Transcript – Episode 110
[Show music begins]
Eric Scull: This is Episode 110 of Alohomora! for November 15, 2014.
[Show music continues]
Eric: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Alohomora! I’m Eric Scull.
Kristen Keys: I’m Kristen Keys.
Rosie Morris: And I’m Rosie Morris. And it is my pleasure to introduce our very special guest: the author of the Ever Afters series, Shelby Bach.
Shelby Bach: Hello!
Rosie: Hello, Shelby!
Shelby Bach: Hi! Thank you for having me.
Rosie: Thank you for being here. Would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself?
Shelby: Sure. I am a middle-grade fantasy author. When people don’t know what that is, I like to say “the same genre and age group as Harry Potter,” and they go, “Oh, I know what that is,” and I get really excited. [laughs]
Rosie: [laughs] We do like our middle-grade fantasy. It’s always good.
Eric: Yeah. It’s a passion of ours. If you were in a Hogwarts House, Shelby, [which] House would you be in?
Shelby: Oh, I was Sorted into Hufflepuff.
Eric and Rosie: Woo!
Eric: You mean by Pottermore?
Shelby: Oh yeah, totally. Oh, and I went to the MGM Studios and did the tour of all the Harry Potter stuff, and they had the Sorting Hat there, and that Sorting Hat Sorted me into Hufflepuff as well, and so I feel pretty good, pretty confident.
Eric: It must be true.
Shelby: Yeah. [laughs]
Rosie: So before we start today’s show, as always, we need to remind you to read this week’s chapter, which is Order of the Phoenix Chapter 32, “Out of the Fire.”
Eric: But before we discuss Chapter 32, there were some excellent comments over on our Alohomora! website for Episode 109 of Alohomora!, where we discussed Chapter 31. So the first comment we’d like to draw your attention to is from SeekerHolly, who has some nice words to say about last week’s guest. They say,
“I really enjoyed Grace’s take on Harry’s throwaway prediction about Uranus and Jupiter getting too friendly, and I think you could even apply the analysis to what happens at the beginning of book 7. If Uranus is represented by Voldemort, and if Jupiter is meant to signify the law, then you could apply this offhand prediction to Voldemort’s slow takeover of the [M]inistry. When Voldemort gets ‘too friendly’ with the [M]inistry, he is able to Imperious [sic] Pius Thicknesse, who later becomes his puppet minister. He also is able to implement anti-[M]uggle and -[M]uggle-born legislation, and he takes control of who goes in and out of Azkaban. So when Harry says he won’t have to worry about when Uranus and Jupiter get too friendly, it’s interesting that he unknowingly makes a prediction about something he does spend a lot of time worrying about in the seventh book.”
Rosie: Interesting. Even more than that, though. [In] this book itself, you’ve got Death Eaters about who infiltrate the Ministry right now, so you’ve already got that same connection happening in Book 5.
Eric: Yeah. No, it’s definitely very, very relevant. So I love astrology. I love seeing it plugged into Harry Potter. Alchemy as well, anything with that. And thank you, SeekerHolly, for commenting there. Next comment comes from DolphinPatronus, who says,
“Reading the astronomy test scene in this chapter hurts me. The attacks on Hagrid, McGonagall, & Fang kill me every time I read it. I cry like a baby. Just listening to you guys talk about it had me bl[ea]ry[-]eyed. 🙁 [And] I was with you, Caleb. I was very worried that McGonagall was done for on a pretty permanent basis.”
Did you guys get teary-eyed reading the last chapter?
Kristen: I did. I hate it when all the Stun spells hit McGonagall. It makes me hurt a little inside.
Shelby: Yeah. Just that moment. It was just…
Kristen: Yeah. I thought she was done for. I was really like, “Noo, not McGonagall!”
Eric: Yeah. [laughs] We learn in this chapter that she’s still out, so there is that to worry about, but I think she’ll make a recovery. Next comment comes from thegiantsquid. They say,
“Something I always wondered when I read the examinations sections… how do the Anti-Cheating Charms work? Do they read the students’ minds somehow and know what they know? Do they somehow sense the students’ eyes and see if they wander? And what happens if the student does cheat? How does the [S]pell-[C]hecking quill function? Are Hogwarts students even graded on spelling?”
[Kristen, Rosie, and Shelby laugh]
Eric: And before we reply to these awesome questions from thegiantgquid, we had a comment from SpinnersEnd, [who] also replied to [the]giantsquid. They say,
“Spelling is unnecessary for wizards. Just like math and physical education.”
[Kristen, Rosie, and Shelby laugh]
Rosie: Ooh, it’s painful to me as an English teacher.
[Rosie and Shelby laugh]
Eric: SpinnersEnd also says,
“I had always thought the Anti-Cheating [Charms] had worked on the basis of body language, sort of like how a polygraph can tell if [you’re] lying by checking your pulse and perspiration levels.”
[Rosie and Shelby laugh]
Eric: [continues]
“I think the quill leaves some kind of mark on the test paper that the proctors can see after the exam is over and [then] they [can] confront the student or give a failing grade post-exam. Although that seems a little too tame for the [w]izarding [w]orld. So maybe the cheaters end up with a giant plume of parrot feathers on their heads if they cheat.”
[Eric, Kristen, and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: Do you guys have a system called Turnitin in the States?
Eric: Yes. Now, where it scans the database for plagiarism?
Rosie: Yes. So that’s become a big thing in the UK now as well. Obviously, it wouldn’t have been at the time that this book was written…
[Shelby laughs]
Rosie: … but I like the idea that the quills work in a similar way to that, so they are very aware of what every single quill in the room is writing, and they can tell if you’re writing exactly the same thing.
Eric: That’s cool.
Kristen: That’s a great idea.
Shelby: I thought it was more like a Sneakoscope. Like maybe it was a variant on a Sneakoscope and each room had one.
Rosie: Very true.
Shelby: But that would probably interrupt the other test takers.
[Rosie and Shelby laugh]
Eric: Well, not as much as Harry freaking out, right?
[Kristen, Rosie, and Shelby laugh]
Eric: Although I will say, “Bless the students for not cheating, right? I mean, we haven’t seen one go off. We don’t know the answer to this question based on book stuff, so it’s possible that everyone there was being honest.
Kristen: I guess, yeah.
Rosie: It’s possible. You trust Hogwarts students that much.
[Eric, Kristen, and Shelby laugh]
Eric: So that’s pretty cool with all that has gone on in this exam year that the students are still minding their education.
Rosie: I think magic is scary. We’ve seen what Hermione can do to a fellow student for doing something that was lying or sneaking, so an anti-cheating spell would probably be a lot worse than that. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah. So we’re getting off easy with Turnitin.
[Kristen, Rosie, and Shelby laugh]
Eric: Okay, and our final comment… This is mostly for Rosie’s sake. I threw it in here because…
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: I don’t know what it’s talking about. The username… We do love our listeners’ usernames. This one is IGotTransfiguredintoa Rhubarb.
[Shelby laughs]
Eric: Okay. They say,
“Exam resits. The book is reflecting the UK at the time. I don’t know what happens now with resits, but when I was at school you couldn’t do a resit until the following year and you normally would have to repeat the entire year. I don’t recall an immediate resit ever because coursework would make up a large portion of your result. If there [were] any mitigating circumstance, such as what we see in the book, then there would be a record of it on the exam result paper. The same happened [to] my French exam. I failed, but I missed an exam due to being hospitalized at the time. Low [sic] and behold, there was a reference made on my results, and I had the option to resit at college. Like Harry and Ron, I hate studying, so I did not bother asking for the resit.”
So Rosie. What do you think about resits and OWLs?
Rosie: I’m sure that the wizarding world would have some form of resit if you have some issue with your exam like the UK definitely did at the time. I don’t think you would necessarily have to retake the whole year if you just missed the exam. Maybe you might have to, at least part of it. But yeah, I think you may have to redo it sort of in the following exam season. I’m fairly sure that Crabbe and Goyle have failed exams and are resitting Potions or something at one point. Or am I making that up?
Eric: No, I think you’re right. It would be in the next book. But wasn’t there a Slytherin student who, due to author error, ended up retaking a year? Was this the same year twice or was in the wrong year, and I think Jo’s explanation was that he had to retake his whole year?
[Kristen and Shelby laugh]
Rosie: Yeah, there’s proof that you would have to do that at Hogwarts. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, that’s proof!
Rosie: And I’m sorry that IGotTransfiguredintoa Rhubarb had to be hospitalized during their French exam, but I was rubbish at French so…
[Kristen and Shelby laugh]
Rosie: … I would miss that one as well.
[Eric and Rosie laugh]
Kristen: All right. Next, we’re going to go into the responses from last week’s Podcast Question of the week, and that was,
“In this chapter, both Hagrid and McGonagall leave Hogwarts. This, of course, creates a problem for Harry later when he needs a member of the Order he trusts to confide in. What would have been different if Hagrid and McGonagall had stayed? Would the events of the end of the book have occurred? Or would Harry have run off to the Ministry anyway?”
Our first response comes from thebandthatneedsnointroduction. And they say,
“If Hagrid [were] around, he would have no means of communicating with Sirius – no owl, no [P]atronus and no ability to [A]pparate. He would also be at a loss as to what advice to give the trio. Maybe he would tell them to see Professor Snape, but Harry would be unlikely to trust him enough. If Professor McGonagall had been present, her options would be: [1)] Walk to Hogsmeade and [A]pparate from there. This would be dangerous due to the extreme security restrictions on all communications and passages in/out of Hogwarts. [Or 2)] Send a [P]atronus to Sirius or another member of the Order. This would also be risky if her [P]atronus or the reply [P]atronus [were] seen, since it would prove her communications with the Order. Also, Umbridge seems to know when students are visiting staff members without her, e.g. after Harry’s vision of Arthur Weasley’s attack. So he may not able to convince McGonagall before Umbridge arrived to investigate. At a more basic level, Harry is convinced that Sirius is being tortured by Voldemort. His impulsiveness and depth of feelings for Sirius mean he is likely to attempt a rescue unless Hagrid or McGonagall could prove otherwise within a few minutes.”
Phew. That was a lot.
[Eric, Rosie, and Shelby laugh]
Rosie: I think I agree with most of this, but I think McGonagall would probably have had some way of contacting at least one other member of the Order who could have checked on things.
Kristen: Yeah, I think she would have been the one who would [have] found a way to get around Umbridge and be able to contact them without her knowing at all.
Shelby: Right. And I think maybe… It seems crazy to me that Dumbledore would leave without having any contact at the school, and I think of anybody, it would be McGonagall [whom] he would have a contact with.
Eric: Oh, yeah, that’s a really good point, actually. So she’d be able to go to him about the whole situation.
Shelby: Right, and then if Harry felt like Dumbledore [were] taking care of it, he probably would have immediately felt better and less anxious about the situation.
Eric: And I’m sure we’re about to be reminded in upcoming chapters of exactly how Dumbledore does get to the Ministry. But everybody is looped in then once Harry ends up going there. So they all were pretty much in contact. Interesting.
Kristen: All right, this next comment comes from Hufflepug, and they say,
“Remember how short of a fuse Harry had when he was waiting for the adults to respond to his vision of Arthur? I’m certain that with his impulsive nature and ‘saving people thing’ […] he would have actively tried to bypass any intervention from adults because he would want immediate gratification in physically making sure Sirius was safe. That’s just how Harry is. I’m sure he felt that the Arthur incident was way too close of a call and that the DA had enough skills between them to get him out of that situation.”
Rosie: This is a very interesting comment because it comes very close to something thata we’re going to discuss later.
[Shelby laughs]
Eric: Yes, this pretty much is… I don’t want to say “disproven,” but I mean, in the events of this chapter, Harry immediately does want to rescue Sirius but is actually talked out of it and talked into checking, even without McGonagall there. Hermione is able to persuade him, obviously, to go into the fire and go to Grimmauld Place, that sort of thing. So we will definitely be talking more about that in this chapter discussion.
Kristen: All right. And our last comment comes from DisKid. They say,
“Only way it would have made a difference with Hagrid is if Hagrid could convince Harry to go to Snape, who could have contacted the [O]rder. However, I don’t know if Harry would have listened. Maybe he would have thought Snape would be of no help. Other than that, Hagrid is kind of useless when it comes to keeping Harry from going. He doesn’t seem able to conjure a [P]atronus, so he cannot contact the [O]rder quickly this way like the rest of them can. I don’t think Harry would have been willing to wait for an owl. Maybe he would have sent an owl and gone with them, though, but I don’t think this would have changed the ending. Just would have had Hagrid with them. However, I think Mc[G]onagall would have made a big difference. Harry may have gone to Mc[G]onagall straight away so she could contact somebody from the [O]rder on the double; then she would have found out Sirius is fine, and then Harry wouldn’t have gone to the [M]inistry and we’d have a whole different end to the book. Of course, this doesn’t mean the end of the book would have been smooth sailing. With Voldemort desperate to get that prophecy, who knows what other stunt he would have pulled[?] But I have no doubt the reason why JK Rowling had Mc[G]onagall get hurt is so readers couldn’t ask why Harry didn’t go to her or why Hermione didn’t suggest it. This creates a plot hole for people who have only watched the movies, interestingly enough.”
Rosie: Very true.
Shelby: Yeah, I didn’t think of that.
Rosie: The Order movie has so many issues…
[Eric, Kristen, and Shelby laugh]
Rosie: … which we will be discussing in a few weeks’ time.
[Kristen laughs]
Eric: Yeah. “Oh, it’s fine. Just play music during this montage.”
[Eric, Kristen, and Shelby laugh]
Eric: “It’s totally cool.”
Rosie: But yeah, I definitely agree that Hagrid is lacking the skills, and McGonagall was almost too competent, so we needed to get her out of the way. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, that’s a good point.
Shelby: I’m trying to think of any situations where Harry followed Hagrid’s advice outside of when he’s having trouble with either Hermione or Ron. I don’t think he normally follows advice when it’s something about danger or… unless you count the Goblet of Fire and the dragons.
Eric: Oh yeah, Hagrid totally can’t speak to danger in general.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: He totally can’t be like, “You should do this.” However, he is pretty much Snape’s champion. I was just remembering back in Book 1, when Hagrid defends Snape and defends Dumbledore’s trusting of him.
Shelby: That’s true.
Eric: And I think it’s totally correct with what DisKid has said, is that Hagrid may have brought up Snape because in this chapter, we learn that Harry just doesn’t think of Snape until after he sees him. But he’s like, “Oh yeah, I could’ve gone to him. Huh. He’s here. How about that?” So I think Hagrid quite possibly would have brought up Snape, and then things would have turned out differently.
Rosie: Yeah, he probably would have accompanied Harry to go […] talk to Snape as well and convinced him to come down and listen to what Snape was saying. So that would’ve been where the difference was made.
Eric: Very interesting, though. I think everybody’s in agreement that he couldn’t send a Patronus or anything to try [to] help.
Rosie: With his pink umbrella.
Shelby: Yeah. What would his Patronus be if he could…?
Rosie: Probably a giant spider.
[Shelby laughs]
Kristen: A dragon. Yeah.
Rosie: Or a dragon. Actually, probably a dragon.
Shelby: Yeah. Might be a dragon.
Eric: “I always wanted a dragon.”
[Kristen and Rosie laugh]
Eric: I just imagine it being something even bigger than he is.
Kristen: Yeah. This huge dragon.
Rosie: Who would get all of the Dementors in the world in just one go.
[Kristen, Rosie, and Shelby laugh]
Rosie: Anyway, thank you all so much for your comments. They were brilliant, and they all fit in nicely with our discussion for this week, which is…
[Order of the Pheonix Chapter 32 intro begins]
Kreacher: Chapter 32.
[Sound of fire being lit]
Kreacher: “Out of the Fire.”
[Sound of flames crackling]
[Order of the Pheonix Chapter 32 intro ends]
Rosie: Great. Well, the exams are now the least of our worries as Harry struggles with what he’s just seen. Sirius is in grave danger, and he knows he needs to act, but what can he do? All of the adults we trust are gone, and Harry is stuck hundreds of miles away from London. Sirius’s mysterious brother is mentioned again, but I’m sure he’s not important at all.
[Eric laughs]
Rosie: Hermione knows that Voldemort knows Harry, and we’ll know that it’s pretty much a trap. Ginny and Luna follow Harry’s dulcet tones to join the team, when he is yelling at the top of his lungs as usual.
[Shelby laughs]
Rosie: And Ginny proves she is up to the task of handling Harry’s moods. OTP right there. The plan unfortunately fails, but only because Peeves was already causing trouble [in] a different part of the castle, which if there’s anything Peeves could do, it’s causing trouble, but not the kind of trouble we wanted this time. And once again, it is up to Hermione to save the day. But what exactly is she thinking? I like this chapter.
Eric: “Really awesome chapter,” I just want to say.
Rosie: It’s a great chapter for this. So much in it. We’re going to have to simplify slightly with our points.
Kristen: It seemed much shorter.
Eric: Yeah, when broken down, when distilled.
Rosie: It did. It is in three distinct sections. So you’ve got the aftermath of the dream, you’ve got the fire, and then you’ve got being caught. So you’ve got three nice areas to discuss. But within those points, you’ve got even more. So as we had discussed earlier on, Harry is now completely alone. Hagrid, Dumbledore, and McGonagall are all gone. And we get the really nice quote that he always expected McGonagall to be there. Minerva is the pastoral care at the school. She is his Head of House and also the person [whom] he always trusts to look after him when all else fails. I feel it was quite interesting that Ron and Hermione were the afterthought at this time. It’s the first time we actually see Harry thinking of seeking adults’ help first, which is proof that this is a serious – no puns, please – situation.
[Kristen and Shelby laugh]
Rosie: Do you guys agree?
Eric: Yeah, its’ a good point.
Kristen: Yeah, I didn’t even realize that he thought of an adult first before Ron and Hermione.
Rosie: The first thing he does when he leaves the room is think, “McGonagall. I’ve got to go to the hospital wing.”
Kristen: Yeah. Which usually isn’t his first thing.
[Eric and Rosie laugh]
Shelby: Yeah. Do you think that’s because he was in the exam and he knew they were still in the exam?
Rosie: Possibly. I think also the professor [who] was leading the exam suggested that he go to the hospital wing, so maybe that prompted the thought.
Shelby: Oh, yeah.
Kristen: Yeah, to see if she is in there.
Rosie: But with Dumbledore gone, Minerva is second-in-command. So you would think of her straight after Dumbledore if you were looking for help.
Eric: Yeah. And we did identify her as being the one person who would definitely still be able to contact Dumbledore.
Rosie: And this is a proper adult situation as well. It’s not something based in the school where Harry could jump straight in and try [to] save the day. So he does need help in the London aspect of it all.
Eric: Yeah, that’s definitely true.
Shelby: Yeah, it’s not something he could take care of at school.
Rosie: Although, as we are obviously about to find out, he does.
[Eric, Rosie, and Shelby laugh]
Rosie: But immediately he wouldn’t think of flying on invisible horses. So that’s funny.
[Kristen laughs]
Rosie: Hermione seems to know not to trust the dreams. She is convinced that this is some kind of trap and that it’s not actually as bad as it seems, even though all previous evidence proves otherwise, with Mr. Weasley and the snake. There is a lot of evidence saying that these dreams are reality, that they’re true. So I was just wondering why you think she is so determined not to believe. Has she been warned, maybe, by Dumbledore before he left that they should support Harry in not worrying too much about these dreams?
Eric: I love Hermione in this chapter, and it’s because she does make him stop. I don’t like how she does it, necessarily, because she brings up his “saving-people-thing,” and that’s an aside, and it doesn’t really… He’s able to fend it off by talking about how they never minded when he saved all them. But really, she makes him stop and makes him think about why… I mean, this is the end of the year. We all know something big happens.
[Kristen, Rosie, and Shelby laugh]
Eric: She’s like, “Why did Snape spend all year…? Why did Dumbledore make you take Occlumency? It’s because he wants to shut you out to these things.” But Harry… It’s almost as if he, in a way, maybe subconsciously, still dislikes Dumbledore for keeping him out of the plan that he thinks that when Hermione says, “Dumbledore didn’t want you to have these visions,” it’s not because they could be tampered with; it’s because Dumbledore doesn’t want you to see your uncle being tortured and then to have you go […] do something about it. Harry just thinks that more information is being kept from him again because he doesn’t want to admit the possibility that this image is somehow false.
Kristen: Yeah. I think Hermione just really understood why he was taking the Occlumency lessons, and Harry understood why he was taking them but not to the extent that Hermione always seems to know because she’s so brilliant.
Eric: I think there’s a missed opportunity as well for Snape to… Well, I mean, Snape doesn’t share the same connection with Harry that Voldemort does, but the onus might be on Snape somewhere to have… Instead of kicking Harry out of the classrooms, we always talked about what would happen if he had just kept Harry and actually gotten through to him as a teacher. But maybe too for him to actually explicitly have stated to Harry, “Hey, he can feed you false… You’re not actually seeing… It’s possible that this sort of thing can be doctored and faked.”
Kristen: Yeah. And it’s only one sentence that we’d have to tell him that. [laughs] It’s [a] very quick, very simple concept, but you don’t realize it until of course after the fact that it’s happened. But he could have told him.
Rosie: The problem is with Snape; that he’s enjoying having the power over Harry.
Eric: Mmm.
Kristen: That’s very true.
Rosie: And if he told him the reason why he was there, then it would be…
Kristen: What’s the fun? [laughs]
Rosie: Yeah, pretty much.
Eric: That’s interesting.
Rosie: So is the “saving people thing” the real message of this book? Because Harry, at this moment, doesn’t really know the difference between being the hero and genuine heroism, which I think he definitely has learned by the end of Book 7, definitely. The heroism that he shows before the King’s Cross scene – the white scene – is so… what word am I looking for here? [laughs] It’s true heroism in the fact that he is doing it totally for everyone else. He has not got any kind of self-interest and he’s doing it completely to…
Eric: Well, by that time J.K. Rowling has killed all the family members he cares about…
[Kristen laughs]
Shelby: Ehh…
Eric: … all the people he would go and save. I’m sorry. [laughs]
Rosie: She hasn’t killed Ron or Hermione or anyone from his main family.
Kristen: Yeah, Ginny…
Eric: Okay, okay, that’s fair. I would love to read a paper on this topic because I’m not quite sure I know all the difference – the finer points – between being the hero and heroism. Do you think it’s the altruism? Do you think it’s the altruist aspect of it, where because he’s wanting to save Sirius out of some form of selfishness, that it’s lesser?
Shelby: I don’t think it’s selfishness, exactly. I think it’s more like…
Rosie: Self-interest, maybe.
Shelby: Yeah. It’s like when you’re young, you think, “Oh, if I could just do this, then everything will be okay.” And you always have this sense of responsibility. It’s like it’s all on your… it’s in your head like, “I’m the only person that can do this.” It’s like this is the only way it could work out, in a sense. So in “The Lost Prophecy” chapter, Dumbledore said something like, “This is the folly of old age. We don’t remember what it’s like to be young…” something like that.
Eric: Yeah.
Shelby: And when Harry was so focused on, “I have to take care of the situation the same way I took care of the situation with Ron’s dad…” so he’s really putting it all on him, without all the information that he needs. And so here, he learns caution and how people can take advantage of that idea. And so by the end of the book, he doesn’t just rush off to the forest and he doesn’t just wait it out. He goes and thinks of all the options, he says his goodbyes, and then he goes out.
Eric: Mmm.
Rosie: And I think that’s the key difference. This is a trap that Voldemort has set because he knows that Harry will try and save Sirius.
Eric and Shelby: Right.
Rosie: And in the forest, he is called out. Voldemort tells him to come and at the end he’s like… the whole “I really thought he would come…” That speech.
Eric: Yeah.
Rosie: It proves that there’s a difference. That time, he’s not doing it for the “saving people thing.”
Shelby: Right.
Rosie: Even though he does turn up in the forest, he’s doing it with all of the reasons correctly behind him and he’s doing it to die rather than to save.
Shelby: Yeah. Right.
Rosie: Well, to die to save, but… yeah. There’s a sacrifice involved.
Eric: Yeah, it is very interesting. There’s a line in this chapter where Hermione says that Voldemort knows him as well, as a result of his “saving people thing.” She’s like, “He would totally use that against you.”
Kristen and Rosie: Mhm.
Eric: Now, I will say it’s pretty brilliant that Voldemort didn’t feed Harry false images before this. He used it once and it worked.
Shelby: Right, yeah.
Kristen: Yeah.
Eric: He waited. Everything Harry has been seeing this whole year, as far as Harry knows, has been true, and it has shown Harry his goal, and he has allowed Harry to rely on these images. And then now he just hits him with a wallop of, “This is totally fake, but I’m going to get you to go exactly where I want you.”
Rosie: Mhm.
Shelby: And it was… wasn’t it Grace last week, when she was talking about how brilliant this move was? This whole… because he plots it out; he knows how to portray all the characters in the vision in a way that Harry is going to believe. So he really does have to know Harry.
Rosie: Definitely. And he knows Sirius as well, which is interesting…
Shelby: Right. Yeah.
Rosie: … to know how he would react and how he would act in that situation. He knows him well, so maybe that’s a clue of how close he was to Regulus as well. Maybe this is an old plan.
Eric: Or Wormtail.
Shelby: Or Snape.
Rosie: Yeah.
Shelby: Snape would probably feed that information because he hates Sirius.
Eric: Yes. Snape could, or Wormtail.
Shelby: Yeah.
Kristen: Oh, yeah. Wormtail.
Eric: Wormtail was even closer to Sirius than Snape was.
Rosie: There are so many things working against our hero.
[Everyone laughs]
Rosie: But one thing that is working for them – hurray! – is the plan that Hermione comes up with. When Hermione breaks the rules, she really does it in style.
Eric: Yeah.
Kristen: Doesn’t she? [laughs] That was awesome.
Rosie: Ginny and Luna become our lookouts at this point. They are going to stand on each side of a corridor and talk about Garroting Gas, whatever that means. Ron is going to be a distraction; he is going to go and tell Umbridge that Peeves is destroying something. Unfortunately, she knows that he’s not and that’s where it all falls apart. But Hermione is going to accompany Harry, proving that she is completely dedicated to breaking the rules and to standing directly beside him. And I think that’s the really deciding thing that makes Harry trust her because she has just been telling him all of this time that he needs to check and he needs to calm down and he needs to not believe in stuff, but she does still believe in him and she will support him in what he does, and she will be beside him when he is doing the most dangerous thing he could possibly do in the school at the moment even if she doesn’t quite think that it needs to happen right now.
Shelby: Yeah, that was funny. Garroting Gas, I think, is supposed to suffocate you because a garrote is that chain thing or some sort of… yeah.
Rosie: Yeah.
Eric: A wire that strangles you.
Shelby: Yeah, just double checking.
Eric: Yeah. No, I had to triple think that one, too. Yeah, it’s funny. I will say that for Hermione, it’s like, “It’s fun, isn’t it, breaking rules?”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: She just wants to prove to Harry that what he saw was fake, or she wants that to be true.
Kristen: Yeah.
Eric: And that’s what… she goes through all this trouble just to make sure he can check because he would go running off into the forest or wherever it is that he needs to go to; maybe the dungeons to get his broom… he would do that no matter what and she’s just trying to mediate; she’s trying to make sure that he has all the information he possibly could before moving forward. So I think that’s why she’s so eager to break the rules this time is because it’s for his own good.
Kristen and Rosie: Mhm.
Eric: For all of their goods, really, if they’re risking their lives or their futures by breaking into the Ministry of Magic.
Shelby: Mhm. Because she was so surprised, by the “What, now?” reaction, I almost wondered if she was just trying to buy time to get him to…
Rosie: Yeah, until she could think of something else.
Shelby: Yeah, exactly.
Rosie: I do think she has lost a lot of respect for the rules as well.
Shelby: Oh, yeah.
Rosie: With all of the adults we trusted being gone, there’s no one for her to feel bad about breaking the rules because of.
Shelby: Right.
Eric: The way that Umbridge’s complete bombastic abuse of power in this whole book has easily allowed for that to be the case for Hermione.
Rosie: Mhm. And that really plays into her second plan, which we’ll get to a little bit later on.
Shelby: Right.
Eric: Okay.
Rosie: But first, this current plan goes well in its intention… it does achieve what it intended to do; that’s what I’m trying to say. Unfortunately, when Harry gets to Grimmauld Place’s kitchen, sticking his head out of the fire, the only person he sees is Kreacher. And his hands actually show signs of self-punishment, so he already has done wrong.
Eric: There’s your sign.
Rosie: He knows that… it should have been a sign for Harry that something has happened, but maybe he just sees Kreacher being punished so often that he doesn’t actually think. But I want to know how much of the plan Kreacher actually knows. He has deliberately distracted Sirius, and he seems so delighted that Harry has appeared in this fire. It’s as if the plan is falling into place; he knows what’s going to happen, and he has been warned that Harry may appear at this time, and therefore he should have this story to tell him if he did turn up. And this is proof that the wheels are in motion. But what if Hermione hadn’t managed to convince Harry to check? What would have happened? Were the subsequent events Kreacher’s fault? Or was he just there as insurance in case Harry did actually check?
Eric: That’s a good question. He keeps talking about going back to his mistress, and I’m wondering if he’s talking about Mrs. Black or Bellatrix.
Rosie: Oh, I never thought of that before.
Shelby: Mhm, yeah.
Kristen: I thought it was Bellatrix.
Eric: Reading it thinking of Bellatrix changes things a little bit, where it’s like he’s going straight by… there’s a line like, “Sirius has kept me away from her,” or something like that, where it’s like, “I’d love to go back. He has kept me away from her for too long.”
Kristen and Shelby: Mhm.
Eric: And I’m pretty sure he’s talking about Sirius’s cousin, right? Bellatrix.
Rosie: Probably.
Eric: So I think, unfortunately… one other thing I wanted to bring up here is that when he goes through the Floo Network, why wouldn’t he – this time – go all the way through?
Shelby: Mhm.
Kristen: That’s very true.
Rosie: Yeah, because then he’d be in London.
Shelby: Right!
Kristen: Yeah. That would have been so easy.
Eric: He’d already be closer to the Ministry, so there’s that. I mean, they could all just automatically run to London through the Floo Network.
Kristen: Yeah, they both could have gone.
Eric: He sits down and does what he did before because it worked for him before, and that’s what he knows, but he could have almost… I mean, don’t we know that Lupin was just upstairs somewhere when this happened and it’s said later?
Rosie: Yeah, Sirius is up in the attic.
Kristen: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah, Sirius is up in the attic. And so it’s one of those, “Oh, man, if he had only done this,” kind of things, which… hindsight is 20/20 but…
Shelby: It’s also a pretty short conversation. I think this happens within two minutes.
Eric and Rosie: Mhm.
Shelby: Because isn’t it just two pages? And so he possibly… he was trying to get more information. Maybe if Umbridge hadn’t grabbed his hair and yanked him back, he might have remembered that he could just go through.
Rosie: Yeah, and he probably would have followed Kreacher if he didn’t get a satisfactory answer.
Shelby: Right.
Eric and Kristen: Yeah.
Rosie: But at the same time, Kreacher did tell him that Sirius is in the Ministry. Sirius will not return from the Ministry.
Kristen: Oh, that’s true.
Shelby: Right.
Rosie: So he may have taken that as proof.
Eric: Well, he doesn’t say Sirius is at the Ministry. He said he has gone out, and then he says he won’t return from the Ministry after Harry puts words into his mouth that that’s where Sirius is.
Kristen and Rosie: Yeah.
Eric: It’s very ambiguously worded. I don’t know. Kreacher is evil, but is it his fault? He causes this…
Rosie: It’s what he’s been told to say.
Kristen and Shelby: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. It’s weird.
Rosie: Dobby would never do it.
[Kristen and Eric laugh]
Shelby: Dobby would never do it. Ever.
Rosie: In that case, is this Hermione’s fault because Hermione has convinced him to check rather than to go to London?
Kristen: I don’t think so.
Eric: No, no, no, because Harry was going to go anyway, right? And I think the biggest favor that Hermione could have done is ask him to check.
Kristen: Mhm.
Eric: I mean, true, now Harry is very worried, even more so than he was before.
Rosie and Shelby: Mhm.
Eric: And he feels like he has wasted all of this time, which is bad, but if Kreacher weren’t… just happened to be in the kitchen, things would have turned out quite differently as well. If Harry had gone full-body…
Rosie and Shelby: Mhm.
Kristen: Or what if Hermione checked? If she saw the signs. Do you think she would have seen the signs?
Shelby: Yeah.
Eric: Hmm. Possibly.
Rosie: I don’t think Harry would have trusted her.
Kristen: Okay.
Rosie: He would have still have had to see it for himself.
Shelby: Yeah, I think you’re right.
Eric: The fact that Kreacher has ironed his hands or done whatever to need bandages on his hands is a huge tell.
Kristen and Rosie: Mhm.
Shelby: Yeah.
Eric: Absolutely huge that even for Kreacher, as a house-elf, he has done something that is not allowed… is not kosher.
Shelby: Right.
Rosie: And it’s something that we’ve seen Dobby has definitely done before as well; the hands are a key thing.
Eric: Which, I guess as we find out later, is the fact that he has gone to Bellatrix.
Shelby: Mhm.
Rosie: Unfortunately, they are caught at this moment, and Umbridge grabs Harry by the hair and pulls him out of the fire, and it actually says that she pulls his head so far back as if she was about to slit his throat…
[Shelby shudders]
Kristen: Yeah, that’s pretty scary.
Rosie: … which just shows how dangerous she is at this moment. And they have managed to round up everyone that was helping, so they’ve got Luna and Ginny, and they’ve actually got Neville, as well, who was just walking past and wanted to protect Luna and Ginny, which is just a nice little bit of Neville there standing up for his friends.
Shelby: Yeah.
Rosie: Going back to the first book, and what he got his little award for.
Shelby: Isn’t this the first time we see all of them as a team?
Kristen: Mhm.
Rosie: Yeah, this is the formation of the dream team.
Kristen: Right.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: The dream team.
Rosie: They are the dream team.
Eric: What I love is how Neville is there, but only because… nobody thought of him; it’s just that he saw Ginny and had to act when she was about to get caught.
Rosie: Yeah.
Kristen: Mhm.
Eric: And that’s cool. An act of heroism has brought him into this team to begin with.
Kristen and Rosie: Mhm.
Shelby: Right.
Eric: It’s pretty cool, and pretty early for Neville to be doing that, but that is what gets him on this team.
Shelby: Yeah.
Rosie: And it’s also the first moment that we’ve seen Neville really…
Eric: “These are the kids.”
Kristen: Yeah, exactly.
[Shelby laughs]
Rosie: This is the new Neville from… post-DA Neville. This is the Neville that is confident in his own abilities to actually stand up for his friends rather than walk past and not know what to do.
Shelby: And help. Right.
Kristen: True.
Rosie: Especially against the Slytherins.
Eric: Yeah. Oh, yeah, especially against the Slytherins, who were his number one tormentors.
Kristen: Mhm.
Shelby: Right.
Eric: And it’s an example that shows just how much good the DA did.
Kristen, Rosie, and Shelby: Yeah.
Rosie: And this is the proof of what Neville will do in Book 7 when everyone else has run off. This is Neville stepping up to the mark.
Shelby: Right, right.
Kristen: Mhm.
Eric: Right, he’s the only one at Hogwarts, right? Or him and Ginny are at Hogwarts…
Shelby: Yeah.
Rosie: It’s so important that he’s there, as well, as the other name on the prophecy.
Eric: Oh, super.
Rosie: He needs to be involved in this group.
Shelby: Right.
Rosie: Umbridge has got them all caught. She is grilling them, but she has no Veritaserum left because she has used it all up trying to get the truth out of Harry in the first place.
[Shelby laughs]
Eric: That was such a good reveal that it was in fact Veritaserum because it wasn’t stated before.
Rosie and Shelby: Yeah.
Kristen: Mhm.
Eric: It’s just Harry knows and he’s dodging and pretends to drink it, and doesn’t, and he realizes…
Kristen and Shelby: Yeah.
Rosie: The truth is out.
Shelby: Yeah.
Eric: … but now, getting Snape to say it is just like, “Wow, this woman is evil.”
[Kristen laughs]
Shelby: Yeah. I love the moment where Snape is like, “You didn’t use it all? I just told you to use three drops.”
Kristen: Yeah, “Only use three drops.”
[Kristen and Shelby laugh]
Eric: And she’s like, “Uhh…” and she blushes or whatever.
Kristen: Yeah, yeah, that’s what it said.
Eric: She’s like, “I totally used it all.”
[Everyone laughs]
Rosie: What do you think happens if you overdose on truth potion?
Shelby: You tell the truth all day, instead of just that…
Rosie: Just all day? Or for the rest of your life? A ridiculous amount.
Eric and Shelby: Yeah.
Rosie: But Snape and Harry have a little cryptic conversation, or at least Harry has a cryptic conversation toward Snape, who doesn’t really… well, appears not to understand. And we wonder: Can we trust him? Has he just blanked Harry because of his hatred of Sirius, or does he actually know what’s going on? Does he even know that Padfoot is a nickname? But of course, we can actually trust him to do good at this point. He does go and check, but we obviously don’t know that at the moment and neither does Harry.
Shelby: He’s just that desperate.
Kristen: Yeah.
Rosie: He is just that desperate.
Kristen: The first time I read this, I was so mad at Snape because I was like, “How could you not know?”
Rosie: Yeah. [laughs] And it’s proof that we are in Harry’s mindset at the moment. We are not stopping to check the facts ourselves. We are desperate to know what’s happening to Sirius and we don’t even think that Snape might actually go and check.
Kristen: Exactly. Yeah.
Shelby: Or that he’s watching out for the other students. Wasn’t there also that moment where…? I think… is it Crabbe that has Neville and he’s choking him?
Kristen: Oh, yeah. Tells him to loosen up.
Shelby: Yeah. And he says, “Oh, it’s because of the paperwork.”
Kristen: Mhm.
Rosie: Yeah, he says, “Don’t kill him or I’ll have to write it on your reference.”
[Everyone laughs]
Rosie: But speaking of people who are slightly crazy and about to kill – well, not quite kill, but use a curse that they probably shouldn’t – Umbridge has literally lost it at this moment. This is probably the most dangerous we have ever seen her. She is talking to herself, convincing herself that it’s okay to use the Cruciatus Curse, and that what Fudge doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Anything could have tipped her over the edge at the moment. So it’s really, really important that Hermione actually recognizes this and completely ad-libs a whole new plan right on the spot. It’s brilliant and it really shows Hermione’s worth as just a genius. [laughs]
Shelby: Quick thinking.
Rosie: And she actually completely plays into Umbridge’s ideas as well. Umbridge has belittled her all year and thinks of her as just a stupid little girl who just reads books all the time and is a nuisance in class. But even then, she can… she’s the brightest witch of her age but Umbridge thinks of her as stupid, so she can convince her that they were looking for Dumbledore in a pub, and that that would actually be believable. Everyone else in the room knows that that’s just not going to happen, but Umbridge goes along with it.
Shelby: Yeah, and even to the point where they get to the… she mentions the weapon. That is Umbridge’s biggest fear, that there’s something there. And then the second that Umbridge resists, Hermione takes a step forward and is like, “Oh, great, then I hope they use it on you.”
Kristen and Rosie: Yeah.
[Eric laughs]
Shelby: Just brilliant! It was totally… led Umbridge by the nose without Umbridge having any idea that that had happened.
Rosie: Mhm.
Eric: What shocks me the most is learning… I remember being shocked – even the first time I read it – that it was Umbridge who sent the Dementors…
Kristen, Rosie, and Shelby: Oh, yeah.
Eric: … in the same line as, “What Cornelius doesn’t know…” She’s like, “He didn’t know I sent the Dementors, but he was mighty happy when Harry was almost expelled.” She’s justifying this to herself. This is internal struggle for Umbridge. Before we knew how evil and terrible she was, she did that one truly terrible… Dudley could have died. Harry could have, too.
Rosie: Yeah. She could have killed a Muggle at this point.
Eric: They could have killed many Muggles. In fact, if Harry hadn’t successfully defended all of that whole area, it would have been…
Shelby: Overrun.
Eric: Potentially.
Eric and Shelby: Yeah.
Eric: Absolutely. 100%. So I think… also, though, what it’s doing is – with that huge reveal placed so well in this part of the chapter – setting up what is, eventually, going to happen to Umbridge, which is totally terrifying if taken out of context. Because only somebody who has done something like this, caused this pain for an entire book and sent Dementors after Dudley and Harry at the beginning and started the whole thing going… that’s the only way we can be okay with what happens to her because it’s still this horrifying attack. Would you agree?
Rosie and Shelby: Yeah.
Kristen: Definitely.
Rosie: And it’s a sign that the books are getting darker as well that we feel justified in her punishment.
Kristen: Oh, definitely. I was very happy by it.
Shelby: [laughs] Yeah.
Eric: This will come in… this will come later in a couple of chapters, but when they end up… I think it’s back at the hospital wing or something, there are some very disturbing phrases and things that describe Umbridge’s state of mind. She is in a trance and is… or not in trance, but she’s…
Rosie: Completely traumatized.
Eric: … she’s traumatized. It is actual serious trauma. And I think the characterization is very important here because learning that she was about to perform an illegal curse against Harry and everything she’s done all year, has betrayed our goodwill toward man when it comes to Umbridge, and that is super important. I feel like it’s well balanced, but it is something that J.K. Rowling, as a writer… you just have to admire because it could have gone wrong.
Kristen: Right.
Rosie: And of course, we do see again in the Ministry in two books’ time, and she does seem to have recovered quite a bit. So it was very nice to have the Umbridge information appear on Pottermore recently, and if you haven’t read that, I would really encourage you to go […] do so where it proves that, yeah, Umbridge does get her just desserts in terms of actual crime and punishment as well. Not just a bunch of centaurs and a giant after her. [laughs]
Eric: Woo! Okay, I have to read that yet.
Kristen: Yeah, I haven’t read it yet.
Rosie: Yes, go […] read it. It came out on Halloween. And the end of this chapter sees them all headed off toward the Forbidden Forest, with Hermione’s new plan steadily unfolding as she goes. But only Harry, Hermione, and Umbridge. The others are all left with the Slytherins in the office.
Eric: Yeah, Hermione is totally the MVP. [laughs]
Shelby: Yeah, she’s the MVP of the whole chapter.
Eric: Of this chapter?
[Everyone laughs]
Shelby: And the entire series.
Kristen: That is so true.
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Oh, yeah! Probably the whole series. If you really want to get down to it; she discovers the Basilisk, right?
Shelby: Right.
Eric: Hermione, in this chapter, really just convinces Harry to check, and that is something that… I mean, she doesn’t need McGonagall there to tell Harry to check. She’s able to reason with him, and that’s pretty unbelievable that he actually goes for it.
Shelby: Yeah.
Rosie: We really need to make a T-shirt that’s “Hermione Granger – MVP.”
[Everyone laughs]
Eric: Yeah!
Kristen: That’s a good idea.
Shelby: That would be awesome!
Kristen: Yeah.
Rosie: Maybe in the new year we’ll have it. [laughs]
Kristen: All right. So for this week’s Podcast Question of the Week… in this chapter, Harry and Hermione go into Professor Umbridge’s locked office with the knife Sirius gave Harry so that Harry can use the private Floo Network to check on Sirius. Umbridge ends up capturing them, along with a few others, with the help of the Inquisitorial Squad. Malfoy retrieves Snape, and before Snape leaves, Harry gives him the message about Padfoot being captured. And I really wanted to know, what do you guys think would’ve happened if Malfoy weren’t asked to retrieve Snape? Do you think Snape still would have been a part of the scene and would have been able to warn the Order about the trio’s disappearance? Do you think the Order would have even showed up to the Ministry of Magic at all? I don’t know.
Rosie: It could have really changed the whole of the end of the book, couldn’t it? Easily, if it wasn’t actually there.
Kristen: Yeah, because they could have still gone to the Ministry, but would they have had any help? I don’t know.
Eric: Well, they would have had to get away from Umbridge somehow, and I wonder if they could have done that without some of the other teachers finding out what had just happened.
Shelby: Right. Because eventually, someone’s going to need Umbridge, and then they’ll find out the Potter is with them, right?
Eric: Yeah, I mean, because here'[re] the two things that could have happened: They escape Umbridge some other way or some way, and word gets out pretty quickly, or Umbridge detains Harry, and then everything is held up anyway because he’s not going to the Ministry. So it’s not quite…it’s not as dire for… because he doesn’t actually need to get to the Ministry because Sirius isn’t actually there, […] so if he’s detained, then that’s all pretty much good and well, right?
Kristen: Mhm.
Eric: I mean, nobody else is going to the Ministry yet, so I think it would maybe be… oh, wait! We aren’t supposed to answer this question! It’s the Podcast Question of the Week. [laughs]
Shelby: Oh no! [laughs] That’s what editing’s for.
Eric: I’m sorry! Oh my gosh!
Kristen: We can still discuss it.
Rosie: We still want to hear their thoughts.
Kristen: Yeah, I want to hear what they have to say about it, yeah.
[Rosie laughs]
Eric: Submit your answers to us on the website.
[Shelby laughs]
Rosie: So all that remains of today’s show is to thank our fabulous guest. Shelby, I hope you really enjoyed your time on the show.
Shelby: Oh, I totally did. Thank you so much. I really loved it. Yeah.
Eric: Can you tell us quickly about your book, though? We didn’t get to ask you before.
Shelby: Oh, oops. Okay.
[Kristen laughs]
Shelby: The Ever After series follows the adventures of three kids who attend an after school program for fairy tale characters in training.
Rosie: Awesome.
Shelby: Yeah. The first one’s called Of Giants and Ice, and what happens is, all the kids go there… they don’t know what fairy tale they’re going to end up being, and it turns out to be the best friend of the main character, and they go up the beanstalk together actually, so…
Eric: Oh, cool!
Rosie: Cool.
Shelby: It’s very fun.
Rosie: So yes, everyone should go […] check out Shelby’s books.
Eric: Yeah. If you would like to be on the show like Shelby – this is where I usually make a joke like “be a celebrated author.”
[Kristen, Rosie, and Shelby laugh]
Eric: Any of our listeners can easily submit applications to be on our show in the form of audio clips and all that. Anyway, the entire information is on the website: alohomora.mugglenet.com. There’s a tab that says “Be on the Show.” If you have a set of Apple headphones, they work really well. Otherwise, just microphone, headphones, some sort of configuration… it’s all there. Just check the website for all the details.
Kristen: And you can also contact us on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN [and] on Facebook at facebook.com/openthedumbledore. We’re also on Tumblr at mnalohomorapodcast. You can also call us and leave us a message on Skype at 206-GO-ALBUS – that’s 206-462-5287. Or you could go on the site and leave us an audioBoom – under 60 seconds, please – and that’s free; all you need is a microphone. And that can be found at alohomora.mugglenet.com.
Rosie: And don’t forget: We’ve also got our fabulous store on our website, where we’ve got sweatshirts, long sleeve tees, tote bags, flip-flops, much, much more, and maybe soon, a Hermione Granger “MVP” T-shirt.
[Shelby laughs]
Kristen: Yeah, I want to see that.
Rosie: I would want to see that too. I want one.
Shelby: I want to wear that!
Eric: I’m going to design this in my head: “HJG MVP.”
[Kristen and Shelby laugh]
Eric: Perfect.
Rosie: Eric, you don’t actually have a staff member T-shirt yet, do you?
Eric: No, no, I don’t think so.
Rosie: Maybe that could be yours.
Eric: Okay, yeah. So look for it soon, folks.
[Kristen and Shelby laugh]
Eric: And there is also the smartphone app. It is available on this side of the pond and the other. Prices do vary, but on this app, you can find transcripts for our episodes, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and more. Information on how you can get the smartphone app: It’s on iOS and Android. Markets can be found on our website. Go check that out.
[Show music begins]
Eric: All right. I am Eric Scull.
Kristen: I’m Kristen Keys.
Rosie: And I’m Rosie Morris. Thank for you listening to Episode 110 of Alohomora!
Eric: Open the Dumbledore.
[Show music continues]
[Audio]: “Hello? Is this Dumbledora? Well, I just wanted to say that I really enjoy your podcast, and I was wondering if we could maybe meet up somewhere, and I’ll give you $5 to put this message on the air because I just really enjoy your talk show, and I want to be heard over the radio. I have not read any of the Harry Potter books, but I thoroughly enjoy your podcast. I think you should consider changing the name to Harry Podcast because I just like the way that flows. If you’re listening to the message, thank you for listening to this, and if you’re not listening to this, well, I’m just really sad because I really wanted you to listen to this. But I just… I don’t even know what to say. I just love your show so much. I listen to it every second of the day. I love it. You guys just know so much about Harry Potter, and it amazes me how some people in this world can study that much on one book series, and it’s not even that good. But seriously, I love you. Bye.”
