just maxin’ and relaxin’ in the prefects’ bathroom in that giant pool-sized bathtub, and the reason for that is because the Howler that he sends to Petunia creates this horrible echoing that Harry references in this chapter, so I’m imagining that he was just there chilling in the tub, and was like, “Well, I should probably just go ahead and send this.”
[Katie and Micah laugh]
Eric: Amazing.
Katie: You’ve got to hope Dumbledore’s got his own nice bathroom, though, somewhere in the castle.
Micah: Yeah, he’s got a bidet. We established this.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Katie: My headcanon is that once Dumbledore got wind of Tonks’s idea for this All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn competition, he actually organized it and put on the thing, and so where was he? He was hosting the award ceremony and handing out awards.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Ah, that’s so good.
Laura: That is incredible.
Eric: It’s such a good one.
Micah: Love it.
Andrew: The AI art on that too.
Katie: [laughs] And then I actually had a second one too of maybe he was doing this because he was distracting himself from the fact that in the last chapter, Harry didn’t recognize his voice, and in this chapter, Harry didn’t recognize his handwriting, and he’s just feeling alone and neglected, so he has to distract himself with some beautiful suburban lawns.
Micah: All very good answers. Katie, I like yours the best.
Laura: Same.
Eric: Me too.
Andrew: Me three.
MVP of the Week
Micah: Well, we’ve mentioned before that we’re not doing MVP of the Week anymore; we’re replacing it, and this week, I figured we would – sticking with the Advance Guard theme – go with the most trustworthy member of the Advance Guard based on their initial intros.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: I’m going to give it to Lupin because he already has a well-established relationship with Harry, and Lupin puts him at ease about Moody, which is, I think, really critical here.
Eric: I’m going to say the most trustworthy member is Moody because he can see 360 degrees, and there’s no way he could be a secret Death Eater twice!
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: 360 when his eye is clean.
Eric: True.
Micah: I’m going to give it to Kingsley; I really liked his introduction. Very cool, calm, collected character, and future Minister for Magic.
Laura: I’m going to give it to Tonks. I think she’s the most relatable of all these characters to Harry at this point, and I think she plays a really big role in getting Harry to calm down a little bit.
Katie: I can’t really believe that Harry trusts any of these people, as I said earlier…
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Katie: … but if I had to give it to somebody, I’ll give it to Dedalus Diggle because he is another familiar face, and if you can say anything, he has been a consistent character, I think, so another moment of familiarity for Harry.
Micah: Very cheerful individual.
Andrew: Bonus question for everybody this week, because…
Micah: Oh.
Andrew: What?
Micah: No, it was a bonus question. I’m thrown off my game.
Andrew: Oh. Yeah, surprise! There’s more to come. We have one more thing. So in this chapter, Moody says, “Don’t put your wand in your back pocket; I know people whose butts have been blown off.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: So I was wondering who’s most likely to blow their butt off due to improper wand storage? It doesn’t have to be anybody in this chapter specifically, just who? I don’t have an answer for this, so I just wanted to know what y’all think.
Eric: Wow, wow. Neville. It’s Neville. I’m sorry. It’s Neville.
Katie: No way, Seamus Finnigan for sure.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Well, blowing stuff up, yeah, sure, sure.
Micah: Part of me thinks Moody is talking from experience, but I’m going to go with Mundungus Fletcher.
Laura: Okay. I like the idea that Moody is speaking from experience here and trying to project so that nobody knows it’s him.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I’m going to say Ron, honestly. I could totally see Ron doing this. Ron can be kind of sloppy about the way that he takes care of things, and yeah, I could see this happening to him.
Micah: And to the point about Moody, HallowWolf is bringing up in the Discord that Moody is missing a leg.
[Katie laughs]
Andrew: There you go. That explains a lot.
Eric: Oh my God.
Laura: But he’s not missing a full leg.
Andrew: Right, but I mean, if it’s in the back pocket, maybe it was pointing at the bottom half of the leg. The overarching point can be you might lose your butt or you might lose something else on you. Well, listeners, if you have any feedback about who’s most likely to blow their butt off…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: … or you have any other feedback about today’s discussion…
Eric: That can be our recurring segment this whole book.
Andrew: “Who blew their butt off this week?”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: You can email or send a voice memo that’s recorded on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com, or you can use our phone number, which is 1-920-3-MUGGLE; that’s 1-920-368-4453. And next week, we will discuss Order of the Phoenix Chapter 4, “Number 12 Grimmauld Place,” because it was a successful mission. It was a great plan.
Eric: Good point.
Quizzitch
Andrew: And now it’s time for Quizzitch!
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: Last week’s question: In Scotland, the peck was used as a dry measure until the introduction of imperial units as a result of the Weights and Measures Act of what year? What year was the Weights and Measures Act passed in Scotland that discontinued a peck? The answer was 1824. Sorry for all those who didn’t get it right. 12% of correct answers said that they did not look it up, and last week’s…
Laura: Hmm.
Eric: Yeah, it’s pretty good. It’s 2 out of 18 people. But yeah, last week’s winners: All Snapes and Sizes; Angst Angst Angst Wizard Angst; Anthony; Benny; Buff Daddy; The self-quizzing book lover Elizabeth K.; Goats4Life; Joyoti; Kennahdawn; More OWLs than Hermione and Percy combined; Robbie; Sansitha; SassyRavenclaw43; The Dead Hogwarts Security Inspector; The glass of water that Mad-Eye washed his eye in and had left on the Dursleys’ counter that Aunt Petunia drank when she got home… oh no.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: The Scots pint and the Scots gallon were both around three times the volume of their English equivalents, Hagrid-sized drink; eh, eh? And finally, Issy, who’s only been to Scotland once to see the Eras Tour. Here is next week’s Quizzitch question: What well-kept lawn in London has been home to a zebra, an elephant, and a helicopter landing pad? And for Brits, that’s zeh-bra, not zebra. Submit your answer to us on the Quizzitch form on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or if you’re on the website, doing whatever it is you do on our website, click on “Quizzitch” from the main nav.
Andrew: Katie, thanks so much for joining us today. It was great having you on.
Katie: Yeah, great to be here. Super fun to join you guys. Thanks again for having me.
Andrew: I’ll be thinking about Dumbledore judging the All-England Best-Kept Suburban Lawn Competition for a while.
Eric: Oh, that’s going to be so good.
Andrew: Maybe that’ll be my Halloween costume this year.
[Andrew and Katie laugh]
Laura: Love that.
Andrew: This show is brought to you by Muggles like Katie. We are an independent podcast. In fact, we’re as independent as Harry was lonely in the first couple of chapters of this book, so your financial support is of the utmost importance. In fact, listener support is the only reason we’ve been able to podcast for 19 years and counting. There are two great ways to help us out: If you’re an Apple Podcasts user, you can subscribe to MuggleCast Gold, which gets you instant access to ad-free and early releases of MuggleCast, plus two bonus MuggleCast installments every month. Recent bonus MuggleCast installments have included discussions on the casting calls for the new Harry Potter trio and our first thoughts on the new Quidditch video game. And then for even more benefits, like our awesome new Lynx Line perk – and this is the best way to help us out – you can go to Patreon.com/MuggleCast. You can cohost the show one day, like Katie did today; you get yearly stickers; you get another physical gift every year; you get a video message from one of the four of us made just for you; you also get access to our private Facebook and Discord groups, where you can hang out with us and fellow Harry Potter fans. So thank you. No matter how you support us, we really appreciate it. We could not do this without you. And speaking of support, if you enjoy the show and think other Muggles would too, tell a friend about us, and help us spread the word by leaving a five star review in your favorite podcast app. That does it for this week’s episode. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: I’m Laura.
Katie: And I’m Katie.
Andrew: Bye, everybody.
Laura: Bye, y’all.
Eric and Micah: Bye.