Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #744, Hokey Pokey (HBP Chapter 20, ‘Lord Voldemort’s Request’)
Cold Open
Laura: “I did my part, Harry. I’m prepared, Harry. What did you bring to the table? Nothing.” [laughs] That’s Dumbledore.
Andrew: It was very passive aggressive.
Laura: It really was. I’m glad that you can admit that, Andrew.
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’re your Harry Potter friends, here to talk about the books and the movies and the upcoming TV show, so be sure to follow us in your podcast app, and you’ll never miss an episode. This week, hide your valuable family heirlooms well, because we’re discussing Chapter 20 of Half-Blood Prince, “Lord Voldemort’s Request.” But before we do that, couple of announcements.
Laura: Yeah, so I was actually recently on our friend Barry’s podcast, Retold: A Fantasy Podcast. Barry is currently working his way through Goblet of Fire in his podcast, and I know it’s very heavily focused on Harry Potter a lot of the time, but I also know that he’s looking into doing deep dives on other fantasy stories and genres and stuff, so definitely give him a follow and check the show out. It’s really, really fun.
Micah: We actually got a chance to see Barry for the first time in a long time – although, Laura, you saw him probably most recently – but just in our recent Slug Club hangout, and he is a new dad. Officially, congratulations on MuggleCast. We’ll say it on MuggleCast.
Laura: For sure.
Andrew: He is a new dad, who lives not too far from Laura…
Laura: That’s right.
Andrew: … and we were talking about that he went to see Cursed Child in the Atlanta area a couple weeks ago, and then we were like, “Laura, did you go?” [laughs]
Laura: You know what’s funny about that? I’m actually, mileage-wise, closer to that than Barry would be.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: So yeah, that makes me look doubly bad. Oops.
Andrew: Well, at this point, it’s just an on-running joke, I think. It’s turning into a joke that Laura has not seen Cursed Child, especially now, since it’s gone through her backyard.
Micah: She will; don’t worry.
Laura: I mean, eventually I will. It just… I don’t know. I’ve heard great things about the production. I just… I don’t know. I don’t feel like I need it, you know what I mean?
Andrew: I get that. It was funny during the Slug Club hangout, because you were like, “Oh, I think it’s still here,” and then I looked up the dates and it had just finished the day before.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: Whoops.
Micah: And then Barry pops on, and he’s like, “I just recently saw it.”
Eric: “I just came back from the…” yeah.
Andrew: All right, well, also a little announcement concerning the show: Beginning the first full week of April, our recording and release schedule is changing. New episodes of MuggleCast will be released on Tuesdays for Patreons and Wednesdays for everyone else. Patrons, we also have some changes to the recording schedule that you’ll see over on Patreon, so be sure to check those out if you like tuning in for the livestreams, and maybe if our livestream recording schedule hasn’t worked for you before, maybe now it will. We’ll have a mix of weekend and Monday recordings, so please check that out.
Eric: This is exciting. And Andrew, before you get to the next segment, I hope you have that audio clip ready.
Andrew: Oh, yes, I do.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: The timing on this better be perfect, because I love it. I love what I’m seeing here.
Andrew: [laughs] So yes, listeners, if you love MuggleCast as much as Hokey loves doing the Hokey Pokey…
[“I declare canon!” sound effect plays with thunder]
Andrew: … then we invite you to support us at Patreon.com/MuggleCast. We’ll hook you up with bonus episodes of the show, ad-free episodes, live access to our recording studio, a monthly Zoom hangout – we’ve been talking about a lot of these benefits at the top of the show today – and lots more. We can’t do this without you, so thank you so much in advance for your support.
Chapter by Chapter: Pensieve
Andrew: All right, now let’s get to Chapter by Chapter, and this week we’re discussing Half-Blood Prince Chapter 20, “Lord Voldemort’s Request.”
Eric: The episode in which we last discussed this, 411, was called “RiddleGin,” and it debuted on April 1 – so almost exactly seven years ago – 2019. Here is our Pensieve clip.
Dumbledore: What you are looking at are memories. This is the most important memory I’ve collected. It is from MuggleCast Episode 411.
[Sound of memory uncorking]
[Sound of plunging into Pensieve]
Laura: But what I want to know is how does this work logistically? Because presumably these girls are trapped or unconscious somewhere where Draco just goes and harvests their hair for more Polyjuice.
Micah: Maybe it’s Pansy. Maybe she goes into the girl’s bathroom and just kind of unclogs the sink and…
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Eugh. I was going to say, just grab the comb.
Micah: Yeah, or grabs their comb.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Anyway, that’s the girl update. We’ll check in with them maybe in the chapters ahead.
[Sound of exiting Pensieve]
Dumbledore: This memory is everything.
Andrew: [laughs] That would have been a terrible thing to say if Laura wasn’t on the podcast.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I’m like, “That’s the girl update! Back to the boys.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Yeah, yeah, because I was there, you get a pass, basically.
Micah: It’s okay.
[Andrew and and Laura laugh]
Micah: I do feel like we were going down the true crime pathway, though.
Eric: It was interesting.
Laura: 100%.
Micah: Well, interesting is one word, but…
Eric: We had a whole discussion, yeah.
Laura: I mean, it sounds like I’m the one that took us there, based on the clip.
Eric: Well, you even gave the girls names. Crabbe and Goyle were “Melody” and “Clarissa.”
Laura: Oh, I really went all out on that.
Eric: It was basically like Serial, but for whatever Draco is doing, how he’s getting this hair.
Laura: Justice for these girls. Really unfortunate that we never really hear what happens to them, but I’m glad that we apparently spent so much time on them the last time we discussed this chapter, because we’re not really going to talk about that side of things very much, if at all, today.
Eric: Right.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Laura: The focus of today’s discussion is specifically going to be on each of the memories that Harry and Dumbledore go into. So I want to start out with Hepzibah Smith, the first memory. And I also just wanted to call out, just to kind of help localize us, where are we on the timeline. According to the HP Wiki, this happened sometime between 1955 and 1961, so 10-15 years after Tom Riddle left Hogwarts-ish.
Eric: Okay.
Laura: So the first memory in this chapter, and kind of the way that I wanted to frame the discussion, is from this point of view, because the memory belongs to Hokey the house-elf, who we learn is convicted of accidentally killing her mistress, Hepzibah Smith. At this point in time in this memory, Tom Riddle is working at Borgin and Burkes as an assistant, but we definitely get the impression that he is more gifted than a typical assistant. Definitely seems like he’s able to lay on the flattery very thick with certain clients, namely Hepzibah.
Eric: Yeah, and the flattery is something he’s perfected his whole Hogwarts career, right? So really only Dumbledore is capable of seeing through it. But Dumbledore tells Harry, as he introduces this memory to him, that so many people were shocked that Voldemort got this position in a shop. I guess it’s sort of viewed as maybe a relatively low role for him, because he could have gone into politics, or with Slughorn’s backing, been connected to any career he wanted. But I remember thinking while reading this, both for the first time and now, what a perfect role for Tom Riddle. We know of his affiliation with the Dark Arts, and for Borgin and Burke, this shop that sells all of these Dark artifacts, it will be a dream come true to have all of this just thrust right in front of you, like, “Hey, I’m trying to sell this. Can you tell me what it’s worth?” And he finds, “Oops, that’s actually a legitimate heirloom.” Locket just shows up right under his nose. This would be a perfect role for Tom.
Micah: It does make you wonder, would he have been better off at Hogwarts under Dumbledore’s watchful eye? And I know that’s probably a discussion we’re going to have throughout the course of this episode, but I really do wonder that question, versus, like you’re saying, Eric, almost feeding his appetite for Dark artifacts and Dark Arts working in a place like Borgin and Burke.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Andrew: I’m wondering, is it explained at all? Did Dumbledore know at the time that Tom was working at Borgin and Burkes? I guess it would be easy information to acquire.
Laura: I think especially given how disappointed so many of the faculty reportedly were.
Andrew: Yeah, true.
Laura: Because it really does seem like it was a shock to a lot of the faculty at Hogwarts that Tom Riddle would decide to just be some lowly shop assistant. Little did they know what he was actually up to.
Andrew: Right. In a way, he’s kind of working in retail. That’s why this is sort of so shocking for somebody like Tom.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: The reason I ask about Dumbledore is because I wonder if, knowing he did work at Borgin and Burkes, he was trying to keep some sort of close eye on him. He would want to keep an eye on him from a distance if he’s not going to be at Hogwarts.
Laura: Yeah, I think that’s a really great call-out, because Dumbledore… I mean, we’ve seen that he’s been suspicious of Tom, I mean, since he was a child, honestly. So it does stand to reason that Dumbledore… even if we don’t see it on the page, it stands to reason that Dumbledore might have his finger on the pulse somehow of what certain former students are up to.
Eric: And yet, to the question about would Voldemort have been better off at Hogwarts, like if Dippet had told him that he could just go there… I’m not sure, though, because more based on what happens during the second memory, I think Tom would have had more access to that so-called ancient magic that apparently he’s trying to get at that Hogwarts has. So I think the more time spent at Hogwarts… if the seven years didn’t do it, during which he found the Chamber of Secrets, killed a girl, and got up to all sorts of other mischief with a spate of really strange, Dumbledore said, I think, occurrences that always had a scapegoat, but we don’t know what was really happening, it’s good that Voldemort had to leave school and could never really come back for any period of time.
Micah: It is important, though, to note that this wasn’t Dumbledore’s call, though. It was Dippet’s call.
Eric: Right, right.
Micah: And we know that Dumbledore definitely heavily influenced that decision-making, but who knows? If he wasn’t as aggressive in campaigning against Tom, Tom could have ended up working there, because there’s no reason to think that Dippet didn’t think highly of him.
Eric: Right.
Laura: Yeah. Becky in the Discord is bringing up something interesting, and I want to check on this with y’all. She’s saying, “Dumbledore has been taking trips through the Vanishing Cabinet and spying.”
Andrew: That would be pretty awesome if that were true.
Eric: Oh.
Laura: Okay, do we know for certain how long the Vanishing Cabinet has been at Hogwarts? Because if it was at Hogwarts and functional during this period of time, and its sister was also at Borgin and Burkes and functional, could Dumbledore have been looking in that way?
Eric: Man. I love that theory. And maybe…
Laura: I do love that.
Eric: Because it wasn’t broken until Fred and George shoved Montague in there a little too hard.
Laura: Right.
Eric: So yeah, I actually really like that.
Andrew: Arthur Weasley does mention in Order of the Phoenix that during the first wizarding war, numerous witches and wizards used Vanishing Cabinets to anonymously disappear. That’s the furthest back. But I seem to recall getting the impression that that cabinet has been there for a really long time at Hogwarts.
Laura: Yeah. Security nightmare, honestly.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Laura: Direct door from Borgin and Burkes in Knockturn Alley into Hogwarts? Please.
[“It’s starting to sound like a security nightmare!” sound effect plays with sirens]
Eric: I mean, I wonder if Voldemort ever discovered it. Probably not.
Laura: Yeah, you would think not, because…
Eric: Unless… because he would have used it before. But maybe he also told Draco about it, like, “Hey, I used to work at Borgin and Burke. You should go in there and see if there’s this cabinet there.” And Draco is like, “Oh, all right.”
Laura: I do love that. Because do we ever get an explanation as to how…? Well, I guess Draco kind of figures it out because of what happens to Montague.
Eric: Yeah, he overheard it, and Montague is in his House so he interviews Montague.
Laura: Yeah, okay.
Eric: Still, it puts Voldemort at a strange proximity to the means by which Draco is able to accomplish his mission in this book.
Andrew: That’s what I love about this idea.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: I just have to think that if Voldemort knew about it… I don’t know. Why would he have been trying so hard to get a job at Hogwarts? He could have had an easy backdoor in the entire time to go hunt around for high school memorabilia, because he can’t get over that time in his life. [laughs]
Andrew: Well, maybe he would want the pride of actually being invited to teach at Hogwarts, getting that invite.
Laura: Maybe. He does have an ego. But we’ll get more into his job interview here in a few minutes.
[Ad break]
Laura: Continuing to center our discussion around Hokey’s point of view, just because we don’t often get things expressed from a house-elf point of view, and I think it’s just an interesting way to look at it. So Hokey, of course, witnesses Tom Riddle’s visit and his interaction with her mistress, where he’s really, again, laying the flattery on super thick. And she shows him a couple of her most prized trinkets, Slytherin’s locket and Hufflepuff’s cup, and a couple of days after that interaction, Hepzibah Smith is dead, and Hokey confesses to accidentally mixing a “little-known poison” into Hepzibah’s evening cocoa instead of sugar. And of course, since Hokey confessed, the Ministry was more than happy to accept a house-elf as the scapegoat for this scenario, and nobody even thought to ask, “Why on earth would this old woman and her house-elf have this little-known poison? Why would they have that?”
Eric: Maybe she was watching Breaking Bad and was interested because it was ricin…
[Laura and Micah laugh]
Eric: … just growing in a plant nearby, and she was like, “Oops.” Just in the garden.
Andrew: But are we to believe that Hokey did accidentally put something in Hepzibah’s drink? Or did Tom Riddle mess with her mind about that too?
Eric: Yeah, Tom Riddle probably supplied the poison, but just put it in the house and then… yeah.
Andrew: Okay. Because what if…? Maybe she would have a potion that she would add into her drink that had some sort of medicinal properties, maybe some sort of sickness medication, and she accidentally… she’s like, “Oh my gosh, I must have…” yeah, as I say this, I realize it’s not…
Micah: You ask a good question, though, Andrew, because you would think that if, in fact, poison is at the center here, that they would have at least confirmed that that is how she died. We don’t… I mean, maybe we shouldn’t believe that the Ministry isn’t that incompetent at the end of the day. But just because Hokey is admitting to putting poison into Hepzibah’s drink doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the means in which she died; that’s just how Hokey happens to be recounting the story. But that would assume that the Ministry is doing a full investigation here and making sure that things add up.
Laura: And they’re not.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, and it’s interesting because… yeah, no. And it is said in a previous chapter that the Ministry, when inspecting the deaths of the Riddles, they immediately know that they’ve been AK’ed, whereas maybe Voldemort really did poison Hepzibah to kill her and not just…
Micah: I think he did.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: I think it’s either he did it and he just planted a false memory, or he Imperiused Hokey and made her do it. So maybe in that, he doesn’t have to tinker with her memory at all. I know Dumbledore says he does; I think he calls out a little later that much like Morfin, Voldemort had planted a false memory, but honestly, I think it could go either way.
Micah: Right. And Mev brings up a good question in the Discord that relates to something I wanted to mention. She asks, “I wonder if they have forensics in the wizarding world.” And that made me wonder… I’m curious how much other departments at the Ministry are involved when a crime like this is committed, because two departments that came to mind for me would have been the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, which would deal with memory, and the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, which would deal with house-elves. As opposed to what you were saying earlier, Laura, Hokey is just the convenient scapegoat, which really is kind of Tom Riddle’s M.O.
Eric: Right, it’s an interesting pattern. He always blames somebody that’s right there and not well-liked. Hagrid got blamed successfully for opening the Chamber without real proof, and Morfin, of course… Voldemort needed to start manufacturing proof, whether it’s a false memory or Hokey remembering that she put the poison in or confessing to it. But his M.O. is exactly the same in all three cases.
Andrew: It is a good question, Micah, about these different departments, but this also is making me wonder, what about some sort of elf rights group like SPEW? But let’s say run by adults, with all due respect to Hermione. I would assume there are some sort of magical creature rights groups in the wizarding world who feel passionately about magical creatures and house-elves. Think of just an animal rights group in the Muggle world who would stand up for animals when their habits and whatnot are being threatened. See Hoppers, the new Pixar movie. It’s really good.
Eric: Yeah, or lawyers that would give free representation on behalf of a magical creature that is falsely accused.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: I mean, I think I would also just call out, again, the time period we’re looking at, because it’s allegedly 1955-1961, and we weren’t doing so hot with that stuff in the Muggle world at that point…
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Ahh, yeah.
Laura: … so I have to imagine they weren’t in the wizarding world. In fact, I doubt…
Eric: Well, then again, Laura, they had a Black female president of MACUSA in the 1920s.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: The wizards are way ahead of us, generally.
Andrew: Yes. Just another reason why wizards are amazing, and we wish to be them.
Laura: Yeah, it’s just a little inconvenient that the diversity element kind of goes backwards in the wizarding world, because it is incredibly diverse when you’re looking at representations from the ’20s, and then the more modern you get…
Micah: Well, I think there’s a reason for that, isn’t it? Because the Fantastic Beasts series were made…
Eric: Made a lot closer to the modern era, yeah.
Micah: … after the Harry Potter series was written.
Laura: Well, yeah, that’s what I mean.
Eric and Micah: Yeah.
Micah: There was a need to diversify.
Laura: Oh, 100%. But at any rate…
Eric: To your point, Laura, I think in the ’50s or ’60s, whenever this happened, it would be like all the pure-blood families gasped and clutched their pearls and were like, “Well, I hope my house-elf would never make that mistake,” kind of a thing, and everyone else just kind of went about their days.
Micah: And in fairness, I don’t even know that those two departments that I mentioned were around or fully functional at the time that this happened.
Laura: Right. Yeah, exactly.
Andrew: True.
Laura: I think, too, there’s a good sort of connecting the threads moment here between Hokey and Winky. Obviously Winky gets whatever justice it is that exists for house-elves in this world at the time that she is so maligned, but yet again, we see another case of a house-elf taking the fall for the evil doings of a wizard.
Eric: Yep.
Laura: And it’s all tied to Voldemort. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, that’s true.
Laura: Poor Hokey. Speaking of Hokey – and I’m glad that we’re having the discussion about house-elf welfare and rights – what do we think happened to her? I don’t think we specifically find out what punishment she may have received.
Andrew: Like in the immediate aftermath, yeah. Well, I’m sure… yeah, I’m sure she was absolutely devastated by her alleged action.
Laura: Of course.
Andrew: So it’s just depressing to think about that she ended up living out her final years… because we do hear that she died. I don’t know how many years later, but we did hear that she died.
Eric: It’s really weird, Andrew; Dumbledore shows up and keeps interviewing these people that are weeks away from death.
Andrew: Very lucky.
Eric: They turn up dead right after Dumbledore speaks to them. It’s a weird coincidence. It’s happened twice now.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Oh.
Micah: I wonder if it’s the release of the truth finally…
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Kills them?
Eric: It sets them free?
Andrew: And that’s why you keep your real feelings in, ladies and gentlemen. Just kidding.
Laura: #KeepTheSecrets.
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Well, presumably, though, with Hokey, this was traumatic. Just think about how Winky reacts when she’s convicted of all of the things in Goblet of Fire, and just the way that she behaves being separated from the Crouch family. So I think it has to be devastating for a house-elf. And presumably, Hokey served that family for a long time, which makes me even angrier that the crime wasn’t investigated further. This house-elf has been taking care of Hepzibah Smith for who knows how long, and just so happens to poison her one night by accident.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s a great point too.
Eric: To be fair, though, I think, too, that if you’re an accomplished witch or wizard, you probably have quite a few potion ingredients at your home, maybe a few antidotes, maybe a few poisons. Not because you’re going to have the poisons or even administer the poisons, but poisons as… maybe you solved one, or it’s your science experiment. Chemicals… I guess harmful chemicals people have under their sinks are the kinds of things I think about when I hear about what happened with Hokey and Hepzibah.
Andrew: Yeah, what if it was an expired potion that killed her?
Eric: Exactly. Now you have kind of where I tend to think of it as being from, but the way that Dumbledore is telling it to Harry, it does look like it was a rare poison that had no business being there that should have raised more red flags than it did, but I’m wondering if we’re just getting an oversimplification from Dumbledore for the point of telling Harry the story.
Laura: Yeah, I think so.
Micah: It is kind of messed up that we don’t learn what happens to her. I know she’s, I think, charged with manslaughter, or that’s… but they also recognize the fact that she didn’t do this intentionally, that it was an accident. So I wonder if she even ended up going to… would she go to Azkaban? Or if she’s not officially charged, maybe…
Laura: It doesn’t say.
Eric: Is there like a house-elves’ prison…?
Micah: Or is she just wandering the earth?
Eric: … like an Orange Is the New Black situation where you’re just in a prison for a little bit…
Micah: Right, where did Dumbledore track her down?
Laura: Yeah. I mean, it does say she was convicted of accidentally killing her mistress, and at one point Dumbledore notes she was old, and so I think they chalk a lot of it up to her being an old house-elf. But let’s talk a little bit about Hepzibah, too, because I think we have to spend some time with her. So we find out in this dream that… in this dream. [laughs] In this memory, that Hepzibah is an indirect descendant of Helga Hufflepuff. I think it’s really important to point out “indirect” here. And she’s an easy target for someone like Tom. She’s definitely Slughorn-light in that she collects things, not people, but she is just… forgive use of the term, but it makes me think of hoarding. She is surrounded by mountains and piles of stuff and antiques and other kinds of historical trinkets of significance, and her collection is so vast, and she apparently has so many different places that she squirrels things away – all the things that she cares about the most, that she really wants to hide – she has so many places where she does that that it takes her family some time after she’s died to realize that the locket and the cup are missing.
Andrew: Yeah. You don’t have to apologize for calling her a hoarder; I was going to use the same word.
Laura: Okay.
Andrew: She’s a Material Girl.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Her possessions are her identity, it seems to me. This doesn’t seem like a particularly admirable person; she just assigns all this value in her life to what she’s collecting.
Eric: Can we soften the word “hoarder” and make it “magpie” or something? Don’t you all have that kooky aunt who collects little statues of carolers and has a single cupboard with…?
Andrew: Yeah, and she’s a hoarder too.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: I hope she doesn’t listen to the podcast.
Eric: Kooky aunt… yeah.
Laura: But no, actually… yeah, and where I think you’re going with that, Eric, is I kind of feel a little bad for Hepzibah.
Eric: Yeah, there is a moment… she’s pitiable. I’m just rushing to her defense because fellow Hufflepuff connection.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: But no, it’s not even her defense. There are actually some really stark, unflattering character traits that are very Hufflepuff-coded, which solidifies the whole bloodline thing. Because if I’m thinking about how to turn Hufflepuff’s traits downward into negativity, you find that level of… from possessiveness? I don’t know. From that clique-yness, their friendship and connections that Harry faces the brunt side of in year two, can transform to be extreme possessiveness or gluttony. It’s like, Helga Hufflepuff’s enduring artifact is a cup. She loved her drink. She loved to have fun and have revelry and all this stuff, but then those traits passed along families can morph into some of the negative traits we see within Hepzibah.
Laura: Yeah. And I really wanted to call out – and I think what you’re saying alludes to this too, Eric – just kind of the level of pomp and self-importance she applies to herself because of her indirect descendant status from Hufflepuff. She’s really taken it upon herself to be a collector of all kinds of things. It’s clear in this memory that this is not Tom’s first visit to see her.
Eric: Right.
Laura: She hoards a lot of valuable things, and she often makes sales or trades things with Borgin and Burkes.
Eric: I think she’s just old money, though. She has nothing else to do. She has all this money, and it’s probably generational wealth. It’s probably inherited wealth from being a descendant of one of the most well-known witches of all time, too. So I see her as not being an outlier in terms of wealth for her family; it’s just some people, that’s what they do with it. They collect stuff, stuff they don’t need, even stuff that would interest them, that they pride themselves on being their special little collector item.
Andrew: Well, to that point, Laura, you said it’s important we call out she’s an “indirect” descendant of Helga. Are you saying that because… why does she even have this cup?
Laura: It’s not even that; it’s more so… it reminds me a lot of Slughorn insofar as wanting to feel important, or position herself as some kind of central figure.
Andrew: Yeah. Why does she need this thing? [laughs]
Eric: Well, how did she get it?
Laura: Well, and it’s like… I mean, hey, she has Slytherin’s locket too.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: She stole it.
Laura: She has lots of stuff that isn’t technically family heirlooms of hers, but I think it’s more so… I mean, if I was going to put on my therapy hat and try to psychoanalyze her…
Andrew: Go for it.
Laura: … this feels like a deeply sad and insecure person who doesn’t really have real connections to other people, and so through the collection of all these artifacts, she’s making herself important. And she feels like if people will come and call on her for this…
Eric: Yes. Well, and that’s it; her social appointment book is wide open for Tom to come in and be like, “Oh, I’ll charm this old lady into giving me some of her stuff.” Unfortunately, she is very vulnerable and probably very insecure. Harry comes in… putting aside all the fatphobic language around Hepzibah, she is still described as adding unnecessary rouge, and just powdering up and trying to make herself more presentable than perhaps she is to meet with this handsome young man from the shop that’s come to look at her, and it’s just sad. I feel nothing but pity for Hepzibah, really.
Laura: Yeah, definitely… oh, go ahead, Micah.
Micah: She’s definitely of old money, though, right? She has a house-elf.
Eric: Yeah, that’s the thing. She’s directly descended enough to have Hufflepuff’s cup, which that would only go to, I don’t know, your direct daughter… unless at some point a first cousin stole it from the direct line, I don’t know how Hepzibah ends up with that.
Micah: And not to analyze too much, but she has a very common last name.
Eric: Well, yeah.
Micah: And that’s not to say that people with common last names can’t be wealthy, but in the context of the wizarding world, that does seem a little bit strange.
Andrew: No offense to any Smiths who are listening right now.
Micah: Zacharias?
Laura: Yeah, I was wondering that.
Eric: I think that’s what we’re meant to assume, because that’s the only other Smith in Harry Potter that I can recall.
Micah: In terms of Tom, though, he definitely does know the right buttons to push with Hepzibah, and this is, yet again, another situation, much like Slughorn, where he’s able to charm her. And I wanted to ask, do we make anything of the young attractive man charming the older wealthy woman trope?
Laura: Oh, 100%.
Andrew: Cougar situation, or what?
Micah: I don’t think there’s anything romantic here.
Andrew: Not from Tom’s side, at least. [laughs]
Micah: No, definitely not. I don’t even think from Hepzibah’s side, but his charm is definitely being used to the max.
Andrew: Yeah! He brings over flowers, doesn’t he?
Laura: Yes, and she likes the attention, right? She’s also getting something from it, but also, she doesn’t know what his ulterior motive is, so I would say this is elder abuse, what’s happening here.
Eric: Oh, very much so.
Andrew: She’s giving cat lady. Hokey is her cat, and she just sits alone by herself all day with Hokey, and yeah, she gets excited when a strapping young man comes over and expresses an interest in her.
Laura: Before we move on to the next memory, I just want to do a quick checkin. Let’s do Horcrux watch. So far during his rise to power, Tom has the diary. He got the ring from Morfin. Now he has the locket and the cup. Next on the list, does he go into Albania for the diadem? Is that what’s next?
Andrew: Next up, Albania! A trip to Albania, round trip, you and a friend will fly…
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: Yeah, that makes sense, Laura.
Eric: It’s interesting, though, because presumably Albania has been on his radar for a long time because he found that out from the Grey Lady, and that was while he was still at Hogwarts, so he’s waited a good long time to act on that. I would say what surprises me the most is that Voldemort now knows who swindled his mom out of his family’s locket, and somehow Borgin and Burke are both allowed to live.
Laura: Yeah. Ooh, that is an interesting point. Maybe we can pick that up after…
Eric: It might have been too conspicuous if he killed them then, but he lets both of them live.
Laura: No, that is very curious. Okay, we’re going to have to keep an eye on that, but for now, we need to take a quick break before we hop into our next memory.
[Ad break]
Laura: And now we’re going to talk about the second memory, a.k.a. Voldemort tries and fails to get the Defense Against the Dark Arts post again. And the second memory in this chapter belongs to Mr. Big Brain himself, Dumbledore.
Eric: [laughs] Mr. Superior Brainpower?
Laura: Yes, exactly.
Andrew: I do love when Harry says, “Whose memory is it?” And he says, “Mine.”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Andrew: I think that comes through in the movie as well.
Eric: It’s a flex.
Andrew: I don’t know, something about it is epic. We’ve seen memories from other people’s brains, but now it’s time for Dumbledore’s himself.
Eric: Here’s the thing: There haven’t been memories from other people’s brains that are deficient in any way.
Micah: The Mrs. Cole memory was his earlier on in the book. Also, this is after he chastised Harry for a couple of pages for not getting Slughorn’s memory.
Eric: Ugh.
Andrew: And that rubbed me the wrong way, by the way, but I don’t need to get into it.
Micah: Bro, do it yourself.
Laura: [laughs] Yeah. No, I’m glad that you brought that up, Micah, because he does spend a good long time kind of being like, “Huh, well, I did my part, Harry. I’m prepared, Harry. What did you bring to the table? Nothing.” [laughs] That’s Dumbledore.
Andrew: It was very passive aggressive.
Laura: It really was. I’m glad that you can admit that, Andrew.
Andrew: It was!
Laura: That’s growth.
Andrew: I’m admitting many flaws concerning Dumbledore in this Chapter by Chapter reread, I think. I’m going to come out of this series a new man in terms of my perspective on Dumbledore.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Maybe.
Laura: So this memory takes place around ten years after the last memory we visited with Hepzibah Smith, and during that time after Hepzibah’s murder, Tom Riddle randomly just disappears and peaces out for a decade. Nobody really knows where he goes or what happens to him. Of course, we know he’s over in Eastern Europe, and he has materialized in this memory because he wants to give it another shot at getting the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. So he comes to meet with Dumbledore; he requests a meeting to try and sit down and convince Dumbledore to give him the position, and clearly, from the description of his physical attributes, all of that Horcruxing has started affecting those once handsome features. Eric, do you want to read this description?
Eric: Yeah, but my first thought, Laura, as you were saying that, was, “Not the once handsome features!”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: “Oh no!” But it’s true.
Laura: Oh no! What else did he have?
Eric: “It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, and the whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look, though the pupils were not yet the slits that Harry knew they would become. He was wearing a long black cloak, and his face was as pale as the snow glistening on his shoulders.” Freaky.
Laura: Can we call for a “Max that” here?
Eric: Yes!
[“Max that” sound effect plays]
Laura: Seriously, I need this, and I don’t want it to be a freakin’ montage.
Micah: So it can’t be something like Tom takes Albania?
Laura: Yeah, I don’t want a montage of all of these memories; I want to actually see them play out. And I think really getting to see some of what Voldemort was up to during the years that he disappeared, instead of just relying on Dumbledore to give us that secondhand narration… I think it could be really cool in the TV show, particularly during the sixth season, if each episode started out with a cold open…
Eric: Oooh.
Laura: … of like, “What is Tom Riddle doing concurrently on the timeline that will come into play in this episode?” I think would be really cool.
Eric: I like that a lot.
Andrew: And I think that is a somewhat common storytelling method, to kind of have those little scenes scattered throughout the course of the season to build to something.
Laura: Totally.
Micah: Well, given the appearance of Voldemort, I wonder, does Dumbledore suspect Horcruxes as early as this meeting with him?
Eric: Or does he suspect Madame Tussauds?
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: I think he’s expecting that Tom is at least doing something deeply disturbing. Maybe not Horcruxes, especially. But Eric, you actually had a quote later on; I’ll just read it now.
Eric: Sure.
Andrew: “‘Certainly,’ said Voldemort, and his eyes seemed to burn red. ‘I have experimented; I have pushed the boundaries of magic further, perhaps, than they have ever been pushed -‘ ‘Of some kinds of magic,’ Dumbledore corrected him quietly. ‘Of some. Of others, you remain… forgive me… woefully ignorant.’ For the first time, Voldemort smiled. It was a taut leer, an evil thing, more threatening than a look of rage. ‘The old argument,’ he said softly. ‘But nothing I have seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love is more powerful than my kind of magic, Dumbledore.'”
So he knows something is awry, and it’s bad.
Eric: He’s been practicing anti-love face cream, and it’s turned his face to white wax or something.
Laura: Yeah. Well, Dumbledore also knows what Voldemort has started calling himself. They have that moment where Voldemort is like, “I’m not called that anymore.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: And Dumbledore is like, “Yeah, I know what you’re called, okay? And also, I know you’ve got your little Death Eater friends over in Hogsmeade waiting for you to come and divulge what we talked about. So I’ve got your number, basically.” So Dumbledore, in general, he knows what Voldemort is up to; I just don’t know that he could specifically pinpoint Horcruxes at this point.
Andrew: Yeah, I agree. Well, that, and I mean, how much did Dumbledore know about Horcruxes? When did he start gathering this information himself as well? Because we see Hermione is trying to do her own research on Horcruxes, and she’s having a very hard time finding anything about them. So that just makes me think information has been very hard to come by for a long time.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: I think at a certain point, Slughorn says that Dumbledore is particularly controlling of the subject and where it gets… I think… Hermione’s only resource is the library, the restricted section and non-restricted section, so all Dumbledore really had to do in an afternoon was go down there, find all the books that mentioned a Horcrux, and take them away. And Hermione would be like, “I got nothing, except this one mention in this one book,” and that would be all she could do. But we know he has these books because she gets them eventually, through questionable means in… I guess the end of this book. The end of this school year, anyway; beginning of next. So I don’t know. For me, Dumbledore definitely had some inkling, and definitely had some inkling by now, and at the very least, maybe even considered using Horcruxes himself or something.
Andrew: What?
Eric: Because the way that he hoards the knowledge about it, and is like, “Only I can know about this,” and the only person we ever hear talking about them besides Dumbledore is Slughorn… it’s weird.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, that gets more into the conversation, I think, of Hallows versus Horcruxes, too, which we’ll get into in the next book.
Eric: We’ll have plenty of time for that later.
Laura: Do we think…? I know we touched on this a little bit earlier, but once and for all, do we think that there was an argument for giving Voldemort the job so Dumbledore could keep his eye on him? Because it wouldn’t be the first time Dumbledore gave someone questionable a job at Hogwarts so that he could keep his eye on them.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: I don’t know.
Eric: Well, as Dumbledore demonstrates in this chapter, he doesn’t need Tom to be at Hogwarts to keep a good eye on him.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Andrew: I think… it’s tough for me. I am on the fence about it, because having him so close by would absolutely be helpful; no doubt about that. I think the benefit could have been Dumbledore could have stopped him from going full Voldemort. Maybe, maybe. And I was actually looking at some fanfics online in which Tom Riddle turns out decent. Still crazy, but not evil.
Micah: Wow.
Eric: What?! Aww.
Andrew: Yeah, not because Dumbledore saved him or anything, but it’s just kind of this alternate…
Micah: Nah, he wouldn’t.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Is it like the “If Hitler had gotten into art school” argument that people are trying to make with those fanfictions?
Andrew: [laughs] I didn’t read them, so I can’t tell you.
Laura: Okay. [laughs]
Micah: I just… in this particular visit, I don’t think it’s really Voldemort’s intent to get the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. I think he knows coming in that that’s not going to happen. The real reason is to hide the diadem in the Room of Requirement, and maybe do a little bit of recruiting while he’s there at Hogwarts. I also just don’t see him teaching. I don’t really think that he really wants this job the way maybe he once did when he was at school. And also, in being at Dumbledore’s office, maybe he’s looking for a Gryffindor Horcrux. He’s created a Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw one at this point; I don’t know if he’s got his Horcrux radar up as he’s peering around Dumbledore’s office.
Laura: Yeah, especially with Dumbledore being a Gryffindor, right? So he’s probably wondering, “What do you have?” Yeah. No, for sure.
Eric: Well, presumably, he has the diadem with him right now too. The only time he…
Micah: Yeah, exactly. I mean, he’s going to hide it, right? While he’s…
Eric: Yeah, in the Room of Requirement. We don’t know exactly when Voldemort found out about the Room of Requirement, but that’s another interesting thread, because Dumbledore eventually is the one that hints to Harry that he knows about it. And if Voldemort knew about the Room of Requirement, why aren’t more people dead from when Voldemort was at school here? He would have used that room for awful stuff. It’s a big question.
Laura: Yeah. No, it really is. And there’s a lot of room for exposition there if they wanted to with the TV show.
Micah: Maybe it’s just as simple as it shows itself to him to hide it. Maybe he’s looking for a place to hide it.
Eric: Oh, and he never suspects… yeah, I think that’s right, actually. He never suspects that it’s anything more than the storage version.
Laura: Than just a room, yeah.
Eric: Okay, I take back what I said earlier.
Laura: It’s a good call. Well, I want to bring us to a close with the discussion just by talking about the moment that Voldemort curses the Defense Against the Dark Arts post.
Eric: Amazing.
Laura: This is so petty.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Because Voldemort doesn’t want the job.
Eric: “If I can’t have it, nobody can!”
Andrew: For more than a year.
Laura: [laughs] That’s basically what it is! Because Dumbledore is like, “Yeah, you didn’t come here expecting me to give you the job. I know that.” But Voldemort is still kind of ticked about it, and Harry almost reflexively shouts out for Dumbledore to move because he sees Voldemort’s wand hand twitch. But I think we’re meant to believe that’s the moment when he places the curse on the role, and then after this, they never have a DADA teacher for longer than a year.
Andrew: Yeah. And it’s crazy that anyone would want to take this role, knowing in time that there is a curse.
Laura: Right!
Andrew: But that’s a rant for another day.
Micah: Yeah, I was going to say the same thing in terms of we can talk about this at another time, but just the fact that nobody seems to notice that this post turns over every single year? And that nothing is done. Why don’t the faculty or the governors of the school or the Ministry come in and break the curse?
Eric: Hashtag #StopTheCurse.
Andrew: Everybody’s incompetent. It’s not just Dumbledore.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: Everybody’s weird about stuff like this.
Micah: I don’t know that Dumbledore is incompetent.
Andrew: Oh, okay.
Eric: Here’s the thing: When Harry gets to Hogwarts, it’s already been a dozen or so years since the position was first cursed, and Harry learns… somebody even says, “Rumors are that the position is cursed” or whatever, but the way the… I think it’s clever, the different way in which each of the DADA teachers each year end up no longer having the position more than a year. So it’s different enough, the circumstances are different enough as to be like, there’s some plausible deniability over whether or not it’s cursed? But I can’t think of 13 more ways somebody could have left that position.
Micah: Like, “Dumbledore, why can you not hold somebody in that post for more than a year?” At some point, that becomes a poor reflection on him.
Eric: Well, maybe the first five or ten years, he was like, “I want to get as many different voices in the room as possible, because it’s really cool; I care about the students.”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, that could be a good excuse.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Well, thanks for joining me for some deep analysis of those memories. I’m going to be really interested to see what feedback we get for this episode, compared to, apparently, what we covered last time, which was just turning this chapter into a true crime deep dive analysis.
Eric: It was really interesting, though. It was really interesting. I mean, just in case we don’t say this enough, my hope in showcasing a clip from the early episodes as we go through Half-Blood Prince is to get people excited about maybe even going back and listening, or doing both episodes. I mean, they’re all transcribed, too, so you can read them instead. We talk about some good stuff.
Laura: Yeah. And you can give us feedback about how wrong we were back then, and how wrong we are now, and it’ll be great.
Odds & Ends
Laura: We’re going to move into quickly some odds and ends, just some fast fire items from the chapter that we want to mention. Who put this first one?
Micah: I did. We talked a little bit about this earlier with Crabbe and Goyle, but Harry, Ron, and Hermione bump into one of them. I’m not sure which one of them it is; maybe we find out a little bit later on. But we keep having these run-ins with these young Slytherin girls who are showing up at very opportunistic times, so definitely something for us to keep an eye on. And then also, Hermione is starting to pick up on Harry’s feelings for Ginny.
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Very perceptive, that one. I want to call out… we didn’t really get to talk about this in the chapter, but it happens in both memories. Both Hepzibah and Dumbledore briefly see glints of red in Tom’s eyes.
Andrew: Bum-bum-bum.
Micah: And then finally, Dumbledore is getting his intel from the Hog’s Head. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of him getting information from there, so I think it’s just important, again, for us to keep an eye on this. How is he getting that information? Who’s the barman?
Eric: How many times does he straight up mention, too? He’s like, “Oh, I’m friends with the local barman.” He keeps mentioning it.
Andrew: It almost sounds like a joke, so I think that’s why people don’t really press it.
Micah: But it’s worth noting that it is unsettling to Voldemort in the moment that Dumbledore is aware that his buddies are hanging out down at Hogsmeade.
Eric: It’s an all-time great power move from Dumbledore, I think.
Superlative of the Week
Laura: Well, now we’re going to get into our MVP of the Week/our Lynx Line. Moving forward, these benefits are going to be combined so that y’all can see how much more creative and funny your answers are than ours.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: We’re putting ourselves on the spot here on the show, but we’re going to feature all of your answers after we get through ours. So this week’s question is: In an alternate universe where Dumbledore decided to give Tom a second chance, what Hogwarts position should he have offered Tom instead of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor? With a caveat that we’re looking for wrong answers only.
[MVP of the Week music plays]
Andrew: I’m thinking house-elf manager.
Eric: Okay, yep.
Laura: Yeah, he’s definitely shown qualifications for that this chapter.
Eric: Yeah, he’s good at doing what he wants with them. I think that Tom can be Hogwarts’s first bathroom security guard, making sure nobody dies in the bathrooms at Hogwarts. He’s very qualified at this, making sure nobody goes into the girls’ bathroom who shouldn’t be there. I think it has the potential to be the most important job at Hogwarts. They should hire him for that.
Micah: I think he should be Hogwarts’s chief chef, but it’s too bad that he can’t smell the food.
Eric: Ohh.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: He got no nose.
Laura: I think he should be the Hogwarts career counselor. If you’ve got a dream, get at it. May not work exactly the way you want it to, but if you have the determination, you too can be successful.
Andrew: Tom thinks differently. He worked at Borgin and Burkes. He didn’t get a job at Hogwarts or any other cool job, like for the Ministry.
Lynx Line
Andrew: And then over on Patreon, Marta said,
“As an expert Legilimens, he would be hired as the counsellor that Hogwarts so desperately needs. Students wouldn’t even need to talk; he would just know.”
Eric: Oh my gosh, I agree. Carlee says,
“Muggle Liaison. You know, the one who goes and talks to non-wizarding families when their child has been accepted at Hogwarts!”
I agree. Tom loves Muggles.
Micah: Rachelpuff says, “Peeves patrol.”
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah, that’d probably work.
Micah: That would drive him insane.
Eric: Someone’s got to reign him in.
Laura: Cassandra says,
“In Mean Girls, nasty Regina becomes a better person through playing sports. Make Voldy a junior coach to exorcise his evil through exercise!”
Andrew: [laughs] Shannon said,
“Kitchen intern. He can learn some respect for all the hard work the house-elves put in, and maybe he’ll learn to not be so evil.”
Eric: He’ll also learn to make a mean risotto.
Andrew: Meet them on their level.
Eric: Yeah. Ben… I’m a little confused by this, but I think the less said about it, the better. Ben’s suggestion for Tom’s role is, “The Squidkeeper.”
Micah: Oh.
Andrew: Do with that what you will.
Laura: I bet there’s a fanfiction for that.
Micah: Oh, boy. And Jared brings us home: “Muggle Studies, because Tom Riddle loves Muggles with all his heart.”
Andrew: Thanks, everybody who contributed to that question. There are more answers over on our Patreon, if anybody wants to check them out. If you have any feedback about today’s episode, you can send an email or a voice memo that you record on your phone to MuggleCast@gmail.com. You can also reach out to us via Spotify or YouTube, or slide into our DMS. Next week, we’ll take a brief break from Chapter by Chapter to check in on the Harry Potter TV show, the latest rumors and news, so stay tuned for that. We are now doing one TV show-focused episode a month as we approach the TV show, which is probably a year-ish away, and maybe on Paramount, maybe on HBO, Netflix… who knows? Who knows where it’ll be? Visit MuggleCast.com for links to our social media, our Patreon, our transcripts, our favorite episodes, and much more.
Quizzitch
Andrew: And now it’s time for Quizzitch.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: This week’s Quizzitch question: In Chapter 19, Luna Lovegood diagnoses Zacharias Smith with “Loser’s Lurgy.” Which 1950s BBC Radio program first coined the term, meaning a nonfatal unspecified illness such as a cold or flu? They called it the “Dreaded Lurgy.” The answer is The Goon Show. Very, very beloved BBC Radio program. 42% of the people that answered said they did not look it up, so congrats to all those smarties. And those people with the correct answer include You’re a wizard, Frodo – Dumbledore; Eden the Muggle established 2012; Eden’s friend Elizabeth; Eden’s friend Lilian; Eden’s friend Katlyn; Eden’s friend Sofia… they’re all here. The gang’s all here. Oh, boy.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: … I’m not Jimmy Jim Jimmy Jim Jim Jim Jim He’s Jimmy Jim Jimmy Jim Jim Jim Jim… I assume that’s from The Goon Show. Finty; Cheeseshark; Ashley B.; The New Count Ravioli; Unfortunate Sufferer of Dust Al-lurgy; Dumbledore’s Team; Strayan Wizard; QuidWitch; and Escargot Club Huhuhuh. Fun names this time. Here is next week’s Quizzitch question: In Chapter 20 of Half-Blood Prince, we learned why Hogwarts cannot have a DADA teacher for more than a year. In United States history, which two American presidents served less than one year in office?
Andrew: Oooh.
Eric: Yeah, I know. I’ll give you a hint: One of them happened in 1841.
Andrew: [laughs] Okay.
Eric: So sometime… yeah.
Andrew: That really helped me. Thank you.
Micah: Hogwarts Legacy.
Andrew: As a college dropout, that was really helpful.
Eric: Well, some people don’t know the numbers or the terms of the years. You can work it out with the four-year term and you divide and subtract… anyway.
Micah: Hogwarts Legacy has the answer.
Andrew: Oh, perfect.
Eric: That’s true! Oh my gosh. Yeah, there’s probably a portrait of that guy.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Anyway, submit your answer to us on the Quizzitch form located on the MuggleCast website, which has all that other cool stuff that Andrew said a moment ago.
Andrew: Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: See y’all next week. Bye!
Eric, Laura, and Micah: Bye.
Andrew: [singing] “Do the Hokey Pokey, and you da-na-na-na-na, that’s why Tom Riddle killed you.”