Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #736, Gin and Tomic (HBP Chapter 13, ‘The Secret Riddle’)
Cold Open
Micah: Harry meets a younger version of Voldemort in both of these chapters. There are Horcruxes present in both.
Andrew: Was there gin in this chapter of Chamber of Secrets?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Oh, I didn’t check.
Andrew: Yeah, let’s go back and check that, please.
Eric: Just in my hand while I was reading it…
Micah: It’s too early. It’s year two.
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your weekly ride into the world of Harry Potter. I’m Andrew.
Eric Scull: I’m Eric.
Micah Tannenbaum: I’m Micah.
Laura Tee: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: And we are your four Harry Potter friends, talking about the books and the movies and the upcoming TV show, so make sure you follow us in your favorite podcast app, and you’ll never miss an episode of the show. This week, pull up a seat and pour yourself a nice glass of gin, just like I have tonight, because we’re discussing Chapter 13 of Half-Blood Prince, “The Secret Riddle.” I’m not going to sip it until we get to the part where this plays a role, so I’m completely sober for the next few minutes.
Eric: So did you add ice, Andrew? So it’s just going to dilute between now and when the part of the chapter comes?
Andrew: Yeah, which I don’t mind. I don’t mind. That helps. That helps with the potency.
Eric: Yeah, watered down gin.
Laura: Hmm, okay.
Andrew: Yeah, I don’t want to get too crazy during the podcast.
Eric: [laughs] Not until the bonus.
Micah: We need you for bonus.
Laura: Yeah, we’ve never done that before.
Andrew: I need this gin to cope with Micah’s questions during this week’s bonus MuggleCast. That’s the real reason why I’ve grabbed this glass of gin.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: We’ll tease that in a minute.
News
Andrew: I wanted to share with everybody that the Prisoner of Azkaban full-cast audiobook is out now. They’ve been releasing one of these through Audible every month, so we’re up to Book 3. Notably, David Holmes is voicing Stan in this audiobook, and Iwan Rheon is voicing Ram… [laughs] Sorry.
Eric: He’s voicing Ramsay Bolton.
Micah: [laughs] He’s already done that.
Andrew: Maybe I am drinking the gin already. Iwan Rheon is voicing Lupin. Now, you might remember this guy from Game of Thrones. He played Ramsay.
Laura: Very different character.
Eric: Yes. If you don’t remember him from Game of Thrones, you’re lucky. He had a very lasting impact in a… well, the character was sort of traumatic…
Micah: Sort of. [laughs]
Eric: … but I’m sure his Lupin is good. I’m looking forward to listening to it.
Micah: He was arguably one of the most sinister characters in the entire Game of Thrones series.
Laura: Yep.
Andrew: And now he’s playing one of the best characters.
Micah: So to have him playing my favorite character in the Harry Potter series…
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Micah: Though the videos he did with Alfie Allen, who played the young Greyjoy, were great. So I’m excited to listen to this book.
Andrew: But listeners might be wondering who David Holmes is, and his casting for this book is actually a feel-good story for Harry Potter fans. David was Daniel Radcliffe’s stunt double for the first six Harry Potter movies, and during a stunt test for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows back in 2009, Holmes was partially paralyzed after a harness accident. He later published a memoir and a documentary about his experience. I watched the documentary – it came out a year or two ago – and I would highly recommend it for Harry Potter fans. It’s called The Boy Who Lived, and it’s on HBO Max. Dan Radcliffe also appears in it. So it’s just really wonderful to see that David Holmes was seriously injured on the set of the Harry Potter movies – he couldn’t continue after that accident – but now he has another role in this new work, so that just warms my heart. So check out that audiobook if you are curious, and we’re going to do a review of the audiobooks at some point in the weeks and months ahead. Before we get to Chapter by Chapter, if you love MuggleCast and want to feel as good as Mrs. Cole after just one night with Dumbledore… huh.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: We invite you to become a member of our community at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. We have exciting plans for the show this year with new content, including new Harry Potter TV show-focused episodes that will kick off next month, so we could use your support in making those happen. And by joining our Patreon, you’ll instantly receive two bonus MuggleCast episodes every month, plus ad-free episodes of the show, access to our livestreams, and a lot more. Micah, what are we doing on bonus MuggleCast this week?
Micah: What aren’t we doing on bonus MuggleCast this week?
Eric: Behaving.
Micah: We are taking some Harry Potter hot takes and putting them to the test and seeing whether or not we agree or disagree. And I think, as we alluded to towards the tail end of last year, we’re adding a little bit more of the adult theme to our bonus MuggleCasts, so be warned.
Eric: That’s right, we’re turning 21. Our little baby podcast is now a full grown adult.
Andrew: And our listeners have aged with us, and it’s time to have a little more adult fun in our paywalled content, at least. Check that out at Patreon.com/MuggleCast this week. And if you’re looking for other ways to support us, you can leave us a review in your favorite podcast app. You can tell a fellow Muggle about our show. You can also visit MuggleCastMerch.com to buy official show gear.
Chapter by Chapter: Pensieve
Andrew: Now it’s time for Chapter by Chapter, Half-Blood Prince Chapter unlucky 13, “The Secret Riddle.” Maybe lucky for Tom Riddle.
Eric: Yeah, and apparently Dumbledore gets lucky based on what we just said? I don’t know. But we last talked about this chapter way back on MuggleCast 401, an episode titled “Old Testament Dumbledore” that aired on…
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: I love that title. It aired on January 14, 2019, and here’s a clip in our Pensieve from that show.
Dumbledore: What you are looking at are memories. This is the most important memory I’ve collected. It is from MuggleCast Episode 401.
[Sound of memory uncorking]
[Sound of plunging into Pensieve]
Andrew: There’s also the mention of the mouth organ?
Eric: Oh, God.
Andrew: We Americans find that disgusting. Just call it a harmonica! It’s such a gross… because I’m thinking organs like human organs. I don’t know. It’s just such a gross description for harmonica. [laughs]
Eric: I mean, Book 5 is really when the American translators just gave up and stopped coming to work.
Andrew: [laughs] You are so crazy.
Eric: No, it really, absolutely is. There’s so many instances in Book 5 and Book 6 where little old uninformed, uneducated, American me is not sure what the hell is going on in this Harry Potter book, and “mouth organ” took me eight years to figure out that it was a harmonica. I don’t know.
Micah: You could have just googled it.
[Sound of exiting Pensieve]
Dumbledore: This memory is everything.
Andrew: Mouth organ, I stand by saying that that’s a gross phrase, but I’m glad they kept it mouth organ. I did not know that that was the harmonica this time around.
Micah: To fact check myself, could you have Googled it in 2005?
Laura: Yeah, surely.
Andrew: Yeah, Google was around.
Eric: Well, this was 2019. Yeah, this was 2019 that we talked about that.
Micah: Oh, this was 2019. Never mind.
Andrew: But if you read it for the first time in 2005, Google existed in 2005.
Eric: Oh, I see, I see, I see.
Andrew: Come on, Micah. I know you’re very young; I know you were born after 2005, but we could definitely… Google existed.
Micah: I was born after 2005? [laughs]
Andrew: That’s a joke. [laughs]
Eric: No, I understand what you’re saying. I stand by what I said there; it’s one of those wonky “Would it have been so hard for them to just call it what we know it as?” moments. Just for the US version; they don’t have to do anything special for the UK and the Aussies and the Canada and the New Zealands, but…
Laura: Yeah, but are we really so special and important that they have to put out a whole separate American translation just for us?
Andrew: Exactly.
Micah: Of course.
Eric: Yes. Yes.
Andrew: No, we’re not.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: They did it for the first four books. Why not keep going?
Laura: Because they were popular and making enough money at that point they didn’t have to.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: That’s what I’m saying. They made some cuts.
Micah: No more…
Andrew: That’s what I’m saying. [laughs]
Micah: Well, let’s punt some mouth organs…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: … and begin this Chapter by Chapter discussion.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Micah: So we last left Harry, and he witnessed a pretty horrific scene with Katie Bell. And this chapter opens with Harry in a pretty testy mood, and he carries this all the way into his second lesson with Dumbledore, which is where this chapter opens. And I don’t get it, Harry. He’s very on edge. He’s like, “Well, I want to know what happened to Katie, and why are you not investigating Draco? And where have you been, Dumbledore?” I likened it, though, as I went through the chapter, to Tom’s attitude towards Dumbledore when they first meet, and I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about this. Maybe we can draw some parallels between the two, because they both come off very demanding of Dumbledore in this chapter.
Laura: It’s a great connection.
Eric: Yeah, I wonder if people who give off the air, like Dumbledore does, of being responsible, if it’s a shame that we rely on them to do the responsible thing. Because for Harry, he’s at least been burned before by Dumbledore – all of last year comes to mind – and so his sort of impatience with Dumbledore, I feel, is warranted. But Tom, on the other hand, doesn’t know this guy. He’s come to change his life – it’s only a positive thing that Dumbledore is there to do – and yet Tom is relying on him for all of the facts, and, “Tell the truth. You’d better.” But it is an interesting connection.
Andrew: But I think the through line there is that Harry has felt distant and disconnected from Dumbledore and almost like he doesn’t know him, just like Tom doesn’t know him truly in this flashback scene. And to your point, Eric, Tom and Harry both feel like they have a lifeline in Dumbledore, because they both want to know what Dumbledore has to say; they just haven’t heard much up until now.
Eric: But he’s playing his cards.
Andrew: Yeah, so different circumstances, but I definitely see some overlap there because of how Dumbledore has treated Harry so far.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: I mean, ultimately, he’s withholding the answers that both of them are desperately looking for. I think that explains it. But I think in Harry’s case, it’s a little more justified, just given the fact that less than six months ago, canonically, Dumbledore was like, “Hey, I’m going to tell you everything,” [laughs] except he doesn’t do that.
Eric: Well, and the pretense for these lessons is “I’m going to tell you additionally everything that you do need to know about how to defeat Voldemort,” so the onus is kind of on Dumbledore to be more forthcoming, at least with Harry. With Tom, I would say he’s too young, sure, to know everything about the wizarding world. He’ll have years and years to acquaint himself with the world. Yeah, but for Harry, I think Harry is right to be upset.
Micah: Even Phineas Nigellus Black picks up on it, right? And he has this running commentary throughout Harry and Dumbledore’s initial conversation, and basically is shouting little things like, “Such insolence,” and the fact that “If this ever happened in my day…” That’s the kind of impression that I got, that Phineas would definitely have not allowed Harry to speak to him the way that he speaks to Dumbledore.
Eric: I wonder if even Dumbledore lets other people speak to him the way that Harry is right now. I think maybe precious few people could approach Dumbledore like this; be like, “Hey, where’ve you been?” and stuff to Dumbledore.
Micah: It is unfortunate a bit, though, because it feels like some of the things that Harry brings up to Dumbledore are more just… they’re not as important as what they are ultimately there to do that evening, and I’m thinking specifically about Katie Bell, I’m thinking about Draco, because when Harry does start to press Dumbledore about Draco… I wanted to ask, are we to assume that he already knows the truth? That he’s aware that it was, in fact, Draco who attacked Katie? And if so, I think there’s a huge moral dilemma here, right? Are we just going to give Draco a free pass for almost killing a fellow student?
Andrew: Yeah, I do get the impression that Dumbledore already knows what Draco was up to. I can also see why he might feel like it’s not time to tell Harry yet. I know we often criticize him for waiting too long to share information, but is this the right time to tell Harry that Draco is trying to kill him? Dumbledore? I mean, Harry’s mind would explode if that were the case, so this is just not information he needs to hear right now. Maybe he can tiptoe around it differently. I don’t know any other way to present this that would have prevented Harry from panicking.
Laura: It would come with him having to tell Harry, “I’m going to die, I already know I’m going to die, so because I’m going to die, I’m allowing Draco Malfoy to commit all of these vile acts all year to position him to kill me at the end.” Right? Harry is not subtle, and I just don’t see him letting that plan ride out, so I really think Dumbledore is just letting this happen for the plot.
Eric: I think, too… but if Harry is in danger, he should be told, right? And so we see how throughout this year, Draco’s reckless abandon when it comes to poisoned or cursed artifacts keeps getting people near Harry, including even Ron, if I’m not mistaken. Just pretty messed up. And so I think that it really comes down to Dumbledore is making a choice here, and it’s not the best choice, I feel like. What Dumbledore tells Harry in this chapter is he will investigate all parties involved with the whole incident with Katie. Now, if that’s true, it doesn’t just involve tracking down Draco and sending him to Azkaban in the middle of the school year, which would ruin all of the larger plans. It involves freeing Madam Rosmerta from the Imperius Curse, which I believe she remains under throughout the rest of this year. So that’s a situation where if Dumbledore had even taken a cursory look into how it was that the necklace came to be in the possession of Katie, they’d be able to free her even sooner. But hey, if you free Madam Rosmerta, does she start talking? Is that then a problem for Dumbledore?
Andrew: Dumbledore also describes Harry’s allegations as suspicions, which I think is a little belittling of the situation. “Suspicions” doesn’t… what he is saying is true, and Dumbledore probably knows that, and it’s almost like he’s shrugging them off. I just wish he approached this situation differently with Harry, maybe tried to figure out a way to give him a little more credit than he is. And then he quickly pivots to “What concerns me now, Harry, is our lesson, so move on.”
Micah: Well, he’s keeping the… what’s the phrase? He’s keeping the main thing the main thing, and if you look… yeah, what’s happened to Katie Bell is a problem, but is it as big of a problem of Voldemort coming back and having all these Horcruxes? Like, sorry, Katie. He brings up the whole situation with Mundungus and the fact that he’s taking care of that, so he’s got a lot of different things on his plate, but the most important thing is this memory, as you said, Andrew.
Eric: Well, I wonder if the reason why there isn’t more time for Dumbledore to get into these other things is because Dumbledore has not made the time to tell Harry everything he should know, limited to a single two-hour session every couple of weeks. Especially when something this big – like with Katie Bell – goes down, I think is malfeasance at best, as far as what could be communicated to Harry.
Andrew: Right, it’s sort of like we only have a monthly planning meeting for this podcast, so we don’t really have much time to dilly-dally. It’s like, “Let’s just try to cram as much information in as possible and not shoot the shit.” Seriously. Harry and Dumbledore really have no time to just talk, because Dumbledore has been out of the picture, and they have limited time to get the job done.
Eric: Yeah. So I feel like it’s a convenient excuse to be like, “Oh, what really bothers me is this memory! We’ve got to look at this; it’s so important.” It’s manipulative, I think.
Micah: It’s like when you come back from a long trip and the mail is piled up. That’s basically what Dumbledore is dealing with right here.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: And maybe he hasn’t had the time to adequately deal with all these situations. Presumably, with the way he talks about Mundungus, he’s gotten this information from Aberforth, which I think is a little bit happening below the surface; you have to read between the lines a little bit there. But yeah, he’s just gotten back to the school, and he’s got to attend to all these things. And again, the memory is the most important thing to share with Harry tonight.
Eric: Well, Micah, I love that you just mentioned the mail, because we happened to get something to our Muggle Mailbox earlier today, also regarding Dumbledore and Mundungus. This is from Rachel. Who would like to read this mail we got?
Andrew: I’ll read it. It says,
“Hey, y’all! Just wanted to add onto the Chapter by Chapter conversation in the Chapter 12 of Half-Blood Prince episode. We know that Sirius gave Harry the mirror that would allow them to communicate in Book 5. In Book 7, Aberforth has it and that’s how he saves Harry and crew by sending Dobby. I think when Mundungus and Aberforth are seen in the Hog’s Head, this is when Dung sells Aberforth Sirius’s side of the mirror. It look like he wrapped something in his cloak when he walked away, making me think he actually bought something. This might even be when Aberforth starts to check in on Harry, possibly on Dumbledore’s orders? Crackpot theory: Did Dumbledore tell Dung to give/sell the mirror to Aberforth for him to look after Harry after he died, and Dung went crazy with selling things? Anyways, just wanted to add this perspective! Love the podcast!”
Andrew: Thank you, Rachel.
Eric: What I love about this theory is it makes it even murkier for Harry to have witnessed Dung selling Sirius’s things, because if it turns out that Albus gave Mundungus permission to get the mirror from Grimmauld Place, then Dumbledore is directly responsible for the fact that Dung went crazy in Grimmauld Place, grabbed a bunch of other stuff that he’s now selling. So when he tells Harry, “Oh, rest assured, nothing else… Dung will not be selling any more of Sirius’s prized possessions,” he conveniently leaves out the fact, if this is true, that Dumbledore is the reason Mundungus was even there!
Laura: Yeah, it is interesting, especially since Dumbledore does not seem surprised at all that Dung was selling all of Sirius’s things. I like it.
Andrew: Yeah, that was disappointing to see from Dumbledore, too, that he was just like, “Yeah, yeah, it’s been happening.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Dumbledore does acknowledge that Dung is afraid of him, so that’s nice to hear. But yeah, he’s sort of just passive about it.
Eric: It does kind of speak to me like there’s some unacknowledged responsibility there on the part of Dumbledore, but maybe that’s a conspiracy theory.
Micah: Always love a good crackpot theory. But let’s get a little taste of the Pensieve first before we jump in in full, and we get a vision of Mr. Burke of Borgin and Burke fame. And this is a little bit of a different kind of magic than what we’re used to, right? We’re not seeing Harry immerse himself into the Pensieve and be in the memory; he’s witnessing it just like anything else in Dumbledore’s office, and the memory plays itself out on the surface of the Pensieve. So I’m curious why.
Andrew: It’s like a preview. It’s like a quick look. Do you know when you select a file on your Mac and you hit space bar, it brings up a preview?
Laura: [laughs] Yeah.
Eric: Oh my God.
Andrew: A little… without all the detail?
Eric: I need to try that. I don’t think I’ve ever done that.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s great. I use it all the time.
Laura: Oh, it’s really nice.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s kind of the impression I’m getting. Instead of being thrust into the memory – maybe it takes more magical power; maybe it’s a little physically burdensome – a nice little quick look. I think that’s really cool.
Eric: The closest thing…
Micah: It’s like the preview before the movie.
Andrew: Sure.
Eric: Well, yeah, like, “Coming soon to theaters.” Well, I just think that what it seems most like is the sequels to Fantastic Beasts had basically a security camera type thing in a cauldron, or they were able to cast a spell and see what was going on in different parts of the world at that time. It got a little muddy, but that’s the closest thing to this book event that I can compare it to. But as with anything that Dumbledore shows to Harry, I ask the question, what’s not being shown? Because we only see or hear this Caractacus Burke giving his testimony, it actually leaves out a lot of probably important or suspect detail, which is, who is he testimonying to? Is this fully of his own volition that he’s giving…? Because this is a pretty proud, bragging account of how he ripped off Voldemort’s mom. So I’m kind of curious, because again, if we knew this detail, if it was in fact Dumbledore who was directly being told about this, why wouldn’t Dumbledore want to take Harry into his pristine much-better-than-the-average-man’s memory? Doesn’t he brag about that in this…?
Andrew: Because there’s not much to add; that’s kind of what I’m thinking. He just wants to give Harry a little taste to help set up some additional context, and doesn’t need to do more than that.
Eric: Again, “Chop-chop. We’re in a hurry here for a meeting that I set. It expires in two hours, and we only have a limited amount of time, and we can’t be flexible. Sorry, Harry.”
Andrew: By the end of this chapter, Dumbledore says something about how “The night has gotten away from us,” or something like that. Going into these memories takes a lot of time.
Eric: Cast a spell! Freeze time. You’re Dumbledore!
[Micah laughs]
Laura: Isn’t this the same way that we get to hear the full prophecy in Order of the Phoenix? Don’t we see a projection of Trelawney on top of the surface of the Pensieve, giving the full prophecy?
Eric: I think that’s right.
Laura: So we’ve seen it before. I agree, I think it’s just a time saver, both for the characters, but also for the writer, so that she doesn’t have to write a whole scene of them diving into a memory just for that explanation.
Eric: Right.
Micah: Well, it’s the appetizer, right? It’s wetting the whistle a little bit here for what’s to come when we do go with Dumbledore to the orphanage and meet a young Tom Riddle. And we are going to get drunk with Dumbledore in just a minute. We do need to take a quick break, and we’ll be right back.
[Ad break]
Micah: All right, Andrew. Are you ready?
Andrew: Yes, what’s the name of this part of the discussion, Micah?
Micah: We are getting drunk with Dumbledore.
Andrew: Oh, woo-hoo! Hoo-hoo!
Laura: Sounds like a party.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: My ice has completely melted into the gin, so I’m ready to drink this watered down gin. Go ahead.
Micah: All right. Well, we enter the memory of Dumbledore this time, and we find ourselves at the orphanage where Tom Riddle grew up, where Merope Gaunt dropped…. “Dropped” sounds terrible. [laughs] Birthed…
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: That sounds even worse. Never mind. We’re just going to scrap that altogether.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: I want to talk a little bit about Dumbledore’s interaction with Mrs. Cole, who is really the caretaker at the orphanage, and more so his tactics. What it says about Dumbledore as a character that he chooses what, more or less… I mean, it’s not outwardly stated, but many believe to be the Confundus Charm on her. And then not only does that, but proceeds to get her drunk on gin. Her drink of choice, presumably.
Andrew: That’s my cue. Mine, too!
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Andrew Cole.
Andrew: Mmm, I’m drinking Empress 1908 Indigo Gin, and it’s purple, though now it’s blue because the ice diluted it. Not bad. Thank you, Costco.
Laura: How is it?
Andrew: It’s okay. Little stronger than I was expecting.
Eric: So Andrew, tell us about this Tom Riddle you have in your orphanage.
Andrew: [laughs] So I did find it interesting Dumbledore is taking this approach with Mrs. Cole, giving her gin, Confunding her. Why? I’m wondering if perhaps he had done some research on her and just found her to be a bit of a stubborn person, and the only hint we have here is that he privately describes her to himself as an inconveniently sharp woman. So maybe he needs to muddle her mind so she’s less sharp. Maybe if she wasn’t as sharp, she’d be less willing to send Tom off to a different school.
Micah: Yeah, it’s certainly possible. I also think Dumbledore is not above reading her mind or penetrating her mind and finding out that her favorite drink is gin.
Laura: Right.
Micah: And what I’d love to compare this to, though, is, is this any different than Tom using his powers on the other kids in the orphanage? It’s all a power play, right? If you think about it.
Eric: It has them at a disadvantage.
Micah: Exactly, they’re all at a disadvantage. Mrs. Cole is completely vulnerable here in this moment. Because not only is… I mean, she’s basically the magical version of drunk, and then she’s the Muggle version of drunk…
Andrew: [laughs] That must be a nice high.
Micah: … all at the same time.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Well, I mean, the end motivations for the two characters are quite different. Dumbledore is trying to save Tom Riddle, which is an overall altruistic thing he’s trying to do, right? But I think from Mrs. Cole’s perspective, she’s running an orphanage. And what year-ish is it supposed to be? If the Chamber of Secrets is…
Eric and Micah: It’s the ’40s.
Laura: Yeah, somewhere in the ’40s, and you have a bunch of children who are living there; they’re wards of this orphanage, of the state, what have you, and there are no adults who show interest in them. And then one day, this dude in a purple suit shows up being like, “I want to take this kid to my school.” I think it’s very reasonable, and actually shows that she’s doing her job, to be as suspicious as she is. So yeah, Dumbledore doesn’t really have much of a choice here.
Andrew: 100%. And despite the Confundus Charm and despite the gin, she does note that nobody really wants Tom there anyway, so she’s probably glad to see the backside of him, as I think she says. Even though he does have to keep coming back.
Micah: Well, do you think she might have put up a little bit more of a guard or more of resistance if she wasn’t drunk or under the Confundus?
Andrew: Yes, absolutely.
Laura: Yeah, totally.
Andrew: That was the whole point.
Eric: I think that’s it. Yeah, the only thing Dumbledore is preventing is harder questions being asked. Every time she seems to gain some semblance of curiosity, and, “Wait, what school did you say you were again?” Then oops, there’s gin, or oops, there’s a Confunding Charm. And Dumbledore sent a letter, he did the thing properly, he arranged an appointment by mail, but that was kind of just to get him in the door. The thing is, and it is a bit… it’s very for the greater good here, because think about, he’s allowing a wizard kid to go to wizard school and learn how to control the magic that he, Tom, is already abusing at a young age. So it’s probably a good thing, a net positive, that Tom went to Hogwarts at all, given where he would have ended up anyway, and so it’s very for the greater good. But if we really think about it, the Statute of Secrecy mandates that Dumbledore really not give any info to Mrs. Cole, any real, actionable truths about where it is Tom is going, why it is Dumbledore wants to take Tom there. Dumbledore’s hands are tied. He couldn’t speak to her if he wanted to…
Andrew: That’s a good point.
Eric: … and so all that’s left to do is confuse her and leave her feeling a little just forgetful about the whole situation.
Andrew: And less inclined to ask questions.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. So he’s trying to make a good impression, and here’s where I think we see the overall superiority complex that wizards have. I think that, to Laura’s point, what Dumbledore is doing here is pretty altruistic overall, but the means in which he uses to get this outcome are manipulative, and they remove the agency from this woman who actually is good at her job.
Micah: I also find it quite interesting that Hogwarts makes house calls like this. Dumbledore, at the time, is not headmaster, but still, the fact that he’s going out to this orphanage and trying to recruit Tom to Hogwarts is not all that dissimilar from what Hagrid does in Sorcerer’s Stone. But again, that’s a house call.
Andrew: Is there anything wrong with that, though?
Eric: I wonder if there’s deputies, because… yeah, sorry.
Micah: No, nothing wrong, but I guess for those who don’t have parents maybe, who are orphans…
Eric: I wonder if there’s a dispatch team.
Andrew: Exactly, yeah. I mean, it’s noted in this chapter that Dumbledore says that his name’s been down since he was born, so somebody has to go and get him. Why is it Dumbledore exactly? For the plot? Who knows otherwise? But yeah, somebody has to go get him.
Eric: Well, it’s a good call-out that Dumbledore at this time is not headmaster; it’s Dippet for another several years. So maybe Dumbledore is part of an advanced team that goes out to these either Muggle-born kids or kids who ordinarily wouldn’t find out, and is able to give the necessary context to whoever their provider, their caregivers are, or in this case, hoodwink them. Still, it’s very like Professor X and Magneto going to Jean Grey’s parents and being like, “Hey, we have a school.” Because it is Dumbledore’s school that he’s recruiting for, essentially. So that’s interesting.
Micah: Dumbledore does learn quite a bit from Mrs. Cole about Tom Riddle, and the first bit of information is that his mother requested that he be named Tom Riddle after his father, but take Marvolo as his middle name. So knowing how abusive Marvolo was to Merope, why in the world did she make the decision to include Marvolo in his name?
Andrew: It’s also noted that she died an hour after giving birth to him, and maybe she knew she was going to be dying giving birth to him, so I’m wondering if she was feeling sentimental in some way about naming him what she did.
Laura: Probably.
Eric: I think also, when you’re somebody who’s as abused as Merope is, I feel like you can’t really… you don’t know it. You can’t see it. You can’t really see that… so I think she really loved her father. She really loved Marvolo, despite his constant attacks, physical, emotional, etc., etc., and she was raised in a very patriarchal household that really, really values male heirs, and so honoring her dad in this way was just what you do, or what she was taught to do. Even though a more feminist reading of this would be like, “Name him something that you love, maybe. Pick another name. Pick any other name than your father’s.”
Micah: I think that’s right.
Laura: I agree.
Micah: Keeping an element of her family, too, because if you look at his name, “Tom Riddle,” he’s being named after his father, and there’s no connection to the Gaunt family, there’s no connection to the Slytherin bloodline, the pure-blood family line, and so maybe deep down, this was her way of doing that.
Laura: Yeah. Well, it’s also clear that this was another way of her trying to distance herself from either the Gaunt family or just her magical roots. Dumbledore mentions a little later on in the chapter that his suspicion is that she just stopped practicing magic after Tom Riddle left her, and so this was her way of giving her son a chance to be normal, also hoping that her son was going to look more like his father, which he does. But I think it is really interesting to see the contrast of what she wanted with what young Tom Riddle wants, which is he’s more fascinated by the magical DNA that he carries, and it’s just really interesting to see how they basically want opposite things here.
Andrew: By the way, No-Maj, No Problem is pointing out in our Discord, “Snape mentions that Muggle-borns get a teacher that come by to explain everything,” so getting back to the discussion from a few minutes ago about how do the students typically get to Hogwarts if they don’t know they’re a wizard? There’s the answer. Thank you, No-Maj.
Micah: One other bit of information that Dumbledore learns about Tom is that he never cried as a baby, and that he scares the other children. Now, there is some dark symbolism that is associated with babies not crying. It’s often linked to ominous things like foretelling silent suffering, spiritual emptiness, demonic possession, or a lack of vital breath or life force, and this could not connect more with Voldemort. So maybe not what Tom is currently, but what he is meant to become.
Andrew: Foreshadow alert.
[Foreshadowing sound effect plays]
Laura: Who put this note in here about Reactive Attachment Disorder?
Eric: I did, and I couldn’t… I remember talking about it on a podcast, but I couldn’t find it in a search of what episode this might have been, and even what podcast it was. Might have been Alohomora, but I can’t find it. So there’s a disorder that is characterized by some of these similar things, which we can get into, but it’s children who’ve been abused or neglected, especially. And even children with loving parents, if they have to be absent in a moment when the child needs them or something, can manifest in this way. It’s kind of a heck of a thing, but in terms of pathologizing Tom Riddle and trying to come up with a real world kind of reasoning or diagnosis that might explain the young Tom Riddle that we see here, it doesn’t get any closer that I know of than RAD.
Laura: And I actually really love that connection, because ultimately, it gives a very reasonable explanation for the Muggle world for why he is the way he is, even if we’re accepting, well, the real reality is that he was conceived under the influence of a love potion, so that impacts his ability to healthily attach to other people. But I love the different possible interpretations here, because Mrs. Cole presumably would have language that she could use to explain why Tom Riddle is the way he is in a way that common Muggle people would understand.
Andrew: Yeah. This also reads to me like an inability just to express feelings and emotions; he is just… he lacks that completely. He doesn’t feel anything. And then you also take into consideration he tortures and kills animals; we learned that in this chapter too. This guy has no heart.
Micah: Yeah, let’s pull on the thread a little bit about his display of cruelty and his lack of remorse, because at the end of the day, he is a neglected child being raised in an institution, and I’m wondering, how do we separate what we may consider to be his inherent traits from the environmental damage that he suffered growing up here? And I wanted to also extend that a little bit to compare this to Harry’s upbringing with the Dursleys. And then why does…? We know why Dumbledore forces Harry to return to Privet Drive every summer, but why does Dumbledore choose to send Tom back to the orphanage? And could he then very well be responsible for the creation of Lord Voldemort?
Andrew: Ooh. [laughs]
Laura: That’s a big question.
Micah: Well, I’m not saying he knew in that moment. He even says in this chapter that he didn’t know that he was going to become the greatest Dark wizard the world had ever known.
Laura: Right.
Micah: But as the years went on, I’m sure he had suspicions that this kid was not playing with a full deck.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: You know what I love? And Micah, you bringing up the comparison between Harry’s upbringing and Tom’s upbringing made me remember this moment from the chapter where Harry and Dumbledore are walking through the hallways of this orphanage to get to Tom Riddle’s room, and even Harry, who grew up under pretty horrible abusive conditions with the Dursleys, was like, “Yeah, this place seems like it really sucked to grow up in.” He has that realization in the moment of, “This seems rough for a kid to come up in.” So the fact that Harry, someone who was so horribly abused for all of his childhood, is able to look at this and I think have a level of recognition that this is maybe a little worse, says something about the experiences that they had. But it also comes down to choice, right? As Dumbledore always likes to remind.
Eric: Yeah, in terms of what little Tom Riddle gets from his family versus the environment, I think a completely overstated sense of self-importance. It’s Marvolo going, “We’re one of the Peverells! We’re Salazar Slytherin’s direct…” That 100% is on display here in this chapter, even, that little Tom has such a high opinion of himself and also sees that he’s the only one that matters, and to his little world, he is the only one that matters. But there’s no sense of connection… again, being like an attachment disorder, there’s no sense of connection to others. And I think that something Dumbledore said in a previous chapter about the Gaunts, how something about it begins with decades of inbreeding or something, but it’s like they literally are so removed from others and from society that some of these traits that we would consider anti-social are kind of almost baked in to their genetics.
Andrew: In terms of where to send Tom Riddle, where else would he go? And I think… I want to remind everybody that, yes, while Hogwarts is open during winter break if you have nowhere to go, they don’t keep the school open during summer if you have nowhere to go, right? So that would leave us with, where would Tom Riddle go? And maybe the orphanage just seems like the safest place for Dumbledore to send him. I also wonder if, by sending him back, in Dumbledore’s mind, it helps keep Tom humble. Like, “Oh, I definitely prefer Hogwarts than coming back here, so I should appreciate what I have, and I won’t cause trouble on Hogwarts, like I was warned, because otherwise I’m going to get kicked out.”
Micah: It’s just tough because… and I’m not saying if he were to stay at Hogwarts, if that were even an opportunity, that he would have been more social. But I think when you send Tom back to the orphanage, you’re ensuring at least several weeks or a couple of months of continued isolation and non-interaction with other young people, and if he does choose to interact with them, we see what happens. Look no further than Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop and what happened in the cave, which we’re not all still entirely sure what happened. But something happened, and it wasn’t good.
Eric: Something that Voldemort is later proud of.
Micah: Yeah. Eric, what did you think went down in the cave? If you had to guess.
Eric: I’m curious. I think in this chapter, Dumbledore says something like, “These moments and these trophies are from when Tom either debuted a particularly bad kind of magic or started to gain control over those sorts of things,” and so whatever it was, it was horrible, and it was the first time he had done it. Now, I don’t know what these two unfortunate kids did to gain little Tom’s ire, but unfortunately, I think…
Micah: May not have done anything. It might have just been convenience.
Andrew: Yeah, probably.
Eric: Oh, and I wasn’t saying it was their fault, yeah. I just think it’s a real shame because I’m sure that they will carry that trauma. And here’s the thing: Trauma works both ways, and so I hope that these kids were able to eventually… well, either repress or forget what happened to them in that cave. Voldemort sure didn’t.
Laura: Yeah, the body never forgets stuff like that, though, and I think if we’re talking about the question of why did he choose those kids, I think they were probably… not that it’s their fault, but they were probably just easy targets for bullying. You would see run-of-the-mill bullies look for people who are shy, sensitive, easily manipulated. I mean, that, I think, would be a red hot target for Tom.
Eric: Yeah. And to the point of the orphanage, why does Dumbledore keep sending Tom back here, the same line that Harry says, “This was a grim place in which to grow up,” or Harry thinks. It does start with… he says, “They looked reasonably well-cared for.” The kids here ultimately aren’t starving, but at the same time, this is a grim place in which to grow up. Again, the orphanage is not where you’re supposed to stay; you’re supposed to have a family that can take you in and give you more of that individual love and care, because at the end of the day, there’s all sorts of kids here. And Tom, if he were to ever turn out good, might have needed more of an individual approach, and it may be too late for Hogwarts to save him. It may be too late for Tom already, I think.
Micah: Well, we are going to meet the man of the hour, Tom, in just a minute. We’ll be right back after this break.
[Ad break]
Micah: All right, so it is time for Dumbledore and Harry to meet Tom Riddle, Jr., and as we were kind of talking about a little bit earlier at the top of the show, Tom’s tone throughout this whole conversation with Dumbledore is forceful, and I think you could probably even say it’s frightening for an 11-year-old. He’s very quick to even accept the truth about himself, in terms of why he’s different from all the other kids at the orphanage, and I just wanted to talk a little bit about that. And I think Dumbledore plays it well; he doesn’t necessarily get put back on his heels when Tom responds the way that he does, but it has to be concerning for him.
Laura: Yeah, it makes me wonder if narcissism is hereditary.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Laura: Because that’s really what this reads as here. Like, “I knew I was special. I knew that I was better than everyone else.” And Eric, you called this out a few minutes ago in saying that bravado and that self-centeredness is Marvolo talking, so it really does make you wonder how much of this is a nature versus nurture thing? And I think we can definitely argue that we see a lot more of that behavior in Tom’s breeding, right? Who in the orphanage would have conditioned him to behave that way? I don’t think anyone.
Andrew: And this is an attitude that Tom/Voldemort carries for the rest of his life. “I’m a superior person. I’m right. I have the best ideas. Nobody’s going to get in my way.”
Eric: Right, and in order to prove that he’s superior, he has to go further than anyone else at defying death and do all these other things. So he gets this sort of sick ambition where, no matter the cost, no matter how many people he has to kill, he’s going to achieve something truly great.
Micah: Yeah. I like what you said, Andrew, because really, in this whole conversation that we see, we get the picture for how Voldemort is who he is in present day. This disdain that he has for the name “Tom,” because basically, it’s a filthy Muggle name, and that’s why he inevitably chose to be Lord Voldemort.
Andrew: Well, even when talking about his parents’ magical abilities, he’s so quick to assume his mother must not have been magical, otherwise she would not have died. This is interesting to hear from a wizard who later attempts to live forever!
Micah: Right.
Laura: Great point.
Andrew: So to your point, we’re learning so much about Voldemort, the Voldemort we will one day see in this flashback scene.
Eric: He also treats magic as if it’s a solution to all the problems, right? So some people are too far along for magic to cure them, or so we’re told. But in this case, it does 100% foreshadow Tom’s own fear of his mortality, and he just says, “If there’s magic, then why would anyone die?”
Micah: But it’s certainly possible that what happened to his mother informed his decision to want immortality.
Eric: But I think it’s just his absence of parents, his being an orphan, right? So if both of his parents are, in fact, dead… which he finds out that they’re not, eventually; he goes and kills his dad and his grandparents. But the… and his uncle, too, now that I’m thinking of it.
Andrew: So it’s like he’s wondering, “How can I avoid the mistakes of my parents’ past by living forever?”
Eric: Exactly. I think if you grew up in an orphanage or something, you’d probably have some pretty strong opinions about not wanting another kid to face that sort of experience.
Andrew: Yeah. This is dark, and maybe I’ll cut this, but I think about when you lose one of your parents, and then you end up living longer than they do. I have not had that experience yet, but I think that would give me a lot of pause once I reached an age older than my parents lived to. It’s like, “Well, why am I living longer than them when they died at a certain age? And what can I do to make sure I live a longer life?” Is that too dark? Is it the gin? [laughs]
Eric: There’s definitely…
Laura: No, I don’t think that’s dark.
Andrew: Okay.
Eric: That’s as dark as your gin, Andrew.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: I think that’s probably a really natural thought that most people have when they cross that bridge in life with having to deal with the passing of a parent. But there’s innocence and goodness in that thought about, “What can I do to take care of my body and make sure that I can live as long of a life as I can?” And meanwhile, Voldemort is like, “I’m special, so I should just live forever.”
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: The last two items just wanted to call attention to for Tom Riddle is that he can speak to snakes, and he enjoys operating alone – which we already talked about – and collecting mouth organs. Oh, sorry, collecting trophies.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Eugh.
Micah: One of which happens to be a mouth organ.
[Eric groans]
Laura: Gross.
Micah: But no surprise that he could speak to snakes, I don’t think. Though the collecting trophies piece is interesting, especially with how this story, or this chapter in particular, ends.
Andrew: Yeah. When I was rereading the chapter, I was like, “Does he have seven trophies?” Because that would kind of be foreshadowing what is to come with the Horcruxes. Only three or four are noted, unfortunately. I thought that would’ve been cool.
Micah: They do it in the movie, though. They show a shot, I think, of his windowsill, and there are seven items on it.
Andrew: Oh, yeah, that’s right.
Eric: Creepy.
Andrew: I’m glad you bring up the movie, too, because I thought this was an excellent scene in the movie, and they used some of these scenes in the trailer as well. I remember the Tom Riddle line, “I can speak to snakes too,” and Dumbledore pauses as he’s walking away.
Eric: “Whisper things.”
Andrew: That was really well done.
Laura: It really was.
Eric: Yeah, I’m surprised that Dumbledore didn’t… I mean, hindsight being 20/20, but some of these things are real red flags, especially the Parselmouth thing, but Dumbledore just calls it unusual.
Andrew: Yeah, he didn’t really see too many warnings in all this at the time, it seems like. So Tom does get his Hogwarts letter, and Dumbledore says, “You can go and pick up your wand and whatnot in Diagon Alley,” and Harry thinks to himself, “Oh, Dumbledore is definitely going to accompany Tom to Diagon Alley. I mean, this guy’s a bit out there.” But Dumbledore is actually okay with letting Tom go on his own. I’m just shocked that Dumbledore would let this guy go to Diagon Alley by himself, especially when you think about how Hagrid accompanied Harry to Diagon Alley. And then I’m also wondering if maybe Dumbledore had somebody tailing Tom Riddle in Diagon Alley to see what he’d be like.
Laura: I think so.
Andrew: Yeah, see if he’d steal anything.
Micah: Maybe. I was wondering, with you alluding to Hagrid and Harry, did Dumbledore learn his lesson with Tom Riddle?
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Micah: And so that’s why he had Hagrid…
Eric: Oh, that’s much more charitable than what I was thinking. I was thinking clearly Dumbledore doesn’t think Harry could find his Potions books and spellbooks and all the important stuff without Hagrid’s help.
Andrew: Yeah, Tom is a loner. He’s not going to bring anybody else with him to Diagon Alley, he wants to go by himself, and Dumbledore is just like, “Okay, go ahead”? It’s just… he’s got to be tailed.
Eric: No, it’s shocking, it’s shocking, because what does it mean that Harry…? Harry’s read on Dumbledore is that Dumbledore is going to refuse and make sure that he goes with him, and when Dumbledore is like, “No,” it shocks Harry. And I mean to suggest that it’s not that Harry’s assessment is wrong, it’s that something else is going on here. The first time this happens in this chapter is when Dumbledore lets Tom go on his own, and one could say maybe he’s trusting Tom’s autonomy. He’s like, “Clearly, you’re living in an orphanage. You’re self-sufficient. I can trust you fine.” The second time that Dumbledore does something that Harry is unexpecting is when Tom asks Dumbledore to prove that he has magic, and Harry is like, “Pfft, Dumbledore…”
Micah: Well, I don’t blame him for that.
Eric: No, listen, Dumbledore is going to be…
Micah: [laughs] Okay.
Eric: Harry thinks Dumbledore is going to be like, “No, I am the adult. I don’t need to show it.” Instead, Dumbledore sets the friggin’ wardrobe on fire! And the interesting thing about this to me…
Andrew: [to the tune of “Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys] “This wardrobe’s on fire…” Sorry.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: “This wardrobe’s on fire!” The interesting thing to me is that fire is sort of, I think, hellfire, really. I think evil. I think dark. I think Dumbledore has enough of a read on Tom, even in this one encounter, that he chooses to do something… I mean, he could have levitated something for crying… he didn’t need to set a wardrobe on fire.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: He chooses something that’s really going to impress Tom in a sinister way. It’s not value neutral; it’s sinister. And so I think Dumbledore, in this key moment, has clued in to some key internal part of Tom – his evilness – and is basically enticing him, and the only thing I can think of that discredits this argument is that the wardrobe on fire immediately evolves into an admonishment of Tom’s thievery. Dumbledore uses the moment then to cause the items to shake and basically scare the bejesus out of little Tom.
Andrew: I think the fire also shows Tom who’s boss. Dumbledore can send a very strong message with that type of visual. I also want to mention, Gabysm is asking, “How did Tom Riddle pay for things at the time?” And Dumbledore says there is a fund at Hogwarts to allow you to buy your spellbooks and wand and robe if you need funds, but I also just want to add that this is also confirmation that tuition at Hogwarts is free. I remember a few years ago, the author tweeted, “Tuition at Hogwarts is free,” and it was big news at the time. We should have read this line in this chapter and realized that tuition was free as well, because he doesn’t make any mention of needing funds to pay to go to school period.
Laura: Right, just for supplies.
Eric: Maybe the funds went away. We don’t see the Weasleys use them.
Andrew: Well, yeah, but Tom has no other…
Eric: The Weasleys are made to use their own money to get all of Lockhart’s books. Six sets.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s true.
Micah: Just with the wardrobe, though, too, being set on fire, I looked at it too as a purification of sorts, right? It’s not just the revelation of the stolen items that are in there; it’s more of a purification of, “Hey, I’m revealing who you actually are, Tom.” I do like the whole thought about Dumbledore showing who’s boss – I think that’s part of it too – but that’s just something that came to mind.
Laura: Yeah, there’s a lot of myth and legend and even certain religions that view fire as a cleansing element, and in this case, it’s like, “You’re a thief, Tom. You’re a wizard, but you’re also a thief.”
Eric: “You’re a thief.” Do we think that he was trying to impress Tom at all, though, with the fire?
Andrew: To some extent.
Micah: Yes and no, because I do think that he had to do something that was going to catch his attention. And I don’t blame Tom for asking, right? This really old guy shows up…
Eric: [laughs] In a crazy suit.
Micah: … and says, “I want you to come with me to my magical school, because you’re a wizard.” [laughs] I would expect no less of Tom than to request evidence of Dumbledore. But that is how… the chapter really wraps up with Harry leaving Dumbledore’s office after the second lesson, and I think we’re meant to start to catch on on the trophy side of things, the collection of trophies. And Harry makes a passing comment about expecting to see a mouth organ on the table, right? And I think that’s an allusion to the ring and the Horcruxes, and so that’s where we leave it.
Odds & Ends
Andrew: But you have an excellent connecting the threads for us, Micah.
Micah: Yeah, so a few odds and ends here. I actually pulled these all from Episode 401; I thought they were so good that they needed to be repeated.
Eric: Ahh.
Micah: And this goes back to Chapter 13, so the same chapter number of Chamber of Secrets, which is called “The Very Secret Diary.” Both chapters have Harry entering a memory about Tom Riddle; Harry meets a younger version of Voldemort in both of these chapters; there are Horcruxes present in both; Hermione is recovering from being a cat in Chamber of Secrets, while Katie is recovering from the necklace; and Dumbledore is noted to have auburn hair in both chapters.
Andrew: Love it, and this is why we love these books. Was there gin in this chapter of Chamber of Secrets?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Oh, I didn’t check.
Andrew: Yeah, let’s go back and check that, please.
Eric: Just in my hand while I was reading it…
Micah: It’s too early. It’s year two.
MVP of the Week
Micah: Well, now it is time for MVP, and I wanted to know: What’s the scariest Dark wizard characteristic that Tom Riddle demonstrates at such a young age?
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: So there’s two leading options here from the panel. I’m going to go with the stealing of objects. As a loner, the loner that Tom Riddle is, this just feels especially eerie to me.
Eric: Yeah, and I’m going to go with, unfortunately, the hanging of the rabbit. Just the way that even… not only the act was bad enough, it’s clearly an attempt at intimidation, and that thing was tortured. The display of it is almost as worse as the act.
Micah: I agree with you, Eric, as somebody who owned a rabbit as a child.
Andrew: Aww.
Eric: Named Gris, right?
Micah: Yep.
Laura: Must have been traumatizing to read this. I’m going to have to agree with Andrew on the collection of trophies. This is not explicitly a Dark wizard characteristic; this is a serial killer thing. The collection of trophies is all about having a connection back to your victims and being able to connect the item with what you did to those people, so this just goes to show that Voldemort’s psychology is not totally rooted in wanting to be a wizarding mastermind. He is truly evil, the embodiment, so trophies.
Eric: He wants to punish… yeah.
Andrew: However, Laura and I would like to acknowledge that we do not condone killing bunnies. Thank you.
[Laura laughs]
Micah: Thanks, Andrew.
Lynx Line
Micah: Over on our Lynx Line, where we asked our Slug Club members at Patreon.com/MuggleCast: Which wizarding world character would you most like to Confund and get drunk so that they spill all the tea? And please include your alcoholic drink of choice.
Andrew: Chance said,
“I’d Confund Severus Snape, without hesitation. He’s the one character whose secrets could completely reframe the story. I’d want to know how much of what he did was driven by love, how much by guilt, and how much by pure obligation — and whether protecting Harry ever became a choice instead of a punishment. Drink of choice: a slow glass of Firewhisky, neat.
Snape wouldn’t overshare or get sloppy. He’d get quiet, sharp, and painfully honest — the kind of drunk who drops one line of truth that changes everything. That’s the tea I’d want spilled.”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: My goodness, it’s going to be hard to top that. Forty says,
“Sirius, to get all the Marauders’ stories and secrets. I bet he’d be a super fun drinking partner. Drink: lead with a paper plane for class. Follow up with an old-fashioned – obviously debating sugar cubes vs. simple syrup (I think simple, he thinks sugar cubes). The sugar source debate leads us to running through expensive pours on the bourbon list. After Sirius fumbles a few too many pickup lines with the witch behind the bar, I remind him that she’s at work, and we relegate ourselves to PBRs for the rest of the night.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Sounds like the best evening ever.
Laura: I was going to say, who hasn’t had a night like that?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Darin says,
“I would have to say Lupin. He has been with the Order since the first war, and has been going undercover with the werewolves, so he probably knows a lot! Drink of choice: Manhattan.”
Laura: Lovely. Julie Anne says, “Hmm, I think that Helena Ravenclaw’s ghost has lots of secrets she could share.” And there’s no drink of choice mentioned here, so I’m just going to say a bourbon neat. Why don’t we call it that?
Andrew: Okay, love that addition.
Micah: Can you get a ghost drunk?
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Oh.
Laura: Can you get a…? I mean, you would think they could taste it, right? Because I mean, especially if you’re doing hard liquor, if they float through it the way we see in Book 2…
Eric: “Sorry, guys, that drink just went right through me.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Oh, I say that a lot. Jared said, “Albus Dumbledore, so I could actually know what he was up to during all of the Harry Potter books.” Jared did not drop a drink as well, so I’m going to say the gin I’m having tonight.
Eric: Oh my God. Okay, Kayla says,
“Pansy Parkinson. I really don’t like her and I would love to get her drunk and spill all of her deep dark secrets so that she can be embarrassed. And I would get her drunk with wine so that she can have a really crappy hangover afterwards.”
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Kayla, not all of us have hangovers after drinking wine.
Eric: Kayla hopes that Pansy Parkinson gets overserved.
Micah: Sara says,
“Madam Rosmerta. She’s a bartender so you know she’s heard ALL the stories/gossip/drama from both the townspeople and the Hogwarts folks. Oh, with Firewhisky.”
Laura: And rounding us out here, Zachary says,
“Bellatrix. Drink of choice: vodka soda. I’d love to hear all the details of how horrible the Malfoys and Lestranges are so I could build up a case to have them put away for good.”
Andrew: You can participate in the Lynx Line segment every week on our Patreon, Patreon.com/MuggleCast. We love hearing from our listeners. And speaking of feedback, if you have any other feedback about today’s discussion, you can send an owl to MuggleCast@gmail.com. You can also use that email address to send us a voice memo. You can also contact us via Spotify or YouTube or social media DMs, what’s ever easiest for you. And as you heard earlier in the episode, we read an email in the main discussion, which we rarely do these days. We’re going to start integrating feedback into the main discussions, rather than having dedicated Muggle Mail episodes.
Eric: Like we did today. Thanks to Rachel for being our first.
Andrew: Next week, we will continue our Half-Blood Prince discussion with Chapter 14, “Felix Felicis.” Visit MuggleCast.com for our contact form, links to our social media, our Patreon, transcripts, our favorite episodes, and lots more. And if you’re looking for more podcasting from the four of us, you can listen to our other shows, Millennial and What the Hype?!, for more pop culture and real world talk.
Quizzitch
Andrew: Now it’s time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: This week’s question: In Chapter 12 of Book 6, the password to the Gryffindor common room is “Dilligrout.” In real life, is Dilligrout A) a bird, B) a stew, C) a medicinal herb, or D) a cave fungus? Dilligrout is actually a stew, for those who did not know. It features a base of almond milk. It’s got chicken, sugar, and various spices. These days, it’s made with almonds, white wine, pine nuts, mace, cloves, ginger, and sometimes rice or pork. Amazing. 60% of people with the correct answer said that they did look it up, meaning that not many people knew that. And here are this week’s winners: Cheeseshark; Finty; Kreacher’s crusty old nails; Poufsouffle… it’s the French version of Hufflepuff, for the translation. Stewy Brewy Pettigrewy; Sylwia; Wiktoria; and… here’s a joke that somebody sent in: Why can’t you use “beef stew” as a computer password? Because it’s not stroganoff.
Andrew: Ha!
Eric: As in, it’s not strong enough? Not stroganoff?
[Laura laughs]
Micah: We got it. We got it.
Andrew: That was only funny because I have some gin tonight.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: And here’s next week’s Quizzitch question, having to do, of course – why couldn’t I not do this? – with mouth organs. The harmonica was one of two musical instruments smuggled into space by US astronauts aboard Gemini VI. On December 16, 1965, astronauts Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford played a prank on Mission Control by reporting a UFO, which turned out to be Santa Claus in his sleigh. What song did the astronauts play, using the harmonica, that became also the first song played in space?
Micah: Wow.
Eric: This is the definition of trivia, and everyone should submit their answers to us using the Quizzitch trivia form located on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast/Quizzitch. If you’re already on the website, just click on the little button that says “Quizzitch” from the main nav.
Andrew: We’re about to record a new bonus MuggleCast in which Micah shares his Harry Potter hot takes, including “The house-elves regularly defecated in Slytherins’ food”? So we’re going to see Micah try to explain that and many more unhinged topics in bonus MuggleCast this week. That’ll be available on our Patreon, Patreon.com/MuggleCast. Thanks, everyone, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Bye, everyone.
Laura and Micah: Bye.