Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #756, Dumbledoubt (HBP Chapter 29, ‘The Phoenix Lament’)
Cold Open
Eric: Can we all say, “Thank you, Severus Snape, from the bottom of our hearts”? “Thank you”?
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I mean…
Laura: He played a part that he needed to play. I don’t know that I would be naming any children after this character.
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, gathering to talk about the books and the movies and the TV show, so follow us in your favorite podcast app for new episodes every Wednesday. And this week, bring some tissues, because we’re discussing Chapter 29 of Half-Blood Prince, “The Phoenix Lament.” Caw, caw! That sounds like Fawkes, right?
[Laura laughs]
Eric: More like, “Hoo, hoo…”
Laura: Yeah, I don’t know.
Andrew: Bring some earplugs if Fawkes sounds like that.
Laura: Based on how comforting it’s described as being, I don’t think that it sounded like, “Caw, caw!” [laughs]
Andrew: All right. Listeners, if you love MuggleCast as much as Dumbledore’s portrait loves snoozing, head over to Patreon.com/MuggleCast and support us today. And to thank you, we’ll hook you up with all kinds of benefits, like bonus episodes of the show, ad-free episodes of the show, early access episodes of the show, livestreams of the show… all the things of the show. And we’d also appreciate if you left us a review in your favorite podcast app or told a fellow Muggle about MuggleCast, and you can visit MuggleCastMerch.com to buy official show gear, like a “Choo-choo” shirt or a “Security Nightmare” hat.
Micah: Choo-choo.
Andrew: Yes, good one, Micah. And on that website, you’ll also find a link to our overstock store, where you can purchase some of our Patreon gifts from years past.
Chapter by Chapter: Pensieve
Andrew: All right, now it’s time for Chapter 29. Half-Blood Prince, “The Phoenix Lament.”
Eric: And this, our second to last Pensieve segment ever. We will be taking it back to MuggleCast 422, an episode called “Fawkes Unites,” which was from June 24, 2019. And this clip features a hard truth.
Dumbledore: What you are looking at are memories. This is the most important memory I’ve collected. It is from MuggleCast Episode 422.
[Sound of memory uncorking]
[Sound of plunging into Pensieve]
Micah: Lupin tries to play it off and say that there are too many things that are wrong with him.
Andrew: And only one of them is valid. He says, “I’m too old, too poor, too dangerous.” The dangerous one is valid, but I find it interesting that he would say, “I’m not worth it, Tonks, because I’m too old and poor.” I don’t think a lot of people would say that in the real world. He just really is disappointed in himself, and hates himself and has such a negative view of himself. It’s really surprising. Something we don’t see from Lupin before, I don’t believe.
Eric: I think he just needs to come out and say he’s gay.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: He just needs to come out of the closet here. He’s been putting it off all year; this is the moment where he has to say, “Actually, I’m not into you, Tonks. I was into Sirius.” Right? Am I crazy?
Andrew: Well, fans would have been pleased. But that’s not his truth, Eric. His truth is he is straight. Happy Pride.
[Everyone laughs]
[Sound of exiting Pensieve]
Dumbledore: This memory is everything.
Andrew: [laughs] Oh, God.
Eric: The little button at the end. “He is straight. Happy Pride.”
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: Thank God this segment is ending. I can’t take it anymore.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Oh, early you? Come on, you sound great.
Chapter by Chapter: Main Discussion
Eric: Actually, this chapter, like the last one, is kind of sad, a little subdued. All the characters are finding out that Dumbledore has died. But something kind of interesting is I’ve named the first half of this discussion “Retracing the footsteps of a murderer,” because it ultimately becomes known to Harry just what steps led up to Snape arriving at the Astronomy Tower. So we learn how the Death Eater invasion of the castle went down, and how Snape behaved in the moments leading up to Dumbledore. And Harry is too, I want to say, bent out of shape to really emotionally process it, but this info is great for readers, especially coming from an after-the-fact perspective, because it’s interesting what we learn about how Snape behaved. So something that Hermione calls out pretty quickly is that it seems like Snape did not know that the Death Eaters were coming into the castle, and this is based on Hermione witnessing Flitwick coming and telling Snape that the Death Eaters were in the castle. So whereas before we were talking last week about how all of Snape’s actions are to protect Harry and facilitate the Order surviving, they’re a lot grayer in this chapter, and so Snape straight-up knocking out Flitwick can be seen as a violent action or as protection, depending on how you look at it. What do you guys think?
Andrew: Yeah, it still feels below the belt in the case of Flitwick, though. It just… knocking him unconscious just seems too far. That’s a fellow faculty member, and you’re secretly good. I don’t know.
Micah: For me… well, Laura and I, fellow Ravenclaws, of course.
Eric: Oh, yeah, this is your Head of House. I’m sorry, guys.
Micah: This is our Head of House. I think that he knows how good Flitwick is, and on top of that, I see it as a measure of protection. He’s neutralizing Flitwick to ensure that nothing happens to him in the battle; it’s as simple as that. I do think there’s probably part of him that doesn’t want to have to contend with Flitwick, and so it’s easier to remove him from the equation before anything even gets underway, but it’s also he doesn’t want him to die, and… easy situation for Snape here to just step in and neutralize the potential threat.
Laura: Yeah. Well, it also helps to solidify the narrative that Snape wants everyone to believe at this point, because when Flitwick comes to, he’s going to remember, “Oh, Snape knocked me out,” and that’s going to be part of the narrative, right? So it solidifies his position with Voldemort.
Eric: For Snape to attack a fellow teacher is how it’s being seen, but it doesn’t read that way in the aftermath. I mean, I think he definitely was doing Flitwick a favor, but I think if it’s true that he didn’t know the Death Eaters were coming, Snape also had very little time to make a plan, right? And so the first thing you’re going to do, you’re going to bop Flitwick on the head and get the hell out of there. [laughs] Could there have been a more elegant way to do it? A less below-the-belt way to do it? Sure, maybe, but…
Andrew: Yeah, he’s building a case against himself, in a good way.
Eric: Yes. Also, when Snape runs out of his office and conveniently runs into Luna and Hermione, who were standing guard there, his last-minute, all-of-a-sudden improvisation is to say, “Flitwick has collapsed; go look after him.” And that also neutralizes Luna and Hermione, because Luna is going to stay with her Head of House, and Hermione cares, too, about Flitwick, because he’s been nice to her before when she’s raised questions about the tests. [laughs] But yeah, so ultimately Snape, in one fell swoop, is getting three competent wizards to not be in the picture upstairs, which keeps him safe, but also keeps them safe.
Micah: One question I did want to raise about this, though, is do we know who took the Felix Felicis? Because this could also be at play here, the luck aspect of it. If Flitwick took it, if Luna took it, if Hermione took it, presents a whole different spin to how things played themselves out.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Eric: And how big was that vial after all?
[Micah laughs]
Eric: Because Harry has already had a full dose, and he gave them to divvy it out to… Ginny takes it; we know the people that are actively involved in the…
Andrew: Ginny at least takes it.
Eric: Yeah, the people that are actively involved in the battle took it, so that’s Ron, and maybe even Tonks and Lupin and Ginny. But Hermione and Luna, maybe not?
Laura: I don’t know if there would have been enough for all the… I thought Harry left it to Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, and told them to split it up, so you have to think with how little there was left of it, the doses wouldn’t last as long.
Andrew: That’s the thing, yeah. If they split it up too much, it might not even be effective.
Laura: Right.
Eric: It’s interesting. But so Snape is basically… through reliving Snape’s actions, we see how he also was protecting pretty much everybody else, which is pretty cool. Now, there is speculation, though. Lupin says that “Snape would have killed you. It’s good that you stayed with Flitwick, because Snape probably would have killed you too.” And that is now… I mean, nobody was more surprised than Lupin to find out what Snape did to Dumbledore. We could talk about that a little bit. But I guess everyone is now seeing Snape as a murderer, and that is according to plan.
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Micah: I find it hard to believe that Snape would have murdered students.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Micah: I don’t like this argument at all from Lupin.
Eric: From Lupin? Yeah. Well, why not? If you can kill Dumbledore, you can kill anybody.
Andrew: Well, but children? I mean, children’s different, versus a very, very old man.
Eric: Well, it’s “Children who would stand in my way from being able to go and commit this…”
Laura: You know what, though? I think we’re all looking at it from the vantage point of knowing what Snape’s true motivations are. Right now, everyone is shook because he has done the thing that everyone had convinced themselves he would never do, because since Dumbledore trusted him, they trusted him, right? So now they don’t know what to expect at all.
Andrew: Right. All bets are off.
Laura: And this is where I wanted to throw out… I know I plugged in the last episode that I have an idea about how I would like for them to Max this moment in the TV show that would make it, I think, feel more satisfying and give us POV into all of this that’s happening, as opposed to Harry needing to come back and have all these characters in the hospital wing info dump on him like they do in the book. I think that at the moment that Harry and Dumbledore get back to the school after the cave, the POV should switch to following Snape, so that we can see all of these events play out, follow him up to the tower, events on the tower play out as we know, and then we see the fallout of Harry chasing Snape through the battle in the school. I think that would be a much more satisfying way to tell the story in a TV format, as opposed to just, again, Harry walking into the hospital wing and just having everyone be like, “Well, here’s what happened to me.” “And here’s what happened to me.”
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah, definitely. And another check in the “Snape is good” column: I think that when he told the Death Eaters to not kill Harry, and then he said, “We are to leave him! Go! Go!” The “Go, go” is “Get out of here; stop fighting these other people.” Snape was good there. He was looking out for the students and faculty.
Micah: It’s probably a combination of different things that are at play here. Snape is also on a clear mission, so he has one goal in mind here, and that is to save Draco more than anything else. So I think that it’s a combination of Felix Felicis helping some members of the Order, but potentially also Snape stepping in and maybe doing some wandless magic.
Andrew: Yeah, I could see that too.
Eric: Well, and that definitely… when Snape returns, the way that it’s described is kind of clever, because I think that… “That crazy Death Eater was firing all the curses, accidentally hit the ceiling, and it destroyed the curse, and then we could all get closer to the stairs and properly fight our battle.” Do we really think that was an accident, or do we think that Snape from behind basically shot a Confundus or something, which caused the Death Eater to miss, hit the ceiling, and break the charm? I think Snape is so competent… what we’ve seen him do in the last chapter, with blocking Harry’s spells on his lips, I think that Snape basically came down and continued protecting all the adults by basically shooting ahead these types of spells. What do you guys think?
Andrew and Laura: Yeah.
Laura: What I really love about the way all of this is written is it does leave it open to interpretation, and I think that there’s a lot of argument to be made that Snape was also playing a pretty big chess match tonight to make sure that the battle played out such that there was minimal death apart from Dumbledore, and that everyone now thinks that he’s truly on Voldemort’s side, which is exactly where this plan was supposed to end up, right? So Snape is having to take over orchestrating the chess match from Dumbledore at this point, which is interesting. Dumbledore hands the reins over to him.
Eric: And he’s doing a great job. No, and it’s crazy, because he could not have predicted, especially with rogue agents like Greyback in there… everyone hates Greyback; Draco didn’t even want Greyback there. But Greyback savages Bill, and that is not something that anybody could have predicted, but Bill could have died, there could have been more murder, and Snape wouldn’t have had anything to do with it, because Snape didn’t even know this was going to happen.
Micah: Right. I still think that Snape is not doing anything more than he needs to in this particular moment; however, that doesn’t mean that if there are Death Eaters in his way, he’s not going to remove them from his path so that he and Draco can get out of the castle. His only mission is ensuring that Draco gets to safety, and I think when you’re dealing with some of these Death Eaters, there’s such a level of unpredictability in terms of how they’re going to behave that he possibly did step in and do some things to clear the path, and I think it was brilliant in that the reason they’re allowed to just kind of walk through the Order members that are there and the DA members that are there is because it was seen as a professor escorting a student.
Eric: Oh, yeah. So that’s a job well played there, because they’re retreating back into their former identities, not as Death Eaters, but as professor and student. Yeah.
Micah: Right. There’s no reason to think that they’ve been up to anything evil.
Eric: Untoward, yeah.
Micah: And I also really loved – I forget who says it in this chapter – but that the barrier could only be accessed by somebody with a Dark Mark.
Eric: Harry intuits this. Harry wasn’t even here! He was upstairs the whole time.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: But he’s like, “You know what? I bet that you needed a Dark Mark to get through there.” It’s interesting. And I wonder if that’s his Horcrux. Normally, if this were a slower chapter, we’d be like, “Is the Horcrux telling Harry this answer?” But it’s true; everyone who went upstairs probably had a Dark Mark. So in other words, can we all say, “Thank you, Severus Snape, from the bottom of our hearts”? “Thank you”?
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I mean…
Eric: “The bravest man I ever knew…”
Andrew: Thank you, Severus.
Eric: Hats off to you.
Laura: He played a part that he needed to play. I don’t know that I would be naming any children after this character.
Eric: Okay, what about half naming? What about a middle name or a second name?
Micah: No. Uh-uh.
Eric: Not the first name, because the first name’s got to be your beloved teacher.
Laura: Yeah, no, he’s doing the right thing, but he’s still a bad person. [laughs]
[Ad break]
Eric: I now want to talk about what happens… obviously, there’s a lot of moments that we touched on our previous discussion about Bill, the reveal of Fleur, Molly and Fleur making up. And everybody says Bill will probably be okay, but really, the terrifying part is they just don’t know. So few people have been bitten by werewolves when the werewolf wasn’t transformed that they really don’t know. And I love that it turns out… what does Bill say in the next book? “Turns out I just like my steaks a little rarer than usual”? [laughs] But the way Bill is described as his face is torn up, it’s kind of a level of scariness and detail that we didn’t get into with Dumbledore’s body last chapter, so it’s worrisome and terrifying. But what I wanted to talk about is where things go from here now, especially setting up not just the next and final chapter of this book, but the next book, because McGonagall, we assume… I think as readers, nobody could have predicted who the actual headmaster would be next year, because it ain’t McGonagall, but at least in this and the next chapter, we’re led to believe that the deputy headmistress, the Vice President Kamala McGonagall, is going to step in and take care of things at Hogwarts. But we do get some rare insight into McGonagall’s leadership style, and so I wanted to talk about that a little bit. And Harry does get a private moment with McGonagall, and she asks him, “Where did you go with Dumbledore tonight, Harry, by the way?” And Harry says, “I’m sorry, Professor, but I can’t tell you.”
Micah: Booo.
Eric: And I don’t think McGonagall has ever… yeah, right? Boo! I was waiting for that. I was waiting for the influx of chorus to say “Boo.” Because I don’t think McGonagall has given Harry a single reason his entire life to doubt her intentions, her loyalty, or her competence, but Harry says, “No, neener-neener, Dumbledore told me not to. I’m not going to do it.” Do we agree with this? What is going on with Harry here?
Laura: I really think this is Harry being Dumbledore’s man through and through, as we’ve gotten to hear in this book, and Dumbledore was pretty explicit with him about only telling Ron and Hermione and nobody else. And to be honest, do I think that Harry could trust McGonagall? Yeah, absolutely.
Andrew: Of course.
Laura: It’s not a question of trust or her competency or her skills or her understanding, nothing like that. But I do think that McGonagall may have tried to stop Harry from going on this Horcrux hunt.
Andrew: Yeah, she could get in the way in that way.
Eric: Oh, she’s so uptight. Oh my God, she could be such an obstruction for them.
Andrew: No, it’s not about that; it’s about her being protective of Harry and being concerned that he’s going to put himself in danger when maybe it could be an Order member.
Laura: Yes.
Eric: Meanwhile, it takes somebody who doesn’t care about Harry’s safety, like Dumbledore, to send him on the missions that he needs to go on, right?
Andrew: Ignorance is bliss.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s the thing about… I think McGonagall is the best ally Harry could ever have, maybe next to Lupin, which almost happens in the next book. But McGonagall, it’s important to note, isn’t just inheriting leadership of Hogwarts; she’s just inherited leadership of the Order of the Phoenix, too, so she is actually the person foremost in charge of defeating Voldemort.
Andrew: So Dumbledore is a very exact person. I think he chooses his words very carefully, and he was very clear that only Ron and Hermione should be involved in hearing details about this. Harry firmly believes that if Dumbledore wanted him to tell other people, whether he was still living or not, he would have specifically said that. And this is also a way to protect McGonagall. It’s one less person who knows the plan, one less person who could be tortured to get the information out.
Laura: Exactly.
Micah: That’s where my head is at. I’m going to merge a couple of thoughts here. I think first, Harry doesn’t have any faith in institutional protection, and I think that despite the fact that McGonagall…
Eric: Gee, who gave him that distrust of professors?
Micah: Well, fair, I’m just saying that even though you can view McGonagall as a friend, she’s still Hogwarts in terms of her role; she’s still this figure. And we see how quickly Harry bolts when the Minister is arriving to Hogwarts. He wants nothing, nothing to do with anything that’s related to institution, and the Ministry represents that. Unfortunately, Hogwarts represents that. And to Andrew’s point, there’s a chance that despite how much he trusts McGonagall, that this could pass on to other members of the Order, and it could leak back to Voldemort. And the other piece of this is that there’s no guarantee that Harry is going back to Hogwarts. Does he need to come back here? Does he need to give this information to her?
Eric: It’s his seventh year of school. The problem is he has to tell her eventually, and he does.
Micah: And to build on something else that Andrew mentioned in terms of protecting McGonagall, I think you only need to look back to the beginning of this book and what Slughorn was going through. He was being hunted, more or less, right? He said Death Eaters keep showing up, trying to recruit him. A little bit of the opposite end of the spectrum, but I do think the knowledge would make McGonagall extremely vulnerable.
Eric: To torture?
Micah: If she knew about Horcruxes, she would be marked for dead.
Eric: Yeah, that’s a fair point. I mean, I think the craziest thing for me about Harry’s behavior here is that Harry doesn’t know that, right? So Harry cannot predict that the Death Eaters are going to be running the show at Hogwarts next year. That’s way unexpected. Yes, it’s clear, Dumbledore was clear the contents of these Pensieve sessions should only be gone to Hermione and Ron. That’s while he was alive. Dumbledore – we’ve just read this book – was never going to say to Harry, “By the way, I might die, and if I die, then you can tell other people.” There was no universe where Dumbledore was going to float the opportunity that he might die and what Harry should do afterwards. In fact, this is why Dumbledore completely botched the whole mission, is he has no plan to get Harry Hallows information; he has no plan on how to get Harry information about how to actually destroy Horcruxes. It seems like Dumbledore had anything other than an entire year to plan his death with the haphazard way things go. So I’m just suggesting there’s no reason why Harry should behave the way he does and stick to Dumbledore’s orders when plans seriously… circumstances have seriously changed.
Laura: I think some of this too… and I hear where you’re coming from, Eric. My pushback would be – and it goes back to Dumbledore being a master manipulator – Dumbledore is really good at making Harry feel like that he knows everything at this point, that Dumbledore has told him everything at this point. Harry feels like he’s the one holding the mission, and he’s really not. It’s Snape who’s holding the mission, truthfully. Snape has all the cards; Harry does not. But because Harry thinks that he’s holding all the cards, he’s being very protective of that, because he knows that, one, the more people he tells, the more opportunity there is for somebody to just be leaky, and the more opportunity there is for somebody to be a victim of Voldemort. I mean…
Eric: There are moles in the Order too. Mundungus sucks. He can’t control information.
Laura: Totally.
Eric: Here’s my pushback for that, because I just… I finally have isolated what it is that bugs me so much about Harry’s behavior. He’s basing not telling McGonagall about the Horcruxes on Dumbledore telling him exactly to tell Ron and Hermione, and maybe nobody else, please. But Dumbledore just effed up big about Snape. Dumbledore just misread Snape as a character, as far as Harry knows, right? As far as Harry knows. So everything that Dumbledore… every character judgment, every assessment Dumbledore ever made specifically about the character of those closest to him, is not reliable, so Harry should not be putting stock in what Dumbledore said who was safe to trust, because Snape just killed him! So I think all bets are off, and Harry should trust his gut, and Harry’s gut should not be telling him, “Don’t confide in McGonagall right now,” because he’s just doing that because Dumbledore told him to.
Andrew: Last thing I’ll say on this is that Dumbledore just died. He just died, and he’s going to go against what Dumbledore told him to do? He still hasn’t even had time to process his death, and I don’t think one of his first moves is going to be, “Now let’s throw out the window what Dumbledore told me to do; I’m telling McGonagall,” which opens up a whole can of worms.
Micah: I agree with that. I think this is all a timing thing. This is very fresh and raw for Harry, and he’s 16 years old, and he’s been betrayed himself by Snape. He’s not just going to throw trust at somebody else, as much as he does value McGonagall as his Head of House.
Eric: Fair.
Andrew: McGonagall kills Hagrid. That could have happened too. That could have violated his trust. Can you imagine?
[Micah laughs]
Eric: Oh my God. I’m going to get a T-shirt that says, “McGonagall kills Hagrid, page 673.”
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Andrew: When everyone’s conversing, there’s this conversation that is one giant foreshadow alert.
[Foreshadowing sound effect plays]
Andrew: When talking about Snape turning out to be a traitor, Tonks says, “Dumbledore swore he was on our side! I always thought Dumbledore must know something about Snape that we didn’t.” And McGonagall adds, “He always hinted he had an ironclad reason for trusting Snape.” She later says, “Dumbledore told me explicitly that Snape’s repentance was absolutely genuine… Wouldn’t hear a word against him!” McGonagall also adds that “We all wondered… but he trusted… always… Snape.” This is just like, wow, this is so teeing up Deathly Hallows. Reading that back is like… I just love that teaser for what’s to come.
Eric: That’s pretty good.
Andrew: And then we get that misdirect from Harry for the reader. “Oh, oh, Snape just felt bad about sharing the prophecy with Voldemort.”
Eric: Yeah, yeah. “Oh, I know why. I’m able to provide the answers why this and that happened.” And it’s just devastating to watch Lupin, for instance, for his heart to fall. And people are experiencing real doubt in Dumbledore now.
Andrew: Dumbledoubt. It’s real.
Eric: The Dumbledoubt is real, y’all.
Andrew: Episode title.
Eric: So getting back to McGonagall, another aspect that we can talk about is how she brings everybody into her office, which is formerly Dumbledore’s office; still got the spinny gigs. But she huddles everyone up and says, “We have to decide whether Hogwarts is going to stay open.” And what I find so interesting about her leadership style – and it should endear us all to her – is that unlike Dumbledore, who is very much “What I say goes,” she is bringing in almost a committee. She’s ruling by committee here by getting their thoughts. They’re her trusted colleagues, the Heads of House with Slughorn standing in for Snape. She’s asking them what they think about whether Hogwarts should remain open or not. She knows that it’s a decision that is not hers alone to make, which I think is very endearing.
Andrew: Yeah, I think also… I don’t blame her for ruling by committee. She’s just starting this role; I’m sure she needs to use a little help making decisions, especially after such a shocking turn of events. And presumably, she started feeling more comfortable in this role, making decisions by herself as time went on, after the events of Deathly Hallows.
Micah: The scene for me played out very reminiscent of a Founders type of moment. I think that each of the decisions that we see from the respective Heads of House reflect their Houses, because Flitwick has this decision to involve the Board of Governors, and that’s very diplomatic; it’s very Ravenclaw-esque. Sprout has this comment about staying open even if one student wants to come back, and that was very reminiscent when we learn about Hufflepuff, about them taking all the rest from the Sorting Hat’s song.
Eric: Wow.
Micah: Slughorn is… I mean, I see a side of Slughorn here that I didn’t think I maybe would have seen, where he’s talking about the parents.
Eric: Mothers.
Micah: Yeah, wanting to keep their kids at home. But I think when you really read between the lines, he’s concerned about image, and he’s just been appointed Head of Slytherin House again, with Snape having departed. And Hagrid… he’s there, and McGonagall values his opinion.
Andrew: [laughs] “He’s there.”
Micah: I think you could see him as a stand-in of sorts for Gryffindor, because McGonagall has now been elevated to this position of headmistress.
Eric: And Hagrid was a Gryffindor.
Micah: And he was a Gryffindor, right. And Hagrid is not going anywhere, as he says. So yeah, this is what came to mind when I was reading this chapter in this particular moment.
Eric: I think it’s brilliant.
Laura: I love that. That’s such a great comparison.
Eric: Yeah. Now, I did want to ask, though, because it does read kind of like, “Okay, here’s all the Heads of Houses, and also Hagrid.” She solicits his opinion on the school… she makes a point to make sure that Hagrid’s opinion is noted and read basically into the record by saying Dumbledore always valued your opinion, and she does too.
Andrew: Aww.
Eric: So yeah, it’s a sweet gesture, but what’s she hoping to gain? Hagrid lives here, okay? Of course he’s going to say, “I’m staying.”
Micah: Hagrid is the heart of Hogwarts.
Andrew: Dumbledore is dead; now you need somebody else to harp on, Eric. Is that the problem?
Eric: Yes, yes.
[Laura laughs]
Andrew: You can’t criticize Dumbledore anymore.
Eric: Down with Hagrid now. Down.
Andrew: “Why does Hagrid have Buckbeak on campus?”
Eric: Oh, what an animal rights mess. Is Buckbeak happy in that…? Ugh.
Andrew: You’re right, Micah. He is the heart of Hogwarts. What does Harry Potter say to him in the movies?
Eric: [imitating young Harry] “There’s no Hogwarts without you, Hagrid.” I don’t know why he says it like a Dickensian orphan, but he does.
[Laura laughs]
Eric: “There’s no Hogwarts without you, Hagrid.”
Laura: And hey, honestly, I think from everyone’s perspective, the guy who Dumbledore literally defended to his death just killed him, so why shouldn’t Hagrid have a say here? If Snape hadn’t done what he did, he would have been in the room right now. Hagrid, I think, from everyone’s perspective, is probably more deserving to be there right now.
Andrew: Now, Southern Hagrid I don’t think should get a vote, but normal Hagrid absolutely deserves a vote.
Laura: What?
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: I’m sorry, we’re discriminating on basis of regional geography now?
Eric: [in a Southern accent] “That ain’t right.”
Andrew: Yeah, American Hagrid should not be voting about England Hagrid. Scotland Hagrid.
Laura: I see. I see. Anti-Southern bias. I see how this is.
Andrew: Sure. [laughs]
Laura: They’re going to kick me off the show, y’all.
Andrew: I love the South. There’s a Buc-ee’s opening west of Phoenix in another month; I might drive out there just to go.
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: It’s not really Buc-ee’s if it’s west of Phoenix.
Andrew: Oh, don’t say that.
Eric: Well, anyway. Let’s go back to Slughorn’s comment about mothers wanting to keep their families safe at home. McGonagall is pretty receptive of this feedback, but where do we net out on this ourselves? Seeing that hindsight is, of course, 20/20, but the students that remain at Hogwarts next year are going to have not Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Dark Arts class, where they all get Unforgivable Curses cast onto them, not to mention the complete totalitarian state that runs under Snape, and students are forced to deal with everything that they’re dealing with. Is it right for parents to say, “No, let’s homeschool our kids next year”? Can we blame them?
Laura: No.
Micah: I would ask the question, would parents have a choice in this particular world that’s about to be flipped upside down? Because it’s not just that the headmaster has been murdered by a fellow staff member; it’s that the wizarding world is about to be flipped upside down, and this murderer is about to become the headmaster of Hogwarts. And Voldemort is going to be back in full swing by the time Deathly Hallows opens. So would parents have a choice about sending their kids back to Hogwarts?
Andrew: So I think they should just leave it up to the parents. You can homeschool them if you want; you can send them to Hogwarts if you feel more comfortable sending your kids there. And some kids might need to go; some kids might not have any other place to go. So I don’t…
Micah: Right, but I wonder…
Andrew: I guess I would want to hear more as a parent. Like, what’s the plan to protect Hogwarts now? I think that would be my biggest question first.
Micah: I mean, presumably most parents, maybe with the exception of some Slytherins, would not want to send their kids to Hogwarts with Snape as headmaster, knowing what’s happened. But is there the chance of…? Let’s say you decide to leave your kids at home and homeschool them. Who’s to say a Death Eater doesn’t show up on your doorstep and say, “Hey, your kids need to go to Hogwarts, period”?
Laura: Yeah, so what you’re saying is we could be in a level of authoritarian state where attendance at Hogwarts is mandatory.
Micah: Exactly.
Laura: And your truancy is going to result in a visit from Death Eaters. I like that reading because it does kind of explain why so many characters are back there next year. Ginny is there; Cho is there. Luna is not there, right? Or is she only home for Christmas break when she gets taken? I don’t remember. There is this question, because we know towards the end of the year when Harry, Ron, and Hermione get back to school, a lot of students have taken up residence in the Room of Requirement, all the old Dumbledore’s Army members.
Micah: Right.
Laura: So they’re hiding out in there, presumably not going to classes. So yeah, it does raise the question, has Hogwarts attendance become mandatory, and the only people who aren’t there are people who are on the run? Because don’t they run into Dean Thomas on the run as well?
Micah: He’s with some goblins, right?
Laura: Yeah, that’s a good catch, Micah.
Eric: It’s interesting. So here’s another, I would say an oddity, but it’s a big part of the chapter, honestly. McGonagall starts to talk about sending the kids home early; she says that the Hogwarts Express could be here tomorrow at the soonest. And then Harry has a weird… I want to say an out-of-character moment, but maybe he’s just being the fiercest, most Gryffindor Harry has ever been in his entire life. He says, “Well, what about Dumbledore’s funeral?”
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: And it catches everyone off-guard, no one more so than McGonagall. The only reason that a funeral for Dumbledore happens – which is great; it’s a funeral of the likes that we see in the next and final chapter of this book – the only reason it happens is because Harry voices a strong opinion here that comes out of nowhere and says, “Well, Dumbledore should have a funeral, and all the students should be able to pay their respects.” McGonagall was like, “Seriously, kid? Right now?”
Andrew: Well, no, I think they still would have had a funeral, but maybe without students there. Maybe they would have made a special exception to let Harry, Ron, and Hermione go, but I think… I do agree that the students got to go because of Harry making this comment.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. And then they start talking about his wishes and all that stuff.
Micah: I think that Harry is right to raise this, but McGonagall – who is grieving herself – she still has to put the students first, and right now Hogwarts is not safe. Priority number one should be getting the students back home as soon as possible.
Andrew: Fair point.
Micah: Compare it to some things that happen in modern day society. Would you keep students at a school where there’s just been a similar type of incident? Or would you send them home? You would send them home.
Eric: Yeah, and they can attend via Zoom or something. Funeral services.
Laura: Or give them the option, right? Like, “A) We’re going to make it possible for y’all to leave if you want to leave, but anyone who wants to stay can stay for the funeral,” right? But I think it is risky. It occurred to me while reading this that having the student body plus Harry stay at Hogwarts when it is literally at its most vulnerable is so predictable. I could see Voldemort having this realization, like, “Of course, they’re so sentimental; they’re going to all stay behind in one place like sitting ducks so they can go to Dumbledore’s funeral. I’m just going to… why don’t we speed up the timeline here, and I’m just going to go to Hogwarts for the final battle now and kill everyone who’s there?”
Andrew: [imitating Voldemort] “Hey, author, we don’t need another book; I can get this done at the end of Book 6. Gahh!”
[Laura laughs]
Eric: “I can do it in six.”
Micah: Right, the threat has not been neutralized.
Laura: No.
Micah: It’s still very much out there, and that’s why I think, Laura, to your point, you can’t carry through with something like this right away. You need to make sure all security is in place before…
Andrew: The sitting duck event.
Micah: … choosing to pay tribute to Dumbledore. I think the last thing Dumbledore would want is for all of these people to be put in harm’s way just to say goodbye to him.
[Ad break]
Eric: It’s nice that people show up. I’m starting to think, why doesn’t Voldemort attack tomorrow?
Micah: He’s drunk. They raged the night before after what happened.
Eric: They had a big party.
Andrew: They’re partying, yeah.
Laura: Well, he and Bellatrix are celebrating.
[Andrew and Micah laugh]
Eric: Oh my God. Delphi was made tonight. But yeah, I feel like the one reason maybe that makes the most sense is that Voldemort… although Hogwarts is as unprotected as he’d likely ever to find it, it’s still Hogwarts. It’s still been around a thousand years, and I think Voldemort has a healthy fear or respect of the protections that remain at Hogwarts, so he’s going to want more time to prepare for a scenario where Hogwarts is still the formidable castle that it always has been, even if Dumbledore is not leading it. Voldemort needs more time to prepare, in addition to the good guys. So that’s my thought.
Odds & Ends
Eric: I had a question, because when we finished the getting Slughorn’s memory chapter, we asked if Slughorn was even in this book, really, for the rest of it, because we didn’t really remember, and largely he has not been. But something Slughorn, who’s back in this chapter, says when he bursts into McGonagall’s office, is, “Snape! I taught him! I thought I knew him!” I’m really curious here. Slughorn would not have predicted that Snape would kill Dumbledore. He taught him; he thought he knew him. What aspect of Snape’s character did Slughorn think that he knew about Snape from having taught him Potions? Is it just that Snape was a good student?
Andrew: Just not a murderer. Yeah, that’s all… that’s kind of what I think it comes down to. Laura, what do you think?
Laura: Yeah, I think Slughorn… he tends to pigeonhole the people that he doesn’t think are going to amount to much in terms of fame and notoriety, so this kind of strikes me as him never having expected Snape to do anything major, good or bad. But it’s also another reflection of Slughorn being a pretty terrible judge of character when it comes to his former students.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: I mean, Snape would have been his prized student, right? I mean, even more so than Lily, surely Snape would… did Snape apply himself? Did Snape reveal how brilliant he, Snape, was at Potions when he was in Slughorn’s class?
Laura: The thing is, though, I think in order to… I don’t know that Snape would have been in the Slug Club, for example, because Snape…
Andrew: Yeah. Who wants that nerd there?
Laura: It wasn’t even…
Micah: He didn’t shower.
[Andrew laughs]
Laura: Well, that didn’t help.
Eric: He made the other students uncomfortable.
Laura: Yeah, there was no personality or gravitas there…
Andrew: X-factor.
Laura: … that I think Slughorn would have gravitated towards. Snape… he’s a very standoffish kind of miserable character, and I don’t think Slughorn would have looked at that and said, “Okay, this person is well-positioned to have influence.”
Eric: I don’t know.
Laura: Because that’s what he mostly cares about. “This person’s not going to work at the Ministry; this person is not going to be a major athlete. He’s not going to be famous in any way.” So why would Slughorn bother?
Eric: Because the main trait of Slytherins is ambition, right? And Snape is certainly ambitious. Snape goes around calling himself the Half-Blood Prince, for crying out loud.
[Micah laughs]
Eric: If the thing with Lily Potter didn’t happen, Snape would have been in the Ministry. Snape would have been the head of something other than…
Micah: He didn’t publicize the fact that he was the Half-Blood Prince, though.
Eric: The fact that you’re writing it on school books… I think that there is ambition there, though, in Snape that we sometimes overlook.
Micah: I did read this a little bit differently, though. When he’s bursting into the office, and he says, “Snape, I taught him, I knew him,” it’s all about Slughorn.
Andrew: Yes, he’s making it all about himself. And this is one of my pet peeves in life, by the way; when somebody dies, or you find out somebody’s a traitor, you always make it about yourself.
Eric: “How does this affect me?”
Andrew: “I met this person, and they were the sweetest, blah, blah, blah.” It’s like, “Okay, so you’re just bragging that you got to hang out with them or whatever.” Anyway, pet peeve over.
Eric: All right, well, odds and ends continues. What else do we have?
Andrew: Yeah, that was an odd and end. I just wanted to mention that Bill is gravely injured, and this marks the second time that a Weasley has been put in front of death’s door – Arthur Weasley being the other one that comes to mind – so I guess the third time’s the charm in the next book.
Eric: Oh, God.
Andrew: And speaking of Weasleys, we touched on this a little earlier, but Ginny credits the Felix Felicis for keeping everyone alive. She said, “[The Killing Curses] seemed to just miss us.” And this ties into the theory that we were discussing earlier in this reread, that Felix will sort of guide you along the right path, and with that in mind, the right path was one in which Killing Curses weren’t directly flying, so thank goodness for the Felix, and I think that just helps further prove the point that Felix almost physically guides you on a path to success.
Micah: I feel like the comment about the Weasleys, though, it’s probably more like the fourth or fifth time, because Ron almost dies in this book, and then Ginny in Chamber of Secrets almost dies.
Andrew: Oh, that’s true. Yeah, there’s been these… what’s that called? When it…
Micah: Bad luck.
Andrew: Well, that, but… final destination? Is that what I’m thinking of?
Eric: Oh, yeah, yeah. Death will find a way.
Lynx Line
Eric: Okay, well, let’s get over to our Lynx Line segment. This was a real fun one, and here was this week’s prompt: You, like Bill Weasley, are bitten by a magically cursed beast, but not during the beast’s “time of the month.” What is the beast you want to be bit by, and why? So it’s like if you’re bit by a werewolf, but you don’t become a full werewolf or whatever, is where I was going with that.
Andrew: [laughs] Yeah. So I want to be bit by a basilisk so I can slither into Vernon’s Chamber of Secrets. And for more on that, you can listen to MuggleCast 754.
Eric: Solid.
Andrew: Sorry, I didn’t take this one seriously at all. [laughs]
Eric: That’s okay. Micah, what do you got?
Micah: For once, I’m much more PG than Andrew, which is… shock. I went with a Demiguise.
Andrew: Ooh, fun.
Eric: Okay.
Micah: Invisibility, and people just keep losing track of where you are mid-conversation. Your friends swear you were sitting in a chair a second ago – a Micah chair, maybe – and you just develop this unsettling habit of answering questions before people even ask them, because you can see into the future.
Eric: Little bit of ESP there. That’s kind of neat.
Laura: I like that.
Eric: Laura, I can’t even with your answer here.
Laura: [laughs] Yeah, so I took inspiration from Crabbe and Goyle in Goblet of Fire and said a Flobberworm, because apparently you can be bitten by those.
Eric: That’s an important call-out. I said one that I would, I think, would be very cute to be bitten by: a Niffler, you guys! I think even if it would be painful… because they’ve got a beak, right? Or a snoot of some kind?
Micah: So if we shake you, will money come out?
[Andrew and Laura laugh]
Eric: Change will just randomly pour out of my ears, yeah. Don’t shake me. But yeah, I think it would be really effing cute, even if it’s a little painful. But Andrew, what did our listeners say on Patreon?
Andrew: Yeah, Zachary said, “An Acromantula. As much as I hate spiders, it would be cool to be both a wizard and Spider-Man. The possibilities are endless.” Yeah, it would be cool.
Eric: [laughs] Rachel says, “I have to say a phoenix. They are such fascinating creatures, and I really don’t see any downsides, aside from periodically bursting into flames.”
Micah: Carlee said, “A Niffler.” Just like you, Eric. “Sudden talent for finding gold? Yes, please!”
Eric: Oh, hell yeah.
Laura: Rachelpuff says, “Thestral! A good amount of people can’t see you if you need some alone time, and it would be nice to not need to use a GPS/map app all the time.” That’s a good choice.
Eric: Oh, that’s a great one.
Micah: [laughs] Sorry, I read ahead.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Matthew said, “Blast-Ended Skrewt, especially when I’m constipated.” [laughs]
Micah: Get more fiber in your diet, Matthew.
Eric: That’s underappreciated. That is an underappreciated best of all time reply. Mason says, “Hippogriff, 100%. Imagine being half-horse AND being able to fly! Like a centaur and a bird!” [laughs] I guess I’m trying to picture what this would look like as being also human, but it’s a problem.
Micah: Yeah. And finally, Eleanor says, “A Qilin, so I can pick the next Supreme Mugwump, ’cause as much as I love Dumby, I’m not convinced the Qilin can be trusted to accurately pick the pure souls.”
[Eric laughs]
Laura: Fair enough.
Eric: Oh my God, I forgot all about the Qilin and fooling the Qilin and all this stuff. Wow, what a…
Andrew: It’s a good callback.
Eric: I love that callback.
Andrew: Listeners, if you have any feedback about today’s discussion, you can contact us by emailing or sending a voice memo to MuggleCast@gmail.com. You can also reach out via the Spotify comments or the YouTube comments, or hit us up on social media. We are MuggleCast on Instagram, Twitter, Threads… all the places. TikTok. If you… I already did that, duh. Next week, the last chapter of Half-Blood Prince: Chapter 30, “The White Tomb,” so stay tuned for that. Visit MuggleCast.com for links to our social media, our Patreon – we would really appreciate your support there – our transcripts, our favorite episodes, and lots more.
Quizzitch
Andrew: And now it’s time for Quizzitch one more time, in its current format.
[Quizzitch music plays]
Eric: The final – in its current format – question for Quizzitch: In this chapter, Harry feels the healing power of Fawkes’s song. In a 1984 study done by Roger Ulrich, he examined the healing properties of bird song in real life. Ulrich’s research, done between 1972 and 1981, took place in a hospital in which US state? Was it A) Massachusetts, B) Pennsylvania, C) Texas, or D) Washington? What kind of birds were they listening to? And submit your answer to us on the Quizzitch form located on the MuggleCast website, MuggleCast.com/Quizzitch, for one more week, and we’ll have the answer to this, as well as last week’s Quizzitch question, on our final chapter episode coming up.
Andrew: Thanks, everybody, for listening. I’m Andrew.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Micah: I’m Micah.
Laura: And I’m Laura.
Andrew: Bye, everyone.
Laura: See you next time.
Micah: Bye.