Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #695, Society for Hulk Prevention (OOTP Chapter 17, Educational Decree Number Twenty-Four)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the Wizarding World fandom, where we go chapter by chapter through the Harry Potter books and keep you updated on the upcoming Harry Potter TV show. This week, keep an eye on your fireplace because we’re discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 16, “Educational Decree Number 24.” I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
News
Andrew: And we do have a bit of Harry Potter TV show news this week, a small update following up on an item we discussed a couple weeks ago. John Lithgow says, “Yeah, I’m playing Dumbledore. It’s me!”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Cool! Yeah, man!
Andrew: He said this in a recent interview. He confirmed it. Now, keep in mind, Warner Bros. has not confirmed this yet, so he got out ahead of their announcement, whenever they were planning on making it. He said, “I’ll be about 87 at the rap party, but I’ve said yes. I just got the phone call up at the Sundance Film Festival, and it was not an easy decision because it’s going to define me for the last chapter of my life, I’m afraid. But I’m very excited.” So it’s not just us who’s concerned about his age, because this is a ten-year commitment. Warner Bros. says this is a ten-year project they’re embarking on. Look, I’m excited. I just think it’s interesting they’re casting somebody so old.
Eric: I’m coming around on it, his casting specifically, because he is such a good actor, Emmy Award winner and that kind of thing. I’m still uncertain what this means for other Americans potentially being cast in the film, since that barrier of old is not maintained with this go-around, this reboot TV series. But yeah, and I think that what touched me about his statement is specifically this line about defining him for the last chapter of his life, so I think that he is looking at it with the level of, I don’t know, scope that this really has the chance to be a defining type role. That excites me.
Laura: Yeah. He knows how important it is, to your point, Eric. And I don’t know; when we heard the rumor, and heard that it was a very believable rumor, I was excited, and I’m super excited now. He is such a talented actor. And yeah, I mean, the age consideration is something that I’m sure they had a conversation about, but at the end of the day, if an actor who plays an iconic role passes away, it’s not the first time that’s happened, and we’ve seen how this very series has… I don’t want to say rectified that, but recast the role with somebody who was able to carry it forward. So I actually feel pretty confident about this.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: I wasn’t on the episode when you discussed the rumor, so it’s the first time I’m getting a chance to react to it, but just hearing him talk about the role, I think, is exciting. And while it hasn’t been confirmed by Warner Bros., I did like what you were talking about, how really it seems like they’re casting around Dumbledore, right? This is the first big confirmation that we’ve gotten. Yeah, we’ve heard some rumors about Snape, but we now presumably have our Dumbledore for the TV series, and this idea that they are casting around him is something new because presumably, the first time around, they cast around the trio.
Eric: I’m calling it right now: Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Snape.
[Everyone laughs]
Micah: Oh, wow. Bring back everybody from 3rd Rock.
Eric: Have a whole 3rd Rock reunion, absolutely, starting with JGL.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Something that excited me about John Lithgow being cast as Dumbledore is that I was watching the SAG Awards last Sunday, and he ended up accepting an award for… was it Conclave, Micah?
Micah: I think so. That would’ve made sense.
Andrew: Yeah, he’s in Conclave, right? Yeah, with Ralph Fiennes, who, of course, played Voldemort in the movies. And they were standing right next to each other at the SAG Awards; I was like, “Oh, this is interesting. Here’s TV Dumbledore and movie Voldemort accepting an award together.” But what really stood out to me was John Lithgow is actually a tall guy, and that further sold me on Dumbledore. I think the height must have been a factor in deciding to cast him.
Eric: Yeah, and from Harry’s perspective when he’s 11, Dumbledore is this tall, older than dirt kind of guy.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: We’re so ageist.
Eric: His nose has been broken at least twice. I don’t know. He might just have the look down. I’m not sure.
Micah: I did want to ask about the fact that this is not a British actor. Is this surprising to us? Do we feel like we’re going to get a mixed cast now?
Andrew: [sighs] It worries me a little bit. I don’t want to see too many American actors in the TV show. I want them to stick with British people, please.
Laura: Well, it sounds like for the trio, if I recall the casting announcement, they were looking for people in the UK and Ireland, so I think at least for the trio and probably a lot of the kids, they’re going to stick with British actors.
Andrew: And that makes sense, because it would be a big challenge to ask very young kids to pull off a good English accent, whereas John Lithgow…
Eric: On top of everything else they’ve got to do.
Andrew: Right, including being thrust into the spotlight.
Eric: I want French Stewart for Filch, please and thank you.
Andrew: I’m still saying Timothée Chalamet for Harry Potter.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: How old is… isn’t he, like, 30 now?
Andrew: [laughs] Yes. He played Bob Dylan, for God’s sake.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: This role has a real good chance of defining him, Laura, if he would only accept it. Dune didn’t do it.
Andrew: How do you feel, Micah? Do you think they should be casting all English people, or should they be dabbling in the American waters, or elsewhere?
Micah: Well, this is presumably the most important role outside of Harry, so the fact that they would cast an American actor is a bit surprising, I think. I anticipated pretty much an all-British cast here. I don’t know if you necessarily need it, but it’s definitely surprising.
Eric: The interesting thing to me is that there are quite a bit more British actors on American mainstream projects now, and you wouldn’t even necessarily recognize. Like Charlie Cox, who plays Daredevil in the Marvel series.
Laura: Exactly.
Eric: Totally British, and does a convincing American accent. So they would presumably have a large group of actors to choose from that maybe when we get the news, we’re like, “Wait a minute, aren’t they American?” It turns out, no, in fact, they’re not.
Micah: One thing just to mention briefly: In the Discord Gabby did mention that John Lithgow did play Winston Churchill in The Crown, so presumably either he can do a very good British accent, or AI can, or whatever the technology…
Andrew: AI?!
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: I think they’ll just have them naturally pull it off. [laughs]
Laura: No, he has an incredibly broad range. You’re talking Lord Farquaad…
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Keeps coming up.
Laura: … a deranged serial killer… Winston Churchill…
Eric: Wait, which one is the serial…?
Laura: Dexter. [laughs]
Andrew: Listeners, stick with MuggleCast for continuing coverage of the Harry Potter TV show. Make sure you’re following us in your favorite podcast app and on YouTube, and we’ll continue to share news as it happens. As we continue to analyze the books and prepare to cover the Harry Potter TV show, we could really use your support at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Your financial support allows us to focus more time on the show and less time in the Muggle world, and in exchange, we’ll offer you instant access to lots of great benefits, like more MuggleCast; we release two bonus MuggleCast episodes every month on our Patreon. We’ll also hook you up with a new physical gift every year, ad-free episodes of the show, exclusive Facebook and Discord groups, and so much more. Thanks, everybody, for your support. We really could not do this without you.
Chapter by Chapter: Time-Turner
Andrew: And let’s now dive into Chapter by Chapter, and this week we’re discussing Order of the Phoenix Chapter 17, “Educational Decree Number 24.”
Eric: Yes, and we last discussed this chapter on Episode 453 of MuggleCast, which in fun throwback flashback news was titled “2 Fast, 2 Illustrated,” because they had just announced MinaLima’s foray into the illustrated Harry Potter universe.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Time is a flat circle.
Micah: What a coincidence.
Eric: [laughs] February 11, 2020 was that episode.
[Ticking sound]
Dumbledore: Three turns should do it, I think. Good luck.
Ron: What the…?
[Bell dings]
[Whooshing sound]
Robotic voice: Episode 453.
Andrew: David, who’s listening live, also brings up a good point. He says, “So by definition, does the trio count as a society, team, group, club? Because in this Decree, she says three or more.”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: That’s awesome.
Andrew: Yeah. Three does seem like a low number. I mean, there are groups of three. I mean, we would be banned. We’re a club.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: “No podcasting.”
Laura: Oh, Umbridge would absolutely hate us.
[Whooshing sound]
[Ticking sound]
Dumbledore: Mysterious thing, time.
[Bell dings]
Andrew: And we’re going to get banned again.
Micah: For sure.
Laura: Absolutely.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Laura: Well, let’s get right into it, shall we? We left Harry on a really bright positive note at the end of the last chapter; he was observing how beautiful the village of Hogsmeade was. Everything was kind of being viewed through rose-colored glasses, because Hermione had observed to Harry, “Cho couldn’t stop looking at you, plus she complimented you and stood up for you during the meeting.” And that’s all well and good for Harry; I love when he gets these moments. Unfortunately, they don’t tend to last very long, and that’s the case here too.
Andrew: Why should Harry ever be happy?
Laura: Basically. Is that the title of the episode? [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah! We’re done for today.
Laura: We’ll see you next week!
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: But the reason that his happiness is cut short here is because on Monday morning, we are introduced to Educational Decree 24, which disbands all student groups, clubs, teams, and societies. I don’t know that I am aware of Hogwarts having any societies that we ever heard about; maybe we can unpack what those would be during this discussion. But it’s okay; everything has been disbanded, but students can have their group reinstated by getting approval from the High Inquisitor, so no biggie, right?
Eric: Yeah, you just have to bow to the whims and whatever she asks you to do in order to get your club approved.
Andrew: In terms of the societies, I wonder if Umbridge is sort of covering her bases, in case anyone tries to argue that they don’t have a club; they have a “society.”
Eric: A Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare! Hello! SPEW is a society.
Andrew: There you go.
Laura: Oh, SPEW is… oh, and Umbridge would definitely disband SPEW.
Eric: Oh, absolutely.
Andrew: Yes. [laughs]
Laura: I’m actually kind of surprised that that never became a conflict in this book. Maybe it would have just been too much. Because I feel like Hermione at this point, she’s going through a phase of rebellion where, if she actually had the conscious realization of, “Oh, me doing SPEW is just one more thing that I can do to get under Umbridge’s skin and resist,” she would do it. So it could just be that it would have been too many plot points.
Eric: I think maybe also technically it’s disbanded, because Hermione is the only one doing it right now.
Laura: Ohh, no. It’s true. [laughs]
Eric: So it’s not a society; there’s no social aspect. It’s just Hermione and her own crafts.
Andrew: Well, and the decree says, what, three or more?
Eric: Three or more.
Andrew: Groups of three or more? So Hermione is sneaking under the wire that way too.
Laura: Aren’t Harry and Ron technically members?
Micah: Didn’t they sign up?
Andrew: Do they all get together for these society meetings?
Laura: No.
Eric: Oh yeah, they paid her and got their little badge.
Laura: Well, Micah, there is a significance to the number of this Educational Decree, right?
Micah: There might be. I thought it might be fun to look up the significance of the number 24, and so in numerology, the number 24 is often interpreted as a symbol of harmony, balance, and completeness, and in this case, we would be talking about Umbridge, not the students, right? We could see how this could put her mind at ease, if she is in full control of what the students are doing in their off time. And I also thought it was relevant that there are 24 hours in a day, so Umbridge, this is her way of controlling students every waking hour.
Eric: Yes.
Laura: I like that.
Eric: She needs to be on their mind every hour of every day.
Micah: Right. We know that she is inspecting all of the different classes, so she’s in control there, but now she’s clearly in control when they’re not in the classroom, and it’s just one of those situations where the walls are starting to close in around Harry and his friends. We see that throughout this chapter; it’s not just the Educational Decree, it’s everything that is happening throughout the course of this chapter we can point to as a significant moment, and say the walls are closing in. And one thing I did want to bring up – we talked about this, actually, back on Episode 453 – there’s a significance to the fact that the Educational Decree is literally covering everything else on the board, right? It’s saying that this is more important. This is taking over. All the things that Harry mentions, or that the author mentions that are also on the board, they are being covered by the Educational Decree.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: She’s taking over. It’s real… it’s a huge power grab, I guess. She’s exercising her insanely large amount of power.
Laura: So obviously, the trio are not the only ones who are in shock at this decree and wondering about how it’s going to affect their extracurricular activities. I think a second year comes up next to Harry and says, “Oh, I wonder if Gobstones Club will still be allowed.”
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Oh, sweet child.
Laura: And Harry was… or I think Ron was actually like, “I think Gobstones will be fine, but I don’t know about our thing, Harry.” [laughs]
Eric: Aww. Bless that kid’s heart. Little Gobstones fanatic.
Laura: I know, it’s so innocent, so pure, but that student was young and didn’t realize that Voldemort was back.
Eric: I picture it in a very Dickensian… like a Dickensian orphan is like, “Does this mean they cancel the Gobstones?”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: Oliver Twist?
Laura: Well, of course, for the trio I think the first natural conclusion to jump to is, “Okay, who blabbed? Who blabbed to Umbridge already? It’s only been a day.” And Hermione is like, “No, I don’t think so, because I did something to the sheet that everyone signed that would make it very obvious if someone blabbed to Umbridge or to anyone.” And that really then opens up the question for the trio, “Then who could it be?”
Eric: I’m glad this isn’t a mystery that lasts too long. They quickly realize that, “Oh yeah, there were a lot of other people in the Hog’s Head, and we could have been more careful, maybe.”
Micah: It’s a great insurance policy that Hermione decided to take out, but how do we feel about this underhanded move? Because it is underhanded.
Eric: Yeah, she did not tell them, “Hey, by signing up, you are under pretty serious penalty.”
Andrew: It’s a double-edged sword, because if she did tell people, they probably would have been less inclined to actually sign the piece of paper.
Eric: Yep.
Andrew: On the other hand, by not telling them, then you’re getting everybody… then you’re really making sure that all the people who attended are not only signing the list, but going to be kept honest. So I don’t really know what the answer is here. I guess I would have said… I don’t know. I think Hermione did the right thing by not telling them.
Eric: Yeah, no, when we get to the Marietta chapter, I always feel bad for… situations being what they are and Umbridge being as awful as she is. But currently while reading this, I just feel like desperate times call for desperate measures. At least Hermione’s jinx was nonlethal. It was overkill; I know we’ve discussed previously Hermione’s character, what it says about Hermione’s character that she did this, but at least it was nonlethal. I’ll just say that.
Laura: Yeah, I tend to agree with that. Would this have been overkill if it were for their secret Gobstones Club? Absolutely. For this, I agree. Desperate times.
Eric: The stakes couldn’t be higher, kind of?
Andrew: Or how about some sort of charm where any time one of the people who signed the sheet try to speak about it, their voice becomes garbled or something like that? Why did it have to be a physical change to them? Like, “You can only talk about it if you’re talking about it to people who have signed the same sheet that you did.”
Eric: Like a Secret Keeper kind of thing? That would just be really advanced, though.
Andrew: Yeah, I guess.
Eric: You could do it, but only a few really talented wizards could do it.
Micah: Because I feel like then it’s clear who the rat is. If it was just a matter of muffling their voice, you would never really know.
[Andrew imitates an adult talking in Peanut]
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Versus the pimples, the acne, they last a little bit of time, and so you’d be able to see who actually ratted you out.
Andrew: I must have been a rat back in the day because I was getting a lot of pimples on my face.
Laura: Aww.
Andrew: I’m realizing that’s why now.
Laura: You didn’t make the connection at the time?
Andrew: [laughs] No, I didn’t.
Eric: “I really ought to stop snitching on my friends… nah, never mind.”
Andrew: No wonder I’ve always had bad acne!
Eric: [laughs] Well, it cleared up, Andrew, so you must have gotten on the straight and narrow.
Andrew: Somewhat, somewhat.
Micah: speaking of placing blame, Ron is one who’s very quick to blame the students, but he forgets that he was in a public space with a lot of shifty people lurking about, and he doesn’t even think for a second that it could possibly be one of those individuals, so it just shows how his mind is right now.
Eric: What’s funny about Ron – and you’ve got to love him; he’s Harry’s loyal friend – but he wants to place the blame on somebody that has previously wronged him. I think that Ron is still upset over the Zacharias Smith encounter in the Hog’s Head, and so he wants to immediately have permission to jump to the conclusion that Zacharias Smith did this. “Who even are you, dude?” But he has no evidence, and he just needs to be like, “Okay, it’s not him.” Don’t freak out.
Andrew: Or Ginny’s new boyfriend.
Eric: Well, right.
Laura: Oh, yeah. So in retrospect, do we think it would have been smart for the DA to form under some kind of innocuous-sounding mission – like Gobstones Club, if we want to go back to that example – so that it would be less likely for Umbridge to have heard about all of this?
Eric: Yeah, I think the issue for me is that this was their first meeting. They did need the ability to, when first gathered, be like, “This is what we need to do. Let’s start a group for it.” As soon as they have that initial thesis statement or mission statement established, then they can call it whatever innocuous name they want. But because they were overheard right out the gate, there might not have been any avoiding this.
Laura: Yeah, that’s true. I think they would have had to start smaller than they did. Probably the cardinal sin here is having their initial meeting with so many people; it just attracts a ton of attention.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: And as Sirius brings up later, they should have done it in Three Broomsticks because there’s safety in numbers, and if you’re in a crowded space, nobody’s going to think anything of all these people gathering there.
Laura: Well, I wanted to ask for a make a real life connection and see if any of us were ever part of a student group that got disbanded.
Eric: I’ve never had one canceled on me. I had one fizzle out. There was a very short-lived barbershop quartet in high school.
Laura: Aww! [laughs]
Eric: A couple of guys wanted to get together and rehearse, and we had a few… I guess we could have been good. I sang bass. And we did a couple of practices, and then it just kind of… there was an unspoken agreement that it wasn’t going to meet again, and we all just kind of left one day without even saying proper goodbyes. [laughs] And then we never… or maybe it continued on without me; I’m not sure if I was phased out or what. But it was a lot of fun for maybe five weeks.
Andrew: Never a disbanded group, but this kind of reminds me of when my fifth grade teacher tried to stop us kids from reading Harry Potter in school, and the parents, including my mom, were not happy about that. So there were attempts to disband the love of Harry Potter from the students. Didn’t work out, though.
Eric: Love that.
Laura: Well, we know Harry is a rebel now, so he has no intention of letting Educational Decree 24 stop the DA or shut the DA down. Unfortunately, the Gryffindor Quidditch team is not a secret society, so that does get shut down. Angelina informs him soon after this that the Gryffindor Quidditch team has also been disbanded. We learn that Slytherin was able to get their team privileges back very quickly from Umbridge, of course, because favoritism.
Andrew: And as we see across this chapter, Umbridge is taking her time to decide if Gryffindor can resume Quidditch activities or not, while Slytherin has gotten approval. To me, I feel like this is just Umbridge’s way of making sure Harry doesn’t piss her off – he stays good; he doesn’t try to step a toe out of line – because if she continues to hold Quidditch, the whole team’s Quidditch practices over his head, he is not going to want to stoke the fire. He’s going to stay as good as possible.
Eric: Yeah, it’s just… this is wrong. Their freedom is limited, and a single person that’s placed in charge, that’s Umbridge, can decide to unfairly penalize one group they like and another they don’t. This also opens the doors for bribery, flattery, any manner of non-equitable practices that are really meant to just restrict freedoms and really encourage bribery and lawlessness.
Micah: Bribery? What do you do, dangle a kitten out in front of her?
[Laura laughs]
Eric: I mean, maybe.
Micah: Maybe. Yeah, no question, it’s an issue of fairness, and there’s no reason if one Quidditch team was approved that the others shouldn’t be as well, right?
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: Well, Angelina speaks to her and she doesn’t give her a reason. She just says, “I’ll need to think about it.”
Micah: My question would be, who is Slytherin going to play against? Themselves?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, why not?
Andrew: Yeah, split the team up in half and do just that.
Eric: That’s one way to win the House Cup.
Micah: We don’t know, obviously, the status of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, but we have to assume that they’re probably in a similar category to Gryffindor. Maybe not to the extent of Gryffindor because of Harry, but it’s clear Slytherin got the fast track of approval.
Andrew: Well, and to your point, Micah, if I were McGonagall, I would be pissed about how unfair this is. Like you said, you can’t let the Slytherins play and other Houses not play. That makes no sense.
Laura: And unfortunately, the hits do keep coming for Harry. Not only is all of this happening, is he having to face the prospect of Umbridge really using the Gryffindor Quidditch team against him to kind of put him in his place… she’s trying to get him to remember what his place is, and the fact that he is inferior and that he is someone who is out of line just by existing. So not only is he dealing with that, but when he’s in History of Magic a little bit later, Hedwig very bizarrely shows up at the window trying to deliver a letter to Harry, which is unusual for her. She didn’t come with the other post owls at breakfast. And when Harry opens the window, brings her in – Binns, of course, doesn’t notice because he’s just doing what he always does – Harry notices very quickly that she’s hurt. Her wing is bent; her feathers are all jostled. It’s very clear that she’s in pain.
Andrew: Yeah. It’s disturbing; somebody is attacking Hedwig. I mean, Harry has already been attacked with the detentions, and now here comes… now his poor pet animal is being attacked as well. Nothing’s out of bounds here.
Laura: Yeah. Well, and I mean, he’s got to be thinking about all the possibilities for who could have done this, right? Because he just had Filch cornering him a few weeks ago, trying to intercept his mail, so he already knows that someone’s watching or attempting to watch. And I think there are a number of culprits that you could point to. Micah, were you going to say something?
Micah: Yeah, it just goes back to earlier; we were talking about the fact that the walls are closing in. It’s not just the Educational Decrees; now it’s the fact that Hedwig has been attacked. Like you’re saying, Filch was clearly suspicious of him a couple of chapters ago. He was suspicious of him last chapter prior to going to Hogsmeade; he’s literally sniffing him as he walks by him. And we’re going to see as we progress through this chapter, Umbridge is literally in every one of their classes, and then, of course, she’s in the fireplace at the end of the chapter. So there’s no real safe space now for Harry to operate. There’s no safe space for him to exist as a student.
Andrew: No privacy. Privacy nightmare.
Laura: Completely. Well, Harry, of course, would want to take Hedwig to Hagrid before anyone else to help mend her, but he’s obviously not available. So Harry goes in search of Professor Grubby-Plank, goes to the staff room, and when he meets with her about mending Hedwig and observes that he thinks Hedwig has been attacked, she looks at Hedwig and drops this piece of foreshadowing in saying, “Thestrals will sometimes go for birds, of course, but Hagrid’s got the Hogwarts Thestrals well trained not to touch owls.” And this is so funny because right after, Harry’s inner monologue is literally like, “I don’t know what Thestrals are, and I don’t really care.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: But it’s like, no, actually, you do want to know what they are.
Andrew: What I had forgotten was that it takes Harry so long to actually put a term on these creatures he had seen earlier in the book, whereas in the movie, doesn’t he learn right at the beginning? When Luna is like, “They’re called Thestrals”?
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: It’s pretty early.
Andrew: This is an ongoing mystery in this book.
Eric: Well, right, it’s funny because in Book 3, Harry sees the Grim all year, and he’s trying to not believe that it’s the Grim or something; he’s going away. Now he’s got this other mystery creature that he doesn’t know anything about that maybe only he can see. I don’t know. Yeah, you’d think that he would want to learn what they are, absolutely. I was impressed by the vote of confidence here from Grubbly-Plank; she gives Hagrid a compliment, essentially. It’s not that they ever had beef; they absolutely probably never did, but we like to pit them against each other because Harry is so pro-Hagrid, so aggressively pro-Hagrid. But it’s nice to see Grubbly-Plank give that, by her estimate, Hagrid did a great job with the Thestrals.
Micah: Right, but not as professor for Care of Magical Creatures. As the groundskeeper of Hogwarts, that would be one of his responsibilities, right? To keep the Thestrals in check?
Eric: Well, given that they’re employed by the school… yeah, that’s interesting. It probably crosses both territories.
Laura: Grubbly-Plank strikes me as an extremely professional person who’s not going to have beef with her coworkers, and she’s not going to walk into Hagrid’s classroom and have an automatic assumption of superiority for her own skills, or think to compare and contrast herself. She just seems happy to be there, honestly.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, it reminds me we were talking about her a few chapters ago when Umbridge was watching her lesson.
Laura: Right.
Andrew: She wasn’t mad that Umbridge was there, and when Umbridge is like, “Oh, you’ll get your report back in a week,” Grubbly-Plank just goes, “Jolly good. Okay. Time for a cup of tea.” She just doesn’t care. She’s just there for the ride and enjoys teaching, clocks in, clocks out, doesn’t overthink it.
Micah: But I wouldn’t cross her. There’s something about her… she smokes a pipe. She has a badass element about her.
Laura: Oh, yeah, I agree.
Andrew: It’s “Plank” in her name. I think she’s a pirate.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Or Wilhelmina, right? That’s her first name that we learn in this chapter?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah. [laughs]
Laura: As they’re having this interaction, and before Harry leaves Hedwig with Professor Grubbly-Plank, McGonagall asks Harry where that letter came from, and she kind of has her eyebrows raised, looking at Harry suspiciously. Harry says, “London”; she immediately understands that to mean Grimmauld Place, and she pulls him aside and basically says, “Hey, Harry, all the channels of communication in and out of Hogwarts are being monitored, so please do keep that in mind while you’re writing letters to and from your escaped convict godfather.” [laughs]
Andrew: As evidenced by your owl.
Laura: Yeah, exactly. So Harry now has confirmation that his letter could have been intercepted. I think he kind of tries to lie to himself and say that it wasn’t, because I think we see later on in the chapter how that turns out. But there is this moment that I felt as a pet parent. In this interaction, as Harry hands Hedwig over to Professor Grubbly-Plank and he starts walking away from them, Hedwig has this reproachful look on her face, like, “You’re leaving me with a stranger?!”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: “And you’re going on vacation?!” That’s what my dog thinks.
Laura: Right. So I was going to say, do any of us relate to this feeling as pet parents?
Eric: Oh, yeah. As a cat owner, my cat Martha… I really have been thinking about her a lot during the read-through of this chapter, because I would hate for her to be injured. How fragile tiny animals are compared to human strength… to realize what must have happened to Hedwig was that Umbridge manhandled her is devastating. When somebody that you don’t know or like manhandles your animal like that… there are very few instances where I would commit a homicide, but that gets me close. Do you know what I’m saying?
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: Do you, really, though?
Andrew: Yeah, you get defensive and you want to kill somebody. [laughs]
Eric: Who would hurt an animal, right?
Andrew: Right.
Eric: You’re a big, big, weak person to do that.
Laura: Listen, I like my dog more than I like most people, and I will leave it at that. [laughs]
Eric: Okay, yeah, you won’t couch to commit a homicide maybe one day, Laura?
Laura: Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.
Eric: Okay, all right. Well, because you know if this were Hogwarts Legacy, you’d be casting that AK.
Laura: Oh, that’s true. Totally.
Andrew: I think we can reel this back a little bit. I mean, we’re basically talking about the equivalent of leaving your dog with a petsitter or a vet, not a murderer. [laughs]
Eric: Okay, in that case… no, but I’m talking about the injury that caused her to need…
Laura: Yeah, who attacked Hedwig.
Andrew: Okay, got it.
Eric: But no, whenever I leave… when we take Martha to the vet, she’s meowing. [imitates Martha] She doesn’t really understand where she’s going in the car in the little carrier, and it’s devastating because we keep saying, “Hey, it’s okay. We’re taking you…”
Andrew: That’s the same noise Micah makes when he leaves me, actually.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: That’s so funny.
Micah: Yeah, separation anxiety from Andrew is really tough on me.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I totally understand where Hedwig is coming from, right? And it’s the same thing as being separated from Andrew.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Micah: But the reality for Hedwig, though, is it would actually be different if it was Hagrid, because she knows Hagrid. Hagrid was the one who gave her to Harry initially, right? So at least there’s some sort of relationship there. But this is also the staff office, and who knows if Umbridge is going to find her way into the staff office at some point and see Hedwig there being treated by Grubbly-Plank, right? And we were presuming that it was Umbridge, or at least on Umbridge’s orders that Hedwig was attacked, so wouldn’t that be scary for Hedwig to potentially come face-to-face again with the person who did this to her?
Andrew: Absolutely. And we see that in the Muggle world too; an animal gets abused, and then they don’t want to be touched. They don’t want to… they hate all men all of a sudden. They never forget that type of thing.
Laura: Right. Once Harry ascertains that Hedwig is in good hands, he finally gets to open his letter from Sirius, and the message is really simple and vague. Just says, “Today, same time, same place.” Same fireplace, as a matter of fact.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Laura: But Hermione here is quick to make the connection about Hedwig probably being intercepted, and floats this idea – like we just mentioned a few moments ago – of Harry’s letter being read and magically resealed, that it would be very easy to do. Harry is kind of in denial about it, and she even goes so far as to suggest that the Floo Network could be monitored as well, which Harry should be thinking of, because McGonagall literally just told him channels of communication are being monitored.
Andrew: Yeah, but at the same time they’re kind of stuck, because they can’t get a message back to Sirius. He’s going to be showing up in that fireplace, whether they want him to or not. It is too bad; this whole scenario got me thinking Hedwig and other magical animals should be able to communicate better with humans somehow, using a spell, a charm, brain waves… something. You would think there’s magic to allow a witch or wizard to read the mind of a animal or their pet, their designated pet.
Laura: Well, I’m sure Hedwig is probably thinking, “You can do magic; why don’t you fix me? Why are you leaving me with a stranger?”
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: “You heard of Skele-Gro?”
Eric: Listen, Harry never had a proper healing class in Care of Magical Creatures. He’s still only in his fifth year.
Laura: Hedwig doesn’t care about that.
Eric: He should have learned to do it, though, because she’s been mistreated before by the Dursleys. And in fact… well, and here’s the other thing: If Grubbly-Plank or whoever the Care of Magical Creatures teacher is would pay regular wellness checks to the owlery, then all the owls would be familiar with her.
Laura: True.
Eric: Who’s actually watching after those owls and their wellbeing?
Micah: Nobody. It’s a free-for-all.
Laura: [laughs] Just their owners.
Eric: Dung on the floor… yeah.
Micah: And Andrew, you brought up the point, though, that Sirius is going to show up no matter what. But couldn’t Harry have gone to McGonagall to send a message to Grimmauld Place?
Andrew: Oooh.
Micah: Presumably her communications aren’t being watched, at least not yet, and we know that the Order communicates via Patronus, so perhaps there was another way around this. I mean, I feel like we’re going to go back and forth on this a lot throughout Order of the Phoenix, in terms of communicating with Sirius and whether or not he should show up in certain places.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, maybe Harry didn’t want to tell McGonagall that it was Sirius who wanted to come knocking; that’s my only guess. I think your point is good otherwise.
Laura and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: You feel like it would have gotten both of them into trouble probably?
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: I don’t know, though; I feel like McGonagall would be able to put two and two together because she knows who the letter is from, and she’s like, “By the way, all channels of communication are being monitored.” I think it would be a pretty easy guess to make.
Micah: But Sirius lives for that risk, though.
Laura: He does.
Micah: I don’t think it would deter him all that much.
Laura: We’ll see that in his character later on when they have their Floo conversation. But for now, we need to take a quick break for a few words from our sponsors, and then we will be back to talk about why Neville has had it!
[Andrew laughs]
[Ad break]
Laura: All right, and we’re back. And first of all, a theme in this part of the discussion, and what I’ve titled this part of the discussion, is, “Why is this [censored] everywhere?”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: She’s everywhere! Does she have a Time-Turner? I just feel like she’s everywhere.
Andrew: This is her job! Hogwarts High Inquisitor.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: She’s got to be everywhere.
Eric: She takes it very seriously.
Andrew: Yes.
Laura: Well, unfortunately, she is pretty much literally everywhere, as we will see throughout the rest of the chapter. But to poor Neville… when they go to Potions there is this fight that very nearly breaks out, because Malfoy at one point gloatingly suggests that Harry is going to have to be carted off to St. Mungo’s soon to a special department that cares for people who’ve had their brains “addled by magic.” And of course, we know to Neville, that’s his parents that Malfoy is making fun of, and of course, Neville launches at Malfoy. Harry knows why. Nobody else seems to know why, because Harry is, I think, one of the few people who knows this particular backstory of Neville’s at this point. But Harry and Ron do stop him before he can do any damage. Snape still takes points from Gryffindor, like you do.
Eric: Ugh, of course.
Laura: But what do we think of what Neville does here?
Andrew: I have no issues with it, but I do think this scene is a good reminder to everybody that you never know what somebody is going through, so you can’t say things like this. You can’t insult, let’s say, somebody’s personal appearance; you never know what’s hiding underneath the surface. So to me, that’s what struck me about this; it’s that this cuts deeply for Neville. And Malfoy, I would like to think, in his later years regretted saying such a thing, but at the same time, Malfoy is a bully, so this is just what he does. But yeah, I have no issues with how Neville reacted. Malfoy deserved it.
Eric: I feel like it is ultimately a good thing that Harry and Ron have to pull him back, if for no other reason than that Crabbe and Goyle were waiting, and you know that they would hit Neville harder than he’s able to get to Draco, so nobody would have come out of that better off. But I think that the genuine flash of surprise on Draco’s face shows that he himself was maybe not expecting the effect of his words, to Andrew’s point, and that’s unfortunately the kind of thing… it’s the kind of reaction you need to keep giving Malfoy, because he’s never going to stop. He says wildly inappropriate things about everyone all the time later on the Quidditch pitch, which actually does lead to a fist fight that gets Harry expelled permanently from Quidditch. So I just feel like unfortunately, Malfoy’s personality, the only way he’s going to learn is by having people react the way Neville is reacting.
Micah: I agree. Yeah, it’s a perfect example of where making a joke can have unintended consequences. And I don’t think any of us for a second believe that it would be beneath Malfoy to poke fun at Neville’s parents. I don’t think in this moment he has a clue.
Eric: Agreed.
Micah: I don’t think it’s ever been probably communicated to him by his father that Neville’s parents are in St. Mungo’s; I think it just happened to be one of those situations where he said something. And he’s lucky that Harry and Ron were there, because I do think he would have been able to get at Malfoy for a period before Crabbe and Goyle decided to step in, because they only step in when they see Harry and Ron hold back Neville. But one of the other things that I think is really important to mention here, though, is just the fact that Harry has stayed loyal to his word to Dumbledore to not tell about Neville’s parents. Even in this moment, he could have explained to Ron and to Hermione why Neville did what he did, but he chooses not to, and I think that’s one in Harry’s column.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: Speaks to his character.
Micah: Versus Dumbledore, who just lies to Harry constantly.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Right.
Andrew: But Harry can keep a secret; he knows the big impact this has on Neville. Honestly, if I was in Harry’s shoes, I’d probably tell Ron and Hermione. They’re my besties. We’re the trio, right? You tell your bestie everything, pretty much. I would tell my bestie this.
Laura: Oh, I don’t know. I feel like if somebody comes to me with something that is this horrific and asks me to keep it secret, I will keep that secret. If, I don’t know, it’s something that’s very much low stakes and isn’t going to have impact if I tell my partner, I’m like, “Oh, guess what Andrew told me today?” That’s different.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: “Guess what Andrew told me? Micah purrs when he leaves him.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: I love that.
Micah: But that’s well known, isn’t it?
Andrew: [laughs] Now it is.
Laura: Yeah, it’s not a secret.
Andrew: No, I just think that Harry can trust Ron and Hermione with any secret, so by extension, he’s allowed to tell them this. I respect Harry for keeping the secret, but I also think he could be more open with Ron and Hermione, and it’d be okay.
Laura: Well, he’s not being Wormtaily, okay?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Wow.
Andrew: Yikes. It has to get so personal, Laura.
Micah: But this is part of Neville’s glow-up, too, right? In this book.
Laura: Yeah, it is.
Micah: This is one of the steps in that direction.
Laura: I wonder here if Neville understands the family connections at play with his parents. Because I genuinely agree; I don’t think that Malfoy knows what happened to Neville’s parents, and if he knows what happened to them, I doubt he knows that his auntie did it. But I wonder if Neville has made the connection that not only is Malfoy saying this horrible thing, but he is the nephew of the woman who did it.
Eric: Could be.
Laura: That makes it even worse, even if Drago doesn’t know. [laughs] Well, we finally do get the show that Harry was hoping for in terms of showdowns between professors. We have Umbridge v. Snape today in Snape’s Potions class.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: And this just makes me think of the iconic montage in Order of the Phoenix that we get with this wonderful moment of Alan Rickman perfectly delivering the energy of this scene, when Umbridge is like, “You’ve applied for Defense Against the Dark Arts x number of times? And you’ve been unsuccessful?” And he’s like, “Obviously.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: When I read over this for this chapter it still made me smile, because I thought back to that scene.
Andrew: It’s classic.
Laura: It was so well done. But yeah, she obviously points out that while he has taught Potions consistently during his tenure at Hogwarts… and it’s very interesting to me, because with Trelawney and Snape, there’s a specific point made to make sure that both of them say exactly how many years they’ve been there, which they’re both very important to Harry’s story.
Eric: Yep.
Laura: So that’s interesting from a plot perspective. But when she asks Snape, “Why do you think the headmaster has not given you the position?” and Snape says, “You should probably ask Dumbledore about that.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: But ultimately, we know this is because the chess master ain’t going to put Snape in the cursed position until the opportune moment. He loves his opportune moments.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: He loves ’em.
Laura: How would he explain that to Umbridge?
Eric: Well, whatever Snape said to explain it would have repercussions on her in that role, because she’s about to be ousted for that same curse. If she has any misgivings about staying in the role she’s currently in teaching DADA at Hogwarts, she has another thing coming, but why would he do her the favor of telling her that?
Laura: Well, Umbridge also kind of compliments Snape. She says, “This class seems pretty advanced for their level,” but then she also suggests that the Ministry would prefer Strengthening Solutions be removed from the curriculum, and a Strengthening Solution is what it sounds like it would be; it’s a potion that makes you physically stronger. Why do we think it is the Ministry doesn’t want students at Hogwarts learning this?
Eric: I don’t know.
Andrew: They don’t want the kids to turn into a version of the Hulk, right? And take down Umbridge.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: The Society for Hulk Prevention.
Andrew: And any other Ministry… [laughs] Society… yeah, what’s the acronym there?
Eric: SHP.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, I like it. Yeah, and I mean, in terms of complimenting Snape, I wonder if this is more setup for Harry and the reader to further think that Snape is a bad guy; we can’t trust him. “Umbridge is signing off on Snape? There’s more proof that he sucks.”
Eric: Yeah, that’s not bad. Although, if he were being openly horrible to one of his students, as he usually is, I’m sure she’d give him even higher marks somehow, right? This is a pretty innocent lesson from Snape’s standpoint; they’re just doing a thing. But yeah, if she saw him really in action, she would fall in love, I think.
Laura: Eugh.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I don’t think that’s what he wants.
Eric: You know, he needs someone to take his mind off of Lily.
Andrew: What’s worse, the love affair of Voldemort and Bellatrix, or a hypothetical affair between Snape and Umbridge?
Eric: We need a Broadway show based on the Snape and Umbridge relationship.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Snape and Umbridge.
Andrew: [imitating Snape] “I love you, Dolores.”
Laura: Voldemort/Bellatrix is horrible, don’t get me wrong…
Andrew: [imitating Snape] “You are the apple of my eye. You are the pink apple of my eye.”
Eric: Oh my God.
Laura: [laughs] No, thank you.
Eric: Well, I’m kind of upset that Snape, just for… not devil’s advocate, but just sneakily… because Umbridge has a rare moment of being candid right now when she says the Ministry would prefer they maybe didn’t do Strengthening Solutions. He could very reasonably ask her why that is, and he doesn’t. And because as a reader, you kind of want to know what… it’s implied… you can guess what the reason is, as we all just did, but I wonder what Umbridge would say the reason is. Because that’s almost…
Andrew: And Snape must know too.
Eric: But that’s an indefensible kind of position, as a comment. It’s very damning for Umbridge to make that, because it’s very… on the surface level, why wouldn’t you want the students to be able to brew something that would maybe help keep them out of danger?
Andrew: Yeah, she is kind of saying the quiet part out loud.
Laura: Yeah, and I think it’s probably a case of Snape not asking the question because he already knows the answer.
Andrew: But I do think it would still be interesting to hear how Umbridge would spin it, to Eric’s point. Because I agree, Snape can figure it out himself; he’s a smart dude. But what happens when you put Umbridge on the spot like that?
Micah: I wonder how much direction, if any, Snape got from Dumbledore to just play along with Umbridge when he was being evaluated, because we know how important Snape is to Dumbledore and to this story. He doesn’t want to risk somebody like him getting sacked. Though I don’t think that would ever happen with somebody like Umbridge, because I feel like the Slytherin connection probably is important here too.
Laura: I agree. Yeah, because Umbridge is… I’ll say that I think she’s kind of going easy on Snape by comparison to what she does to the other teachers. Even Trelawney – who we’re about to talk about in a second – we know she’s not a great teacher. We know that she’s probably not really qualified to be doing what she’s doing. But Umbridge humiliates her in front of her students again and again, and we haven’t even gotten to the worst of it. So speaking of, she’s not having a great day because she got the results of her inspection back from Umbridge, and she’s not taking it well because it turns out she’s on probation.
Eric: Yeah, this hurts. This hurts to see.
Andrew: It does. It’s interesting watching Hermione react to this, too, because Hermione knows just how big of a fraud that she is. But reading this scene and looking at the headlines these days, I wanted to just make a real world connection statement. Trelawney is genuinely a fraud, at least part of the time, but what teachers are going through right now in the school is similar to what’s happening to federal employees in the US government, where they’re being asked to justify their work and prove their work, prove themselves worthy. And I just wanted to mention this because there are times where these books really… we can really tie them to what’s going on in the real world, and here’s an example of something that’s happening in these books and in the real world right now that we really haven’t connected before.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: I mean, Umbridge is using the guise of better educational reform. What she’s really trying to do, and what she’s succeeding at, is kneecapping Dumbledore. That’s why she’s appointed; that’s what she wants to do. And it’s unfortunate that somebody Trelawney, who is admittedly a complete fraud, is nevertheless… she has feelings and they’re hurt, and it makes her even less of an effective teacher, if something like that were even possible.
Andrew: Yeah, because then you’re second guessing yourself.
Micah: Well, and in both cases, you have individuals who are requesting this information that really don’t have the criteria to even be in this position in the first place.
Eric: Right, Umbridge is not an educator. She is tasked with evaluating educators, okay?
Laura: Yeah. She was appointed by the Minister…
Eric: For being cutthroat.
Laura: … who is also not an educator. [laughs]
Micah: Sounds similar to present day situations.
Eric: Nobody’s qualified.
Laura: Yep, lots of real life connections that we can make here.
Micah: We won’t go any further than that, because…
Andrew: Thank you.
Eric: It would just depress us.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: We’re here to make magic.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Well, we can feel bad for Trelawney for what she’s experiencing here. Even I think that it’s a little bit overboard. I think Trelawney… you take her for what she is, but you also understand that she’s been doing this for 16 years now, right? And she’s never been put on probation before now. So I can understand why it would be a shock to the system if you’ve been doing this job for all that time, and even if you know you’re a fraud, but you’ve still been showing up, and you’ve been doing well enough to not get put on probation, that sucks!
Micah: One of the things that stood out to me was that she is taking it out on her students a little bit. We see it with Neville. She’s physically assaulting him; not intentionally, but there is something to be said for that. However, I think a lot of what she is going through – the emotion that you’re talking about, Laura – it’s coming from the fact that it doesn’t seem like she’s getting any support. She’s been loyal to Dumbledore for these 16 years. Where is Dumbledore? He should be stepping in here. Obviously, he steps in at the most crucial of moments, but why not have him be supporting her in some capacity here? That’s where I think a lot of her frustration probably… because she goes on this rant and she talks about her dedication for so long of a period of time, and yeah, I’d be pissed off too.
Andrew: To back up my boy AD, is it possible that Albus has been talking with the professors offscreen? “Hey, just go along with what they’re doing right now. We don’t want to rock the Ministry boat too much, so we just have to sort of ride this out for a little while.” And maybe Dumbledore also met Trelawney down at the Hog’s Head to maybe get another prophecy out of her and comfort her.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Micah: Maybe.
Eric: They just missed that large group that was in there the other day.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Yeah, I can think of another way in which Dumbledore failed, though – sorry, Andrew – and that’s because Trelawney has been teaching for 16 years. We know she’s a fraud, but she could be operating under the delusion that she’s a good teacher because she’s been doing it for so long at this point that it’s become second nature. The problem is, if she was a substandard version of teacher the way that essentially Hermione encountered back in Book 3… and we’ve all known her to be just bad at teaching the subject; you don’t even need to be a real Seer to be able to effectively convey these methods that they’re using. It’s just she doesn’t… we never see Harry take it seriously, that she actually is inspiring within anyone – other than Lavender and Parvati – the desire to actually use this subject. It is a full-on branch of magic, and so Dumbledore should have, long ago, given her some level of coaching. We understand she’s only there because she is strategically valuable, because she heard the prophecy and she could be tortured into revealing it to Voldemort, which would be bad. But if you’re going to have somebody be this teacher here, go and give them the education and the skills to be able to actually teach the subject that you’re appointing them to. Otherwise, the second that a evaluator comes in, they’re going to do exactly what Umbridge did! I’m not saying Umbridge did the right thing, but we can see why Trelawney is now in hot water for not being a great teacher, even at surface level. At the very least, if Trelawney were a good teacher, you’d have more students rising up in outrage against Umbridge for putting Trelawney on probation. As it stands, that doesn’t happen.
Laura: No. I mean, as a student, you really couldn’t come to her defense, because it’s true.
Micah: I do think it’s important, though, that you differentiated between the fact that she’s not a fraud as a Seer, because she is a Seer, right? She’s a fraud when it comes to teaching, but how is that any different from somebody like Hagrid? And we could talk about that, but Hagrid is not a good teacher either, but we don’t… I mean, we do see him ultimately suffer the same fate as Trelawney, right?
Eric: No, that’s such a good point. I forgot… but the way you put it is right. She’s not a fraud as a Seer…
Micah: No.
Eric: … except she thinks that she is. Dumbledore has allowed her to think that she is a fraud, which, if he had actually just told her, “Hey, you made a legitimate prophecy; I can’t tell you what it was, but you did make one,” I think that would have, 16 years ago, gone a long way to boosting her confidence, which she lacks so deeply, and maybe would have helped her on her journey to being a good, competent teacher.
Laura: Well, and we also know she makes a second correct prophecy in Book 3, and I’m guessing Dumbledore never tells her this.
Eric: But that would be huge news, but she doesn’t remember making them and so as far as she knows, she is… she’s operating under the illusion that she is a false Seer and could not live up to her ancestry line.
Laura: Yeah. Well, I think probably she folds under the societal expectation that a Seer should be able to just predict the future on the spot at command, kind of like Umbridge tried to do. And probably the reality is that maybe that’s not how it works for Seers. Maybe it’s really actually normal for Seers to only have a handful of visions in their lifetime.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Laura: But we never get really any clarity on how that works.
Eric: Yeah, and I mean, no one alive today probably remembers a Seer that they knew and how it worked.
Laura: Yeah. Well, moving forward a little bit to the main event of the chapter, we find the trio in the common room. Fred and George are onto another phase of their Skiving Snackboxes, and we’ll chat about that a little bit in the odds and ends. But after everyone has gone to bed and only the trio remain in the common room, Sirius just appears in the fireplace, and he confirms for the trio that, at least from the Order’s side of the equation, they were overheard in the Hog’s Head by Mundungus. And even though he gives them a little crap for starting an illegal self-defense group, he’s looking at Harry with pride. He doesn’t have a problem with what they’re doing; he’s just very quick to tell them, “Oh, sweet children, this is so cute. Clearly, you’ve never formed an illegal society before. Let me help you.” [laughs]
Andrew: “You’ve got a lot to learn, Hermione.”
Laura: Yeah, she does. That’s what we talked about.
Eric: He even says, “Should have done it in the Three Broomsticks.”
Andrew: Yeah, I loved that he said that to her. [laughs] “And I think it’s great that you did this, but Molly doesn’t, so Ron, she wants you to be better.”
Laura: Yeah, exactly.
Eric: The whole Molly thing is really interesting to me, because Sirius is relaying the message that Molly wants Ron to not participate in this secret group. She knows that Harry is behind it with Hermione’s help; she knows that the three of them are putting this together because all that info she would have heard from Dung, and she does not approve. She tells to Ron, via Sirius, there will be plenty of time later for him to learn defensive magic, which means in a few years. My question for you guys is, is Molly in the same Order of the Phoenix as everyone else that’s talking about Voldemort being back?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: There is no three years from now! “There’s plenty of time later to learn defense.” It is an outrage what Umbridge is doing to classes.
Andrew: [imitating Hagrid] “It’s a scandal!”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Eric: These students need to learn defense! I understand Molly is worried, but how can you possibly justify her giving this message to Ron to just not participate? Because that puts him in harm’s way! Everything she’s hoping doesn’t happen to any of her children are going to happen if they can’t defend themselves.
Micah: To layer on to your question, Eric, how is her request any different than Percy’s?
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Rough.
Micah: He’s just the messenger, right?
Eric: Well, right, because…
Andrew: I think Molly is stuck between a rock and a hard place. She’s part of the resistance, but she’s also trying to be a mother, and I think that’s probably a really difficult position for her to be in, the mother of a child who’s also best friends with Harry Potter. There’s a lot at play here.
Laura: Yeah, that’s true. I think the thing is… I think where Molly goes wrong here is she doesn’t offer any alternatives, like to come at him and be like, “Hey, I understand. I want you to be able to help too. Let’s talk about some other ways that you can help that are not as dangerous as this.”
Eric: She’s downplaying the threat, is the problem. Maybe not fully consciously, but that’s what it amounts to. And I think the difference between – to answer your question, Micah, or to try to, because it’s a great question – what the difference is between what Percy says to do and what Molly says to do is that Percy tells Ron to go straight to Umbridge and confess everything Harry is doing.
Micah: That’s fair.
Eric: But Molly, in telling Ron not to join Harry and Hermione and the resistance, is essentially telling him to not be an effective resistor, is to lay down and allow the takeover of Hogwarts and everything to happen, is to be in some way complicit in the disarming of students in a time of great terror, so… they’re similar.
Andrew: She could have said something like, “Hey, I don’t want you to do this at the school. How about you come home? How about you come to 12 Grimmauld Place, and we’ll teach y’all some lessons there?”
Eric: Over Christmas break.
Andrew: Christmas break. A Christmas in training.
Laura: Yeah, that’d be a good idea.
Eric: Well, Harry could learn from Lupin again! It would be utterly amazing.
Andrew: Yeah, that would sell Harry on the idea, I’m sure.
Eric: Ah, that would be so good.
Laura: Definitely.
Eric: “Hey guys, why don’t…?” Yeah.
Micah: I don’t think it’s necessarily a fair place to put Sirius in either, delivering this message on her behalf.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: But I do think, though, at the same time, it speaks to what was brought up about the fact – Andrew, you mentioned this – Molly is in a tough spot, right? She can’t convey this because she’s on guard duty right now, and we know what she’s protecting, but also her family is so immersed in the Order. Arthur is in constant danger. We don’t know what Bill and Charlie necessarily are up to, but the fact that… go back to “The Woes of Mrs. Weasley” earlier in this book. She’s trying, in this moment, to do everything that she can to protect her family, and she recognizes the risk that somebody like Umbridge poses at Hogwarts, and she doesn’t want Ron stepping in it, so she’s trying to control the situation as much as she can.
Laura: True. It is a good point, because as you pointed out, literally everyone in the Weasley family is in danger in one way or another. And she’s probably thinking, “At least four of my children are at Hogwarts, which is probably one of the safest places for them to be, as long as they just keep their heads down and mind their business.” It’s probably out of frustration, too, I have to imagine, that she’s like, “Can you just not put yourself in danger, please? I have too much to worry about.”
Micah: 100%.
Andrew: Yeah, and none of us are parents here, so I want to include this comment from Michelle, who’s listening live on our Patreon tonight. She said, “I identify very much with Molly in this book as a mom. I would protect my kids at all costs, even if they are mad at me about it. She just is terrified something will happen to them. It is the worst nightmare.”
Laura: Totally.
Micah: Yeah, and we’ve mentioned this in a couple of episodes, too, but Molly lost two brothers in the previous war, and that has to be sitting in the back of her mind at all times.
Andrew: 100%.
Eric: And they could defend themselves.
Laura: Well, before Sirius can be much help in figuring out other locations for them to have DA practice, a certain stubby-fingered hand appears in the fireplace, kind of reaching and raking through the coals. Sirius even seems to sense that it’s coming in the fire; they see him looking around and looking behind him.
Andrew: He felt a little tickle on his backside.
Laura: Yeah. [laughs] Oh, God, please. I don’t need to imagine Umbridge doing that either.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: But this is just confirmation, again, of something Harry was told a few pages ago, that the Floo Network, just like every other channel of communication at Hogwarts, is being monitored. This is not a way for them to talk to Sirius. It’s not a way for them to talk to anyone, unless they go to Umbridge’s office, but they’ll do that later.
Andrew: Yes.
Laura: How much information do we think Umbridge is able to get this way? Can she see and not hear? Can she see and hear everything?
Eric: It’s weird. Maybe she… because Sirius looks around a minute before it happens, like he hears her come in the room kind of thing maybe, so Sirius is probably…
Andrew: Coming down the chimney. Ho, ho, ho! Hem, hem, hem!
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: She’s probably making a lot of noise, yeah. But no, the thing I appreciate the most is that Sirius has some level of sixth sense about it, and because he doesn’t have that sixth sense sooner, it indicates to me that she just joined the call or the conference or whatever, so that she would have heard very little, but enough to know who it was who was speaking to the Gryffindor common room.
Micah: My sense was always that she could sense that the Floo Network was being utilized in that particular part of the castle, so she knew somebody in Gryffindor tower was utilizing the Floo Network, but beyond that, I don’t think she knew who it was or what kind of conversation was going on.
Andrew: I agree with that take, because it’s described as her kind of thrashing around, trying to grab hold of something, which implies to me she doesn’t have a full handle on who is speaking, what is being said. She’s still trying to reach for it, grab it somehow, if that’s even possible.
Laura: Yeah, that’s what I was wondering. Would it be possible for her to touch Sirius somehow, via Floo Network?
Andrew: There’s a lot I would like to know about how this all works.
Eric: I think she could pull him through the fire into her office.
Laura: Oof, terrible.
Eric: And then kill him.
Micah: That would be bad for her, honestly. It wouldn’t go well for her.
Eric: You just don’t know, right? Yeah, the implication, I think, because her hands are swatting at him, or trying to grab him, I think she could put… the funniest use of the Floo Powder is the toast in the mouth of Amos Diggory, but it can get a lot more sinister than that.
Laura: Yeah, definitely. Well, that’s the end of our chapter, but we will get into our MVP of the Week and some odds and ends here.
Superlative of the Week
Laura: So for MVP of the Week, I have a question for y’all related to this very topic of Umbridge coming through the fire: What is the best way to react to Umbridge crashing your secret Floo call with your escaped convict godfather?
Andrew: I would try to slice her hand off and then throw water on the fire.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: Wait, what? You just have a stray knife?
Andrew: I’d grab the sword of Gryffindor and thrash it about, yeah, and then throw water on the fire.
Eric: Yeah, that could close the call. That would be like hanging up. I like it. I have a more of a comedic response. “Oh, shit, it’s the po-po!” And run, tripping over the back of the armchair behind you.
Micah: For me, look, it’s three on one. Pull that bitch through the Floo and light her ass up.
Andrew: [laughs] God.
Laura: My goodness, this went so much more violently than I imagined.
Andrew: I know.
Eric: I’m looking forward to all the bleeping that has to be done in post.
Micah: I was going to say maybe have Crookshanks lick her fingers and then she wouldn’t stick her hand in there anymore, but she likes cats. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, but she likes cats.
Eric: Oh, Crookshanks could get at her. That would be fun.
Laura: See, I was going to go the Hogwarts Legacy route here and cast Glacius on the fire to freeze the fire, as well as Umbridge.
Eric: I like that a lot.
Laura: To be like, “Try that again.”
Andrew: Me too.
Micah: That’s the PG version of all this.
Odds & Ends
Laura: And now we’ll get into some odds and ends here quickly. First thing: I wanted to call out the Sloth Grip Roll in Quidditch. This was something that Angelina called out as them needing to practice, and I just got a kick out of imagining what this would look like.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Laura: We’ve talked about this before, but the founders of Hogwarts thinking boys were untrustworthy. There is this moment in the chapter where Ron tries to charge up to the girls’ dormitory and the stairs turn into a slide, which he thinks is unfair, but Hermione is able to give him, I think, some pretty contextually appropriate reasoning for why that happens, based on when the castle was built. Crookshanks, very interestingly, during this sequence where Sirius is in the fire, is trying to get his face close to Sirius, and at one point Hermione even has to scoop him away from the fire to keep him from singing his whiskers.
Eric: Aww.
Laura: We’ve talked about before how Sirius and Crookshanks have a special bond, and we don’t get to see it a ton, but in moments where these characters are in the same space, Crookshanks takes the liking to Sirius that I don’t think he takes to anyone else.
Eric: Even Hermione.
Andrew: It’s really sweet.
Laura: Yeah, it is very sweet.
Eric: Yeah, Crookshanks was Sirius’s only connection to Hogwarts and the students when he had to be still outside the castle.
Laura: Yeah. And we briefly mentioned this in the discussion, but Fred and George are in the common room, and they seem to have found a new way around all of Hermione’s rules about advertising and testing their Skiving Snackboxes, and it’s to test them and demonstrate them on themselves, so they are literally demonstrating, over and over again, Puking Pastilles.
Eric: This is gross.
Laura: Yeah, one of the twins is just repeatedly barfing into a bucket, [laughs] and the other twin gives him the other tab so that he gets better again, and he’s just doing this over and over again. But they’re making a ton of money, and even Hermione has to admit begrudgingly that they’re not breaking any rules.
Eric: That she can find.
Andrew: But she also says that their skillset is useless…
Laura: Wrong.
Andrew: … when Harry wonders why they hadn’t done better on their OWLs, and I just found this so ignorant and book smart of her to say. They are street smart, and I know the activity that they’re participating in right now isn’t the sexiest thing to be doing…
Eric: Uh, it’s the opposite of that.
Andrew: … but you’ve got to look at the bigger picture here! They’re inventing very original products that students are entertained by. And yeah, they didn’t read about these in a book, but it doesn’t mean they can’t be successful with this skillset.
Eric: It’s just a failure of imagination on Hermione’s part if she can’t find something to get them to stop right now. She says they’re not breaking any rules she could find. Guess what? What about disturbing the peace? They’re retching repeatedly! The smell has got to be awful; the sound is distracting. Kids are doing homework in the common room, or trying to, and there has to be some level of disturbing the peace or just being freaking gross that… if I’m not even a prefect, I would go up to them and get them to stop somehow. This is just awful.
Lynx Line
Laura: Well, we also like to ask a question of the week of our supporters over on Patreon.com/MuggleCast, so we’re going to move into the Lynx Line now, and this is, again, our weekly question for listeners over at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. And this week’s question is what did Mundungus Fletcher do to get banned from the Hog’s Head 20 years previously?
[Eric laughs]
Laura: We learn that Mundungus was disguised as a witch in the Hog’s Head; that’s how he overheard what Harry and company were doing, and he’s in disguise while he’s monitoring Harry because he was banned from the sketchiest pub in town 20 years ago. Whatever this is, there is a grudge that runs deep here, because it does not seem like Aberforth is very discerning about his clientele. I think he’s happy to have anyone in there. [laughs]
Andrew: Let’s hear some theories, then. Xavier said,
“My guess, knowing Dung and Aberforth, is that Dung tried to steal and sell one of Aberforth’s goats.”
[Eric gasps]
“Seeing this, Aberforth exploded and let out a century’s worth of rage and anger.”
Eric: [laughs] Whoa!
“He hexed Dung out of his mind, and a battle broke out, which gave the pub its unique aura of unkemptness, and at the end of the battle, Dung gets banned from the pub. The message here is, NEVER MESS WITH ABERFORTH’S GOATS.”
Andrew: … in front of me.
Micah: Never, never.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Wow. Robert wrote, “Obviously, Dung told Aberforth that dogs are better than goats. He barely left with his head after that.”
Micah: Zachary, perhaps Zacharias Smith, says,
“As vile as Mundungus is, I’d like to believe he was doing the right thing this time by trying to liberate the poor goats. And by liberate, I mean steal them to make a profit, yet saving them from the perverse accusations against Aberforth in the process.”
Eric: He’s saving their honor.
Laura: The goats’ honor. Rachel says, “It absolutely had something to do with goats.” So many goats answers to this question, but don’t worry, there are some non-goat related answers coming up.
Eric: I love how you separated them. [laughs]
Laura: Yes. Yeah, I wanted us to be able to run through all the goat answers, because I knew that was going to be half of them, at least. So Rachel goes on to say,
“Maybe instead of stealing one, he slipped some goat hairs into Polyjuice Potion and gave it to Aberforth so Aberforth could be a goat. Obviously, that didn’t go well, since it’s not meant to be for animal transformation. Furious and humiliated, Aberforth banned Mundungus.”
Andrew: Mev, Jason, Ning, Catie, and Justin shared various theories about Dung stealing, selling, offending, and being caught alone with the goats, and also petting the goats.
Laura: “Petting” in quotation marks.
Andrew: “Petting” in quotes.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: So those are all the goat answers. How about the non-goat responses, Eric?
Eric: Yeah, Badgerforth says, “Probably stole a cauldron.” And yeah, seems simple, but seems plausible. And Eleanor says,
“I suspect it was something very mundane. Fencing stolen goods! But that’s not so fun… I have an image in my head that won’t go away of party animal Mundungus dancing on the bar and swinging from the chandeliers. I think he could have a secret alter ego that comes out at times, but is perhaps not quite the right vibe for the Hog’s Head.”
That’s fun.
Micah: Angela said,
“Aberforth was doing some inventory in a different room when Mundungus snuck in and set up an unsanctioned karaoke event. He locked Aberforth in the stock room for a few hours while the Hog’s Head inn turned into the wild party place to be. Mundungus even decorated it all with brightly colored decorations. It was so popular, cheerful, and full of witches and wizards having so much fun. Aberforth was furious when he finally got out that he banned Mundungus, and Mundungus was heartbroken, which led him to become who we now know today.”
Laura: Wow. Rachelle says, “He was definitely ‘nicking things’ (mugs, etc.) to resell.”
Andrew: And finally, Emily said,
“He got caught trying to sell stolen crystal goblets that he had previously stolen from the Hog’s Head. Aberforth wasn’t even mad about the theft, but at Dung’s complete stupidity. And the Ministry is still holding the goblets for ‘evidence,’ which explains the dingy glasses there now.”
Laura: Oh, yeah, that explains the dirty glasses.
Eric: It’s a theft deterrent, yeah. That makes a lot of sense.
Laura: I love the idea that the Hog’s Head at one point…
Eric: [laughs] Was fancy?
Laura: No, no, it was still decrepit as hell, but had these fancy goblets.
Eric: Oh, yeah.
Andrew: Great responses as always, everyone. And listeners, don’t forget, you can participate in the Lynx Line benefit every week by becoming a patron at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. There’s a link in the show notes, so please check it out. If you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by emailing or sending a voice memo that you record on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com. We’ll be having our next Muggle Mail episode at Episode 700, so just about a month away. We’ll celebrate that milestone episode of the show, read some emails, and we’ll plan a fun segment or two to celebrate the occasion. Next week, Order of the Phoenix Chapter 18, “Dumbledore’s Army” will be discussed.
Quizzitch
Andrew: Now it’s time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: This week’s Quizzitch question was: In the mid 20th century United Kingdom, pint glasses replaced what type of drinking vessel commonly made of glass, ceramic, or pewter? The correct answer is tankards, everybody, tankards, so Hagrid’s tankard is only a few years out of date. And 36% of people say they did not look that up, and this week’s winners are Buff Daddy; Granger Things; A Healthy Breeze; The Firewhisky-ordering prefect; The Hungry, Hungry Hufflepuff; Lock in Lockhart; and Hagrid’s “pint glass of mead” doesn’t have a great ring to it. I agree.
Micah: Where’s Tofu Tom?
Eric: Tofu Tom must have taken the week off. We saw him in the Slug Club… oh, you know what? It might have been an incorrect guess.
Laura: And now you put Tofu Tom on blast?
Eric: I didn’t want to put him on blast; I just…
Micah: I love Tofu Tom. It’s always so nice when the Quizzitch winners, at the very end, you hear “and Tofu Tom.” It’s like the completion of another week’s worth of MuggleCast.
Eric: Wow, that’s really touching.
Laura: Yeah, the show’s not complete is what Micah is saying.
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: And Tofu Tom will want to know what next week’s Quizzitch question is. Okay. What bird did the Ancient Greeks, Ancient Romans, and Genghis Khan all use to send their messages? It’s relevant to this past chapter. Submit your answer to us on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, or if you’re already on the MuggleCast website, maybe checking out our must-listens page or our transcripts, click on “Quizzitch” from the top main nav.
Andrew: If you would like more podcasting from the four of us, check out our other weekly podcasts, What the Hype?! and Millennial, for additional pop culture and real world talk. In our latest episode of What the Hype?!, we’re talking Nintendo Switch, which just turned eight years old, and we’re looking at what we would like to see from the Switch 2, which comes out later this year. Then over on Millennial, we’re discussing why Kindle users are mad about how Amazon is treating their ebooks, and we’re talking tipping culture in America. These shows are brought to you by Muggles like you; listener support is the only reason we’ve been able to podcast for two decades and counting, and there are a few great ways to help us out. Visit MuggleCastMerch.com to get official MuggleCast gear, including Laura’s pants, hats, hoodies, T-shirts, all kinds of things. Apple Podcasts users can subscribe to MuggleCast Gold, which gets you ad-free and early releases of MuggleCast, plus two bonus MuggleCast installments every month. And then for those benefits and more, pledge at Patreon.com/MuggleCast, and you’ll get access to the benefits I just shared, plus our livestreams, Lynx Line participation, a physical gift every year, a personal video message from one of the four of us that we record just for you, and you also get access to our Facebook and Discord communities. Lots of benefits to check out at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Another great way to help us out is by leaving a review of the show in your favorite podcast app, or telling one of your Muggle friends about the show. No matter how you support us, we really appreciate it. We’re just an independent podcast, and we’re looking for support any way you are willing to help us out. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: We’ll see you next week. Watch your fireplaces.
Laura and Micah: Bye.