Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #752, Masterful Magic (HBP Chapter 26, ’The Cave’)
Cold Open
Micah: This is a masterclass in magic, to me, this chapter.
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Finally they’re being nice to me, right before I die. Damn.”
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: Welcome to MuggleCast, your 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, gathering to talk about the books and the movies and the upcoming TV show, so follow us in your podcast app, and you’ll never miss an episode every Wednesday. And this week, make sure Grandpa gets enough thirst-quenching water, because we are discussing a big chapter, Chapter 26 of Half-Blood Prince, “The Cave.” Before we continue, we announced last week MuggleCast Collector’s Club year five is here. We have six beautiful new sticker designs that…
[Dog barks in background]
Micah: Finn is excited for those stickers.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Aw, wow.
Andrew: We have six sticker designs this year for everybody, maybe the most beautiful set of stickers yet, so don’t miss out on these. The form is open now for patrons, and you have to sign up by June 10, 2026 and fill out the form to get this year’s stickers. If you are just joining us and want previous years’ stickers, don’t worry, because next year we’re going to be making our remaining inventory of past stickers and the Collector’s Club Card, this beautiful Club Card where you can put all the stickers, if you want. These will all be available for purchase in 2027, so if you missed out, don’t worry. Patrons will get a special discount on the stickers next year, by the way, if they wish to order the older ones.
Eric: Love it.
Andrew: And the Collector’s Club joins many other benefits on our Patreon, so check it all out at Patreon.com/MuggleCast.
Chapter by Chapter: Pensieve
Andrew: Without further ado, it’s time for Chapter by Chapter, and we’re discussing Half-Blood Prince Chapter 26, “The Cave.”
Eric: Yes, yes, yes. I love the episode title in which we last discussed this; it was called “Next Level Magic,” Episode 417. It was released May 13, so everybody get ready for the hay fever and allergy season voices that we all have as we talk in this clip about potable water.
Dumbledore: What you are looking at are memories. This is the most important memory I’ve collected. It is from MuggleCast Episode 417.
[Sound of memory uncorking]
[Sound of plunging into Pensieve]
Micah: Dumbledore needs some water. He needs some refreshments after having drank this nasty ass potion…
[Eric laughs]
Micah: … and Harry tries, as he might, to summon water…
Eric: He’s like, “Oh, I know that spell. I know this one.” [laughs]
Micah: … but then realizes, yeah, he’s got to go down to the lake, dip the cup in, and get some water from there. By the way, would you really want to drink this water?
Andrew: No!!
[Natalie laughs]
Micah: Let’s talk about this for a second. There’s thousands of dead bodies that are floating in this water. It’s probably saltwater, too, on top of it, because I don’t think freshwater is coming in from anywhere. This is pretty gross water.
Andrew: Well, look, it’s better than nothing, even though it’s still pretty bad. I feel like this would just put him in worse health. If you’re drinking water that includes dead bodies stewing in it, I just know that can’t be healthy. Maybe Harry should have tried “Accio Dasani.”
[Eric and Natalie laugh]
Andrew: “Accio Gatorade.”
Eric: From the nearest village?
Andrew: Maybe Tom has a little mini-fridge of Gatorade sitting in the back of the cave for this exact situation.
Eric: I mean, the potion…
[Sound of exiting Pensieve]
Dumbledore: This memory is everything.
Andrew: Eric, you cut yourself off!
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: I had to, I had to.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Eric: So yes, we’re here to talk about an amazing chapter, and during the read-through and just after, it occurred to me that there might be another level of textual analysis that we can do, particularly with the setting of this chapter, and I’m going to reach out to Laura for the assist here, because in conversation, we’ve kind of figured out that there is something to point out, and I just fancy the way that Laura is with words when it comes to it.
Laura: Oh, thanks. Shucks.
Andrew: Aww.
Laura: No, so… go ahead.
Eric: In particular, the cave itself, if we think of it, it’s this resting place, or this hiding place for 1/7th of Voldemort’s soul, and if we think of it as a place where his soul is existing, then we can kind of see it as almost an incubator, and so it turns out there’s some imagery of the cave that feels almost like it’s representing a womb, or a place where life can grow and flourish. So Laura, say more.
Laura: Yeah, well, first of all, Eric and I had such a good conversation about this over text message yesterday while Eric was prepping this document and everything, and I got really excited because Eric, when you started pulling in the imagery and how the nature can be really representative of a womb or an incubator type space, I was like, “Holy crap, Eric is right,” because art and literature have always drawn metaphorical comparisons between nature and the female form, with caves very commonly highlighting themes of origins, fertility, and transformation, a.k.a. acting as a womb of the earth, and literally the opposite of everything Voldemort is, when you think about what a womb typically represents. And given Voldemort’s background and origin, I think, Eric, you’re totally right to consider how the cave in Half-Blood Prince acts as an inversion to the standard artistic metaphors and literary analysis that often applies to this type of landscape. So you brought up the point about what’s being incubated here, right? It’s a tiny life form.
Eric: Yeah, and unnatural, right? An unnaturally-developed evil inversion of it. It’s unnatural to split the soul; it’s even worse to encase it in a container, but then it’s being stored here as if it’s… we know that if anybody interacted with the Horcrux… what happens with the real locket in the next book? It grows, and it can sustain itself, and it can gestate into something bigger. And I’m just getting a lot of life and newborn energy from this cave. And at first, it started out when I was reading this chapter, I just thought I could make a joke or two, because Dumbledore is like, “We must penetrate the innermost level,” and “Are you ready to get wet, Harry?” And it’s just this funny little joke to be made about this old man showing this young kid how it’s done, but then I was like, “Holy shit, there’s actually this whole literary history of this happening,” and so I’m glad that we could bring it to discussion, and having Laura’s buy-in was crucial.
Laura: Totally. Well, you asked a really good question here, which is…
Eric: Yes, so if we’re thinking about this, if we’re thinking about this imagery seriously, then it becomes the question of what does this relate to everything else? So the first question here: Are Horcruxes the closest thing that Voldemort has to children? We’re not talking about Cursed Child. Get out of here, Delphi.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Yeah, she was unplanned. No way… she was not intentional.
Eric: She was an unplanned pregnancy. [laughs]
Laura: 100%.
Andrew: It happens, even to the Dark Lord.
Laura: Yeah, and this is why education is so important, boys and girls, but I think it’s so interesting to point out…
Micah: Should have wrapped his snake.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Both of them.
Andrew: Cover your wand, yeah.
Micah: There are so many. We could do a whole show.
Laura: I know.
Eric: [laughs] Let’s get ’em all out. Come on, guys. All right.
[Micah laughs]
Laura: We could take this… we can totally do this really elevated literary analysis of, “The cave is a womb,” and I think that we can also go to the gutter with it if we can find the right moments for it.
Andrew: Can I just say – quick fandom memory – at the Harry Potter conferences, they used to hand out condoms that said “Protect your wand” on the wrapper.
Laura: Yeah! [laughs]
Eric: Ohh.
Andrew: But hey, good!
Eric: Love that.
Laura: Yeah, you know what? Very needed.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Laura: But anyway, I think it’s so interesting that the only life Voldemort ever sets out to create is actually just self-preservation of his own soul, right? There’s no progeny with Voldemort. There’s no concern about carrying on his bloodline, which is so interesting, because as a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, you would think that that would seem to be something that somebody of his mindset would be really gung-ho to do, but he’s not. It’s all about him.
Andrew: Yes, these Horcruxes are definitely his most precious possessions. He does not love anybody; we know this. The closest being he might love is Nagini, who is a Horcrux herself.
Eric: Yeah, part of himself. He’s flattering himself here.
Micah: I agree. He treats them with this kind of twisted parental pride, his Horcruxes. You think about it: He hides them, he protects them, and he invests enormous importance in them, right? But unlike a parent, he doesn’t love them, to Andrew’s point, as separate beings; they only matter because they are him.
Eric: Yeah, he’s extending his own… kids are a great way to leave a legacy behind and to live forever. They say the same thing with teaching; you never know where your influence lies, so a teacher is immortal in that. But Voldemort wants to literally be immortal. He’s like, “I don’t need children if I never die. If part of me is out there always – literally me out there always – I won’t need any of this.” And so the Horcruxes become basically like his children. But putting it where he puts this one, the locket, and knowing where that locket came from… I’m going to skip questions chronologically in the doc, but this really reminds me of Merope. And the idea that this is his mother’s cherished possession that she hated parting with, that this locket, which was recovered from his shitty old boss, Borgin and Burke, and recovered from Hepzibah Smith, to really represent his mother, and then if we see the cave as like a womb, it is almost sort of like a reverent form of protection that he chose this item for this location. There’s something to it.
Laura: Yeah, and I think what’s so interesting about it, too, is that it’s probably unintentional. I wonder if there’s some kind of undercurrent of an Oedipal con… shoot, what’s the word I’m thinking of? Complex, excuse me. An Oedipal complex here, the obsession with the mother.
Micah: Oh, Oedipus.
Eric: I thought you were talking about marijuana.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: That’s what I thought too.
Laura: No, no, Oedipal. Not edible.
Eric: Okay, all right. We rarely reference the Greeks on this podcast, so when we do, I just assume we’re talking about drugs.
Laura: Well, I mean, they often, I think, partook. But I think it is so interesting looking at the fact that he brought something of his mother’s that was intended to seal his own immortality to this unholy incubation chamber. It almost feels like an unintentional replication of his own conception and his mother’s pregnancy. I just think there’s a lot of subtext we could read into here.
Micah: It does make me wonder, though, too. This is the hardest Horcrux, really, to find, and not only find, but destroy, and it has such strong ties to his mother. Are we meant to take anything from that at all? Or, as you’re saying, Laura, is it just happenstance that this is where the locket is?
Eric: Did Voldemort feel something toward his mother after the initial shock? Or is he just disgusted by her weakness? Because remember, at 11, he just assumed that his dad must have been the wizard, because his mom, if she were magical, wouldn’t have died. And we know that Tom doesn’t understand love or how love works. Merope probably had some other issues, but she essentially died of heartache. She didn’t want to live, because her love, this man that she had given love potion to and conceived a child with, left her when he realized what she had done. And so this loveless union that produces Tom Riddle, a boy who – later a man – who does not understand love, ends up inverting all of this nature stuff to preserve his own life, and does so in a way that is just very reminiscent of, I guess, origins.
Laura: Totally.
Micah: I’d also be curious of timeline, as to when exactly Tom puts the locket Horcrux here. I mean, we know – or at least we learn, I think, in Deathly Hallows – that Kreacher was part of this experiment in terms of the placement of the Horcrux, but I’m kind of thinking now, was he more protective…? Was his approach to hiding his Horcruxes more thought out earlier on, and then he just becomes more and more absentminded as it relates to where he puts them? He doesn’t put as much care or as much thought into the protection around them, because we see that. I know we obviously have to complete the story in Deathly Hallows, but it seems like Harry is much more able to find and destroy them in the next book than… this took a lot of work, presumably. This took the whole year for Dumbledore to find this location.
Eric and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: I do want to talk about the implications as we compare to the other Horcruxes, but still, getting back to the cave really quickly, and talking about… often Mother Nature is thought of as female, and this natural cave seems a perfect setting to harbor something like this. Now, I wonder if Voldemort had to add an Extension Charm or something, because the cave is massive. But these things exist just in nature, of like, you’ll never see them. Underground caves can span for miles, and there’s whole cave systems, and we’re just above ground. We don’t see it, or we don’t know it, but it really speaks to the vastness of the world a little bit, and just the amazingness of nature. The fact that a place like this could have been… it just exists inside with… maybe he put a door on it, and a couple magical protections, but I wonder if the cave was largely untouched besides that.
Andrew: Probably.
Laura: Yeah, I mean, we know that he spent some time in this cave as a child too.
Andrew: His little hideaway.
Eric: [laughs] Well, and that’s the thing. I think we’re asking the question, was Voldemort at all ever once sentimental toward his mom? But this is also a place where he just tortured some kids, so everything about… and the locket, yeah, it’s a relic of his mom’s, but it’s mostly a relic… it underscores the Slytherin connection, like Dumbledore said about Nagini. This is Slytherin’s locket, and so there’s quite a lot about this Horcrux and this locket that has nothing to do with his mom specifically,
Laura: Yeah. Something I’ll say I think does have to do with Merope that might have inspired why Voldemort was so protective around this particular Horcrux is we have to remember that Merope got ripped off when she sold Slytherin’s locket. She had no idea the value of what she had, and so she sold it for, what, ten Galleons? And Voldemort had to be pretty resentful of that. It’s clear that he carries a lot of resentment towards his mother for a variety of reasons, but he knows what it’s worth, so again, it’s really, really interesting imagery for him to take something that his mother recognized was her last most prized family heirloom, but she still didn’t know what it was worth, and so he’s like, “I’m literally going to protect this life with death, because I’m going to surround it with death in this earth womb,” which is another comparison I find really interesting. If we’re doing the literary analysis of this place as a metaphor for the only kind of incubator for life creation that Voldemort could ever conceive of, because he’s incapable of love and understanding the importance of it, the fact that he brings this last piece that he has, the only piece he has, that is reminiscent of his mother to be here in this cave, where he not only tortured children when he was a child, but now he has infested it with literal death to try and protect his own life.
Eric: Oh.
Laura: I just think it’s so fascinating.
Andrew: That’s incredible, yeah.
[Ad break]
Eric: Also, getting in and out. Here’s an interesting question: In order to get in, they have to spill their blood, and in order to leave, they have to ingest the liquid. And I was chatting with Meg about this, and something that she said, which is just worth bringing up here, is that Half-Blood Prince is really the liquids book, if you think about it. She said… and this is a weird thing to hear read out loud, but she says, “Harry becomes great at Potions, which are liquids. Ron is poisoned with mead. Dumbledore gets Mrs. Cole drunk on gin. Felix Felicis is liquid luck. Romilda Vane is trying to get Harry to drink a love potion. Harry and Dumbledore are always diving into the liquid/gas Pensieve. Dumbledore has to drink the potion to get the Horcrux. Dumbledore pours mead for the Dursleys. Harry and Dumbledore drink wine with Slughorn at the random Muggles’ house.” It’s just so many liquids! And blood is in the title too. And blood is necessary for childbirth, just like it’s necessary for them to enter the cave.
Micah: He also… Voldemort spills others’ blood in order to preserve himself.
Laura: But again, I think it’s such an interesting inversion. If we want to continue along this line of reading, to say in order for someone to get in here and ultimately take this life that is being incubated within it, the man just needs to cut his hand, right? And that’s all you’ve got to do, whereas the woman’s experience of creating life is significantly more traumatic.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: You’re damn right.
Laura: So again, it’s just… it really feels like if you were to sit Voldemort down and be like, “Hey, where do babies come from?”, he would have such a simplistic, lacking in any kind of empathetic perception response to that question, which really makes this whole cave scenario make sense. Do I think that Voldemort sat down and was like, “Yes, I’m going to set out to intentionally create this metaphorical incubator for my origin story”? No, but I think it’s an important part of the way that the story is told that this is… it is a subtextual piece that points to Voldemort’s entire origin and the way that it shaped his mindset in the way that he approaches life and its importance.
Micah: Totally. And to build off of that, too, I think there’s symbolism in that the only way for one to gain entrance to Voldemort’s inner world is through pain. It goes all the way back to his conception, you could argue.
Eric: So I mentioned earlier the headmaster is showing Harry how it’s done. Without Dumbledore, the next question is, could Harry have ever, and I mean ever, beaten the cave?
Micah: Eh…
Eric: I mean, this is why the previous discussion was titled “Next Level Magic.” The type of magic that Dumbledore is using to, for instance, find the chain that pulls out the boat is so advanced and above Harry’s skill level. Even if we look forward and say the end of Deathly Hallows, Harry still could not have beaten the cave with everything that he learned and everything they knew, and neither could Hermione. The only person… we’ve never seen magic like this. The closest we’ve come is what Snape does right after Draco is Sectumsempra‘d where he’s muttering and murmuring. Nobody else.
Andrew: It’s really cool. And by the way, the full-cast audiobook, I’m listening to it as we go through Chapter by Chapter because the Half-Blood Prince one recently came out, and I had said that initially I wasn’t really into Hugh Laurie as Dumbledore, but he’s grown on me a lot, and this is a really cool chapter to listen to. But anyway, yes, only Dumbledore could do this. Harry definitely could not feel out the magic like Dumbledore is. But maybe Hermione… let’s say Dumbledore wasn’t in the picture; maybe Hermione would have found Harry some device that can track magic or sense it, something like that. But no, ultimately, though, this does end up being a good learning lesson for Harry. That is the point; we’re just training Harry here. And this is a great bonding moment for Harry and Dumbledore as well, but I’ll get into that a little bit later.
Micah: Yeah, building off the title the last time we discussed this chapter, but this is a masterclass in magic, to me, this chapter.
Andrew: [imitating Dumbledore] “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Finally they’re being nice to me, right before I die. Damn.”
[Eric and Micah laugh]
Andrew: You guys feeling a little nostalgic right now? A little sad we’re about to lose Dumbledore?
Eric: Oh, stop.
Micah: If not for Voldemort, we wouldn’t see this from Dumbledore, so you’ve got to…
Andrew: Oh, so you like Voldemort? Got it.
Micah: But to your point, Andrew, this is the last chance that we get to see Dumbledore in action, and I think we can really begin to understand why he was the only one Voldemort ever feared because of just how good he is in this chapter.
Andrew: Yeah, and also in this chapter, Dumbledore is like, “Oh, I know this boy too well. He’s being so predictable with some of these moves. I taught him everything he knows.” [laughs]
Eric: Right! Dumbledore is absolutely critical of Voldemort’s whole thing; he’s like, “Oh, this is so obvious, and this is so callous.” But then at the end of it, when Dumbledore has been deeply weakened by taking the potion, Dumbledore is forced to concede that it was, in the end, a well-designed trap and hiding place, that one wizard alone, even Dumbledore alone, wouldn’t have been able to do it. And so the next natural question that I have is, in terms of all the books, and in terms of – Micah, you were saying this earlier – the other Horcruxes that sometimes seem haphazardly placed on top of a shelf in a Room of Requirement where Harry has been hundreds of times already, does this cave that ends Book 6 set an unreasonably high expectation for us as readers in terms of Horcruxes and how they are protected, how they’re guarded, and how difficult the task ahead for Harry is?
Andrew: It is surprising how uneven the Horcrux hiding is. Some just accidentally get destroyed, others are just sitting somewhere anyone could find them, and then there’s this one that’s an alleged one that’s a tough nut to crack. So no, I don’t think really it’s an issue; I think this is, again, an opportunity for Harry to become prepared for the road ahead, so in that way it’s good that it’s this difficult.
Micah: There’s definitely almost a progression of difficulty, but it works in the opposite direction. I think there are ones that you can look at, like the locket and the cup, that are extremely well protected in terms of… and I would say the locket is the hardest probably of all to retrieve, but let’s not forget inside of Gringotts, there’s a dragon also down there, and there’s a curse placed on the vault itself. So I think that maybe at one point Voldemort was extremely intentional about how he wanted to protect certain Horcruxes, and then just as time went on, the more he created, the less he really focused on the actual protection of them. Just because he had so many, he thought, “Oh, well…” There seems to be a bit of that going on.
Laura: Yeah. Well, I mean, he was definitely willing to gamble with the diary, which we talked about a couple of episodes ago.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Right.
Laura: So it’s clear that, in wanting to create seven pieces of his soul, he wasn’t just thinking about giving himself seven backup opportunities, but maybe giving himself more opportunities to maybe sacrifice a piece of his soul in order to obtain something greater, like reopening the Chamber of Secrets, for example.
Eric: Yeah. It’s just very lucky that Dumbledore took Harry to this one. And it’s not like Dumbledore knew where all of them are or were and didn’t do anything about it; was like, “I’m going to get Harry to this one, because he couldn’t do it on his own.” But no, if the Horcrux weren’t, in fact, fake that they pull from the basin here – which we’re about to get into – this would have been the only way that Harry could ever have succeeded, is if Dumbledore specifically took him to this one, and Dumbledore specifically fixed this and got them through this. So it is interesting, because I think that going into Book 7, I was expecting a lot more of this, and yet, to Andrew’s point, some of them are destroyed accidentally. Even the diadem is accidentally destroyed. It’s not… the diary was Harry just happened to have a Basilisk fang near him, and he accidentally destroyed it. Somebody happens to cast, what, endless fire in order to kill the diadem? But some of the ways in which the Horcruxes get destroyed are vastly different than the intention that was set behind the protections of this one. So it is uneven, I guess, is in the end the best word for it. But do we…? Going forward and looking ahead, we understand that unfortunately, this locket was a fake, was a duplicate, and it’s an extra gut punch that we go into Book 7 without having Dumbledore there to guide us, because he was so instructive and informative, and I kind of expected his feeling-the-walls magic style to have to be something that is learned, or maybe if Remus Lupin was going to join the trio on their quest, maybe he heard tell of some kind of magic like this. I fully expected that to come up again, and so I was slightly disappointed when it didn’t, that it turns out we don’t need to know everything Dumbledore knows magic-wise.
Laura: Yeah. I guess this for you is kind of like what the Department of Mysteries was for me.
Eric: Yes! Oh, I love that comparison.
Laura: Because I was convinced that we were going to go back to that and that was going to be relevant, and it was like, “Nope.” [laughs]
Eric: Because it’s so interesting, right? Our brains are just… the possibilities are wild, and they just blaze through it. Even Gringotts, which is… yes, you’re right, Micah; that’s probably a comparable level of security protection, but this one was designed by Voldemort, and that one was designed by goblins and whoever else. And so it’s equal protection, but they don’t have that sinister mind behind them planning what you have to do to get through… getting out of Gringotts is a tall order, but the way that Harry and co. just kind of… I mean, for all their planning, in the end is just a slapdash, run, guess, hope for the best style of things the same way they do everything.
Andrew: But this, like I was getting at earlier, is Harry and Dumbledore’s last great adventure. It helps Harry prepare for the road ahead, so it wasn’t all a waste. It ultimately was, A, an incredible scene, as we’ll talk about more shortly, but B, it’s very meaningful in hindsight that Harry and Dumbledore had this one last opportunity together. Dumbledore trusted Harry to go with him. He trusted him to do the hard work when Dumbledore needed his assistance.
Micah: It’s about time he trusts him.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. But Micah, what do you think here?
Micah: Yeah, it’s a tough bezoar to swallow, right?
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Because… and we’ll feel this in a couple of chapters, but Harry is more or less right back where he started before going to the cave. And I know that without going there, he wouldn’t ultimately be able to track down the real Horcrux, but the R.A.B. message doesn’t give him anything, and so, as somebody mentioned, we’re about to be down a Dumbledore. I think, Eric, you mentioned that.
Andrew: Dumble-down. Dumble-down.
Micah: [laughs] We’re Dumble-down, and beginning the hunt for four Horcruxes with very little intel on where they might be located… it seems like an insurmountable task, and I think the easiest Horcrux, probably, if you were to go through and kind of rattle them off for him to find, is actually Nagini, because he knows where she is; she’s with Voldemort. But the others – the cup, the diadem, and the locket – anybody’s guess in terms of where they might be.
Eric: We’ll get into more of Harry and Dumbledore’s interactions in the cave after a word from these sponsors.
[Ad break]
Andrew: Eric, I really like how you named this upcoming segment.
Eric: Oh, yes. Thank you, Andrew. We’re back to talk about the secrets of Dumbledore. You know, something about that phrase just rings to me. It’s like, “Oh, yeah.” Dumbledore has many things, he has many trinkets in his office, but this is not a discussion on those. This is a discussion of the types of secrets that Dumbledore has kept, not just from Harry, but probably from everybody. Probably very few people know anything about Dumbledore, really, and the same way that in the previous chapter, we were talking about last week on MuggleCast, we talked about how Dumbledore kept the revelation that Snape was the one to overhear the prophecy from Harry for Harry’s whole life. The potion that they have in the cave removes the inhibitions that Dumbledore has. He sees something. Dumbledore experiences something. He sees people; he’s begging and pleading with people. He is admitting fault, another thing we’ve never seen Dumbledore do, not once.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: If you accuse Dumbledore of something, he tells you, “Don’t for a second assume that things are unprotected. I know everything, I’m great, I care.” And yet we see him so humbled by this experience, and so my question, and the interest in calling this “The Secrets of Dumbledore,” is that quite apart from whatever Dumbledore’s wishes were going to be, he is forced to relive something, and Harry is forced to be a witness to whatever is going on here, and whatever is going on, I think, points to some real trauma in Dumbledore’s past.
Andrew: Yeah, and reading this now, we know that he’s hours from death, which I think adds to what’s spilling out of him. He knows he doesn’t have too much time left, so even though this potion is clearing his inhibitions, maybe he also has that in the back of his mind that “I don’t have much time left,” and he’s reflecting on his life and it’s hitting him really hard.
Eric: I think even though they’re so close to death this moment, and Dumbledore made Harry promise to follow his orders to the T, nothing short of that… this is a bonding moment for Harry, having to do the unthinkable and force Dumbledore to keep drinking the potion that is clearly causing him indescribable agony.
Andrew: Yeah. And we’re going to read a few lines that Dumbledore says here in a minute, but first I just wanted to bring up that by the end of this, Dumbledore says to Harry, “I am not worried, Harry. I am with you.” And he said something similar about his trust in Snape last chapter, but what does it say about his relationship with Harry that he was willing to have Harry witness such a painful experience for him in drinking this potion? Did he know he was going to experience such a thing? He knew it was going to be difficult. Maybe he didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but he felt confident that Harry could be there for this, and I think that says so much about just how much he trusts Harry, but it also makes me wonder, is there anybody else he would have brought along for this experience?
Eric: Oh, if Harry said no?
Andrew: If Harry said no. Yeah, who else does Dumbledore trust this much? McGonagall would be my first inclination.
Micah: Snape.
Andrew: You think Snape? Yeah.
Laura: I think McGonagall would try to talk him out of doing it this way, though. I think…
Andrew: Really?
Laura: Yeah, I mean, it’s really hard for me to think about who would be next up on the list and willing to say, “Yep, I will come with you, no questions asked, and I will do exactly what you tell me to do, no questions asked.”
Andrew: That’s the key, isn’t it?
Laura: Yeah, Harry is really the only one.
Andrew: Harry is the only one that Dumbledore can kind of control in that way. He can’t tell McGonagall, “Hey, look, you will continue force-feeding this to me, no matter what.”
Micah: Yeah, I think there’s probably almost a sympathetic nature to most other characters where they would stop at some point because of just how terrible of a situation this is to witness, whereas… also, Harry is… he’s a teenager, but he’s a child, and there’s something to be said for taking instruction from an adult, and he’s willing to do that, and he probably goes farther than I think anybody else, maybe with the exception of Snape. I still think Snape would have been somebody who would have obliged in this situation. He understands potions, also. But yeah, I’m hard-pressed to think of another character that would sit through this and be party to what happens to Dumbledore.
Andrew and Eric: Yeah.
Eric: So let’s talk about now… I’m blown away, because I often think… everything that Dumbledore is saying can be taken from multiple angles, right? So “I don’t want… don’t make me…” can mean things like, “Don’t make me drink this potion. I don’t want to drink this potion.” Or when he says things like, “It’s all my fault, don’t hurt them, hurt me,” you’re thinking, “Could this be relating to Ariana? Could this be relating to something in his past that he’s really…?” If basically the potion is doing what Dementors do, and making you relive the worst parts of your life and really sit with that, what in Dumbledore’s past could they be evoking? But Micah, you have low-key blown my mind here.
Micah: I didn’t say anything.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Not yet, not yet. I’m queuing it up. Because for this first quote that we want to go through, “I don’t want… don’t make me…”, it says in the book, “Dumbledore panted and then spoke in a voice Harry did not recognize, for he had never heard Dumbledore frightened like this.” As terrifying as that is, Micah, you have a theory.
Micah: I do. Part of me wondered if he’s channeling the children who Tom Riddle took advantage of during his trip to the cave. We know that they didn’t come back the same, and there’s probably echoes of what Tom did to them inside of this cave, and so it wouldn’t be surprising to me that Voldemort would have included this within this concoction that he put together. I do think there’s a progression as we go through that we do enter into moments of Dumbledore’s past, but here I do think it’s possible that this is one of the children. He’s saying to Tom, “I don’t want to do this. Don’t make me do this.” Whatever this is, I don’t know.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: The potion could be… this blows my mind. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about this. So if the potion is making whoever is drinking it relive the moments of torture that happened to the children that Riddle did.
Laura: I love that.
Eric: Yeah. So the next quote – this is from the book – “Harry stared into the whitened face he knew so well, at the crooked nose and half-moon spectacles, and did not know what to do. ‘… don’t like… want to stop…’ moaned Dumbledore.” And Harry is forced to say, “You can’t stop, Professor.”
Andrew: [singing] “He can’t stop, and he won’t…”
[Eric and Laura laugh]
Micah: Is that Chappell Roan too?
Andrew: No, that’s Miley Cyrus.
Eric and Laura: That’s Miley.
Andrew: But I think these first three, the one we just read – and I love Micah’s interpretation too – and this one, and then the next one, I think Dumbledore is also in a bit of a transition period as he’s taking this potion. He’s transitioning into what he ends up experiencing in a few minutes. That’s sort of my read on this.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. “I don’t want to… I don’t want to… let me go…” That’s the interesting thing. Even just this line, “I don’t want to… I don’t want to… let me go…” It is so hard to imagine, isn’t it? Somebody physically restraining Dumbledore? To where he has to say, “Let me go”? Dumbledore is Dumbledore; there’s no… it’s hard to imagine anyone ever having or getting a hold on him that facilitates him to say, “Let me go.”
Micah: But is it Dumbledore? Again, going back to the kids.
Eric: Is it Dumbledore? Is it the kids in the cave?
Andrew: Or it could be Dumbledore thinking about he’s going to be dying soon. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to. Let me go. Get me out of this already.”
Micah: The other piece of this, too, that I mean, we talked a little bit, or alluded to this earlier, is Kreacher goes through this as well. Could this be almost…? Does it absorb the experiences of the people who actually drink it?
Andrew and Laura: Maybe.
Laura: I mean, we’ve definitely seen how, I mean, the real locket Horcrux brings out the deepest insecurities, and I mean, for Ron certainly, but it’s definitely a bummer for whoever’s having to wear it. So if you think about the Horcrux, if it was here for, what, ten years or so before Regulus came and…
Eric: Oh.
Laura: Think about the damage it did to the surrounding environment just by being there.
Eric: Wow.
Laura: So yeah, I mean, I think that reads perfectly into the narrative of anyone who has ever befallen something horrible in this cave, the Horcrux probably just took all of that in and is foisting that upon whoever is stuck drinking this potion.
Andrew and Micah: Yeah.
Eric: So “No, no, no, no, I can’t, I can’t, don’t make me, I don’t want to…” Again, how could anyone make Dumbledore do anything? He’s Dumbledore! It’s terrifying.
Laura: It almost feels like a sleep paralysis thing, the fact that he actively wants out and doesn’t want to be doing it, but he can’t fight it.
Andrew: As an aside, this scene has gone viral on TikTok from the movie, and the caption is, “When you have an unlimited drink package on your cruise and you have to keep drinking.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Oh, God.
Andrew: I was on a cruise and I did the unlimited drink package a couple weeks ago. I should have done that meme, since this was coming up in our Chapter by Chapter reread.
Eric: Okay, that’s hilarious. So the next… there’s more words to analyze. This is a longer sentence. “It’s all my fault, all my fault. Please make it stop, I know I did wrong, oh please make it stop and I’ll never, never again…” What the hell is going on here?
Andrew: Related to Ariana, I think? This and the next two passages.
Eric: Could it be… is somebody threatening…? Because I think a popular theory, and the operating theory the last time we discussed this, was that Dumbledore is reliving a moment where he was in conflict with Grindelwald over Ariana.
Andrew: Yeah, well, I mean, it could be a mix of things. “It’s all my fault,” he feels guilty for the death of Ariana, but also, “Make it stop,” I kind of think he’s just referring to “Stop making me go through these memories.”
Eric: This exact potion that he’s having…?
Andrew: Yeah, “Stop making me drink this, even though I have the unlimited drink package.”
Eric: [laughs] “I paid for it, and I regret everything! I know I did wrong in buying it.”
Andrew: “You must keep drinking!”
Eric: “You must, sir. You must, Professor.”
Micah: To me, this is the point where… if we were to take on the kids in the cave theory, the Amy and Dennis theory, this is where it switches, right? This is where it goes over to being about Ariana, and it’s tough to read.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. “Don’t hurt them, don’t hurt them, please, please, it’s my fault, hurt me instead…” This is a side of Dumbledore we don’t often see, too, because Dumbledore, at times, is perfectly fine with – or at least decides to – cause harm to others. So the whole “hurt me instead” aspect of Dumbledore doesn’t necessarily track for me, and it’s weird to hear him say, “Don’t hurt them, don’t hurt them, please, please.” Because again, who would have this level of power over Dumbledore to be causing harm when Dumbledore doesn’t want that to happen? The only person I can think of is Grindelwald, right? Because if there was this boy that Dumbledore admired, and it turned out that he was a real slime – which, sister, preach – and Dumbledore feels trapped and unable to either get himself out of that situation, or if he feels unable to act against Grindelwald and cause him harm, then he would feel trapped, and he would start saying things that sound a lot like these quotes. To my mind.
Micah: I remember one of the other theories at the time, before we really got to learn any more about the backstory of the Dumbledores, was that it was possibly somehow related to Hogwarts and the students there, that either something happened in the past or perhaps he’s looking ahead to the future. I don’t know how the potion would allow for that, but we know the school is about to be invaded by Death Eaters in just a couple of chapters.
Laura: It also makes me wonder… because we talked, I think, last episode about what was the inspiration for Dumbledore wanting to be so fierce about Horcruxes not being taught in the Hogwarts curriculum, and we talked about maybe he saw already the connection between Hallows and Horcruxes, and due to the history that he helped create with Grindelwald, maybe he’s been carrying this anxiety for decades that “Someone’s going to come along and be inspired by what we had initially set out to do,” so maybe he feels responsible for this current conflict in a way.
Eric: Makes sense to me.
Odds & Ends
Eric: So let’s move over to odds and ends, wrapping up our discussion here. We mentioned that, of course, Albus is forced to concede that it was a pretty good charm, and I’m glad, actually, too, that Harry does… again, he kind of fumbles with the… he breaks the lake surface in order to get Dumbledore to come to, and gives him the dirty water. But in the end, they make it out, right? They make it out. And so do we have any other connections that we found or made?
Micah: I would just say the one thing to keep in mind is he makes this comment that “One alone could not have done it,” and so as we are thinking about what is to come with…
Eric: The remaining Horcruxes?
Micah: Well, specifically as it relates to the locket, and knowing that it is going to be found out to be a fake, this knowledge that Dumbledore drops that’s very subtle, that one alone could not have retrieved it, it should have hopefully stuck with Harry. I don’t really think it does, but it’s a nice little nugget by the author.
Eric: Oh, because the fact that Dumbledore’s… and I trust him 100%, his assessment that, “No, not even I could have done this alone,” means that there were two people, not just one. So two potential leads who know the situation with R.A.B.
Micah: Exactly.
Eric: That makes sense. That makes sense to me a lot. And looking forward, it could be a metaphor for the rest of the series…
Micah: True.
Eric: … that no one person can do this task. Not just Ron and Hermione, but also Crabbe, for some reason, and Neville can all take part in destroying Horcruxes.
Lynx Line
Eric: All right, well, we asked over on our Lynx Line a very fun question. Good job, Andrew.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: And the question is: You are drinking from the basin and going through all the feelings. What are you screaming to the person who is forcing the liquid down your throat?
Andrew: So I’m one of these people who’s very squeamish with things I don’t like, and I would just be doing those Voldemort noises when he’s battling in Deathly Hallows. [makes Voldemort noises]
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: “F my life!” That type of thing.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: How about you, Eric?
Eric: I would say, “Can I get a health drink, please? This potion is not a health drink.”
Andrew: A chaser. Give me a chaser.
Eric: A chaser, yeah. Oh, God, this is exactly how I’d feel like when I had Malört for the first time.
Micah: Ooh.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Awful.
Eric: [laughs] I’m glad we all have that experience.
Laura: Can we declare canon that this potion is just Malört?
Andrew: Sure.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: I found a place in Vegas that actually has Malört, and I got free shots of it because I was like, “You have Malört?” They were like, “Yeah, you want some? Here you go.” No thanks.
Laura: They were like, “Yeah, nobody wants this crap. You can have it for free.”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Yeah, that’s why they give it away. The only time a bar gives something away for free is when it won’t sell.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: For those listening who may not know what Malört is, Eric?
Eric: It’s a wormwood-infused… I guess if I could call it a beverage would be a very generous credit. It’s got a lot of history, and it is tied to Chicago. Essentially, the story – or one of them – about the guy who created it is that his dad had this degenerative illness where he couldn’t feel or really taste anything, so he infused this drink, or this beverage – this liquid, let’s just call it – that is so unbelievably offensive to the senses that his father could enjoy a good alcoholic beverage, and that became Malört.
Micah: Wow.
Eric: It sounds enticing. That’s the story that was told to me that got me to drink it. Don’t.
Micah: Well, on that note, I went with, “Is this despair ethically sourced?”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: “Excuse me, garçon? Did you ethically source this?”
Laura: And I said, “Is this treatment in network with my insurance?”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Not for the first time this month you’ve asked that question, right, Laura?
Laura: No. [laughs]
Eric: American healthcare, ugh.
Andrew: Over on Patreon, Zachary pasted the whole “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down” song.
Eric: Oh my God.
Laura: Oh, we got Rickrolled.
Andrew: Yeah, we got Rickrolled, but I’ll just read a part of it.
We’re no strangers to love
You know the rules and so do I
A full commitment’s what I’m thinking of
You wouldn’t get this from any other guy
I just wanna tell you how I’m feeling
Gotta make you understand
Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Eric: [singing] “And so do I…”
Andrew: It goes on and on. Thank you, Zachary.
Eric: Thank you for that. That’s our first Rickroll, I think, that anybody has ever sent in.
Andrew: Maybe.
Eric: Robert says, “Harry! Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire? Did you ask one of the older students to do it for you? ARE YOU SURE?” I love if Dumbledore would scream that. He says, “Maybe not the most original choice, but I couldn’t resist.” All right, so you just Goblet-rolled us, Robert.
Micah: Rachel said, “I lost the game.”
Laura: [laughs] And John… this is, wow, such a good…
Andrew: My favorite one. [laughs]
Laura: Yeah, such a good one. John says, “EVERYBODY! SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS, SHOTS!” [laughs]
Andrew: And Ben said,
“HOW DARE YOU STEAL THAT CAR?! I AM ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED! YOUR FATHER IS NOW FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK, AND IT’S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT! IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOW OUT OF LINE, WE’LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT HOME!”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew Yeah, that would be a fun one, actually. If you have feedback about today’s episode, you can send an email or send a voice memo to MuggleCast@gmail.com. Also, you can reach out via the Spotify comments, YouTube, social DMs… whatever is convenient for you. And next week, we’ll host a new episode on the upcoming Harry Potter TV show, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. We’ll update everybody on what’s going on there, and we will also finally offer a review of the full-cast Harry Potter audiobooks. It’s finally time, so stay tuned. Visit MuggleCast.com for links to our social media, our Patreon, our transcripts, our favorite episodes, and lots more. Don’t forget the MuggleCast Collector’s Club. Year five is open now for orders, so don’t wait.
Quizzitch
Andrew: And now it’s time for Quizzitch.
Eric: Yes, we’ll recap last week’s question and the winners on a few episodes from now, but this week’s Quizzitch question…
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: With a span of over 426 miles made of limestone, where is the world’s longest known cave system located? Submit your answer to us on the MuggleCast website. Be sure to pay attention; this week there are two questions for Quizzitch to answer. One’s right above the other on the form on the MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch page. I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Bye, everyone.
Laura and Micah: Bye.