Transcript – Episode 122

[Show music begins]

Michael Harle: This is Episode 122 of Alohomora! for January 31, 2015.

[Show music continues]

Michael: Welcome back, listeners, to a new episode of Alohomora!, MuggleNet.com’s global reread of the Harry Potter series. I’m Michael Harle.

Terrance Pinkston: I’m Terrance Pinkston.

Alison Siggard: And I’m Alison Siggard. And today’s guest is author Victoria Aveyard. Hi, Victoria! Introduce yourself to everyone.

Victoria Aveyard: Hi, guys! Thanks for having me. I’m Victoria. My book Red Queen comes out on February 10. [laughs] I don’t know what the schedule is with these things, but hopefully, it’s out by the time this is.

Michael: That is so… and this is your first book, right, Victoria?

Victoria: Yeah, this is the first for a trilogy that’s going to be coming out over the next few years.

Michael: Ooh! That’s really… so what’s it about? Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Victoria: Yeah! Red Queen is about a teenage girl who lives in a world that’s divided by the color of blood. Basically, she’s a normal red-blooded human, and her world is controlled by super humans who have silver blood and super powers. And she discovers that even though she has red blood, her parents are red-blooded, she has super powers too, and it sort of sparks this whole story and revolution around her.

Terrance: That is so cool.

Michael: That’s so fantastic. Ooh, the whole blood thing is definitely a good thing to have you on for Harry Potter podcast.

[Victoria laughs]

Terrance and Victoria: Yeah, definitely.

Michael: And you can you tell us a little bit about your background with Harry Potter? Do you know what your House is, and can you tell us a little bit about how you got into Harry Potter?

Victoria: Oh, definitely, yeah. I self-identify as a Slytherin, but…

[Alison laughs]

Michael: Ooh.

Victoria: Yeah. But Pottermore put me in Gryffindor. I don’t believe in that.

Alison: Ooh, interesting.

[Alison, Michael, and Terrance laugh]

Terrance No, that’s your true House. That’s your true House.

Victoria: Yes, but and I took some quizzes before this too. My Patronus is apparently a cat, which is very fitting – that one I believe…

[Alison laughs]

Michael: Oh, fantastic.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Victoria: But as for Harry Potter, I think I was about nine when I started reading the books – I’m 24 now – and then the last movie came out when I was 20 or 21, and so Harry Potter has just been my entire childhood and adolescence.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: That’s fantastic. You’re pretty much on the same track that I was when I read it too, so that’s great. Well, we’re really glad to have you on, Victoria. Thank you for joining us today. And we also have to make sure [to] shout out to Terrance, who is here with us. We really appreciate you coming on, Terrance, because most of the rest of the Alohomora! crew as flocked off to the Wizarding World in Florida…

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: … so they’re having a time over there right now. But Terrance, too, I wanted to make sure [to] have you let the listeners know about what you’re up to on MuggleNet.

Terrance: Absolutely, absolutely. So recently, we’ve started again the weekly podcast again of Hogwarts Radio where we discuss everything and anything that has to do with the series. Much as Alohomora! has with the global reread, we talk about the news, what’s been going on, what your favorite actors are up to, and play a lot of games, and it’s just a really fun listen. We’ve had a lot of new listeners lately [who] are telling us that they’ve fallen in love with the podcast, so we’ve been going for six years now, I believe – a little over six years. So we’re excited to get going again. We took a break in the holidays and are set to record our 164th episode. That should be coming out shortly.

Michael: Well, that’s great. We’re glad to have you back. We’ve missed that show. I for one have actually guested on Hogwarts Radio once, and my Internet cut out halfway through the show…

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: … so I didn’t get to stay on, but it was a really fun show to be on. Listeners, if you’re looking for more of a general discussion of what’s going on now in the Harry Potter fandom, Hogwarts Radio is really great podcast to complement Alohomora! if you’re looking for more Harry Potter podcasts to listen too.

Terrance: Absolutely.

Michael: But in the meantime, we’re got a pretty great discussion that’s going to happen today on Alohomora!

Alison: So this week, we just want to remind everyone that for our discussion today on Alohomora!, we will be reading Half-Blood Prince Chapter 4: “Horace Slughorn.”

Terrance: And we have a couple of comments from last week’s discussion. We’re going to go ahead and get to those now. EmeraldSilver says,

“The Dursleys are horrible people.

“They locked Harry up in a cupboard until he was eleven and only let him out of there because [they later] became afraid of him […] or that another wizard would hex them. That did not, however, stop them from starving the boy or making him work the gardens with [the] only reward of a single sandwich to eat.

“They have, on multiple occasions, starved him, locked him up and prevented him any kind of communication with his friends. I think Dumbledore was acting nicely towards them in this chapter.

“Believe me, had it been me, I would have used my Dumbley-dory skills and made them lose something they truly love, [s]ay, the ability to taste food or something like that. Think about it: they’re all kind of bulky (except for Petunia), so they like to eat; therefore, remove their ability to taste what they eat and make them feel constant hunger, but no matter what they do, they will never again be able to find pleasure in eating…”

Yeah, I mean, that’s one way to go about doing it. I mean, I honestly haven’t thought down and thought about… I mean, we all know that the Dursleys treat Harry horribly. I mean, that’s already a given. They hate him. They have this prejudice toward his family that they end up taking out on him. And that is very unfair, but…

Michael: This was a pretty intense conversation in the comments this week because last week, of course, we discussed how Dumbledore treats the Dursleys when he stops by for his first and ostensibly only visit where he actually talks to them. And a lot of people were… there was a… I actually didn’t think there was much debate to it. I was bringing it up cheekily because Noah would have done that [laughs] if he had still been on the show. But there was a lot of debate about whether to whether Dumbledore was perhaps abusing his magic with how he treats the Dursleys in that last chapter or if it was perfectly justified. It looks like EmeraldSilver here thinks… EmeraldSilver clearly wants more poetic justice. [laughs] That’s some pretty intense punishment right there.

Alison: I was just going to say, “I don’t know if he was necessarily trying to punish them.” It almost always seemed to me like he was just giving them a wake-up call of “Look, you can’t really be sitting here blindsided anymore. You’re going to become a part of this because you’re related to Harry, and you spoiled your son to the point where he can’t do anything.”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Alison: So I don’t know if I would ever call it a punishment. I think it was just more of a wake-up call on Dumbledore’s part.

Terrance: Like a scolding.

Michael: Yeah. Well, because we talked last week too that it’s very… and maybe, Victoria, you can speak to this a little bit as a writer, but we felt that the Dursleys have always been portrayed in a very Roald Dahl-esque way. They’re a little extreme.

Victoria: Oh, yeah, definitely. Something when I was reading the books… I always tried to rationalize the Dursleys because we have the benefit of being from Harry’s point of view, so we’re always wondering, “Why would you treat this poor kid this way?” And in writing, you always try [to] create parallels, and I always saw a parallel between Harry and house-elves. He’s treated like a house-elf in the Dursleys’ home, a lot of wizarding families treat house-elves as lessers. Ron doesn’t see any problems with treating house-elves as slaves, but he’s a character that we all like. So I guess with the Dursleys, they rationalize it as Harry is not one of them, and he is somehow lesser than them or different, so mistreating him doesn’t feel like mistreating a child.

Michael: Hmm, well and see, with that same thought process, a lot of people were saying that Dumbledore doesn’t help the situation by using magic on them because they already have that embedded fear that Harry is so different because he can do magic, and the Dursleys are already scared of the potential magic that Harry has, so when other wizards use magic on them, such as Hagrid in Book 1 or the Weasleys in Book 4, that does nothing to help their impression of the wiarding world.

Victoria: Oh, definitely. It doesn’t really help them get closer to Harry, but I think in the short run of things, it lets them know, Harry has got a lot of power in his tiny little finger, so maybe back up a little.

[Michael laughs]

Terrance: The thought process that I was going through was, as a wizard or a witch… this is really cliché, but with great power comes great responsibility, right?

[Victoria laughs]

Terrance: So it would be irresponsible for Dumbledore to use magic on them, no matter if they’ve treated Harry horribl[y] or not, and I may be getting a lot of flack for this, but I believe, as a wizard, you just can’t go around cursing everybody [who]’s treating everybody horribly, especially in the Muggle world. I mean, you have that responsibility to use your magic wisely. And granted, I mean, Harry’s situation was a little bit different. That would raise the question, why doesn’t Dumbledore go […] help out another child [who]’s being neglected by their family? Or why aren’t there wizarding communities [who] help these abused and neglected people in the Muggle world? And it’s because it’s not the wizard responsibility to govern the laws of the Muggles.

Victoria: They’re sort of like Jedi. They’re not the policemen of the galaxy.

[Michael laughs]

Terrance: Exactly. Yeah.

Michael: Well, and I saw, too, and kudos to you, one of our regular contributors – his screen name is They’ve Taken My Wheezy!…

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Michael: … and They’ve Taken My Wheezy!, I saw you jumping pretty much on every single comment, defending Dumbledore’s actions in this chapter. It was very impressive. Everywhere I looked, you had a comment. And They’ve Taken My Wheezy! mentioned a lot that this, perhaps, isn’t as… the magic that Dumbledore uses on the Dursleys isn’t quite as extreme as we’ve seen before. We’ve seen Fred and George elongate and inflate Dudley’s tongue, we’ve seen Hagrid give him a pig’s tail, and this… Dumbledore is just doing the wizarding equivalent of poking them with having the wine glasses tap their heads. That’s pretty much the greatest extent of what he does. He’s not really doing magic that has as much permanent or lasting damage, and as They’ve Taken My Wheezy! frequently pointed out, the Dursleys were being offered the glasses by Dumbledore, and they were so rude as to not take the glasses. If they had just picked them out of the air, they would’ve stopped hitting them over the head. So there'[re] two sides to this. I think it is worth, though, definitely examining the Dursleys’ perspective. I think, Victoria, that was really great to say, “Well, they are completely alien to this world, so it’s not really fair to them in some ways.”

Terrance: I just got this vision in my head of Dumbledore using his magic to raise their fingers and poke themselves…

Alison: Oh, gosh.

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Terrance: … and saying, “Stop poking yourself, stop poking yourself, stop poking yourself.”

[Alison, Michael, and Victoria laugh]

Terrance: So we have another comment from last week’s discussion from… I believe it’s They’ve Taken My Wheezy!

Michael: Yay!

[Michael and Terrance laugh]

Terrance: And he goes,

“Why does he scold the Dursleys (verbally) for their cruel treatment of Harry but never Snape? Snape, one would think, is someone Dumbledore has much [more] power over, right? Sure, the Dursleys make Harry’s life tough, but Snape makes Harry’s break from the Dursleys hell!

“It [might] be a silly thought, but knowing that Dumbledore was gay, could he have possibly have a soft spot for Snape? Was Snape’s love for Lilly [sic] something so admirable that Dumbledore grew attached to it, in turn growing attached to Snape? It is a silly thought, but why allow any tolerance for Snape’s behavior while condemning the behavior of the Dursleys?

“I do not think Dumbledore was ‘abusing’ or ‘simulating abuse’ by playing around with the Dursleys as he did. Muggles are ‘play things’ to some wizards, and it must be very amusing to see their reactions to, and hatred of, magic! Dumbledore, do not forget, is a very fun[-]spirited individual. Look back [to] his actions of earlier books. Christmas parties with crackers, welcoming words of nonsense. He likes to have fun and see how others react.”

Michael: Boy. This one, I… this is a good comment.

Alison: I’m going to break down one thing in this, though: Snape does not love Lily; Snape is obsessed with Lily. Everyone can [unintelligible] because it’s the truth!

[Michael, Terrance, and Victoria laugh]

Alison: We’ll get to that in Book 7.

Michael: Well, and that’s fair. We’ve discussed before that perhaps Snape is in love with an idealized version of Lily, perhaps at this point, since he’s been so distanced from her at that point. Boy, the idea that Dumbledore might have a soft spot for Snape, and since They’ve Taken My Wheezy! did bring it up that Dumbledore is gay, and possibly that contributes to it, that’s interesting. As far as Rowling’s canon, no, I don’t think so, especially, well, because she said that Dumbledore never really fell in love with anybody after Grindelwald and that he became asexual after that point, but I mean, according to fan fiction…

Alison: I was going to say.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: That’s a whole other… I think this is… because this was brought up by a few people in the comments about why it’s okay for Dumbledore to not chastise Snape but to be really hard on the Dursleys for their treatment of Harry.

Alison: Yeah, I never thought about that. That’s so true.

Michael: Not okay? [laughs]

Alison: No, it’s not okay.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: But it is true that he lets… and it’s not even just Harry [who]’s getting the abuse from Snape. It’s Neville, it’s Hermione, it’s Ron, it’s all sorts of students who are getting that from him, and…

Michael: Well, then what do we think Dumbledore’s justification for that is, then? For letting Snape act the way he does.

Victoria: Dumbledore has other things to worry about basically.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: Ain’t nobody got time for that.

[Victoria laughs]

Terrance: Ain’t nobody got time for Harry!

[Alison, Michael, and Terrance laugh]

Michael: Well, that is… it’s just interesting because I mean, I was thinking about this with the last chapter is that Dumbledore’s confrontation with the Dursleys in the previous chapter really could’ve happened before this. There’s no reason that it didn’t have to happen in Book 5 or Book 4 or even Book 1.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: And yet he waits all this time, so maybe there is an element to that, Victoria, that Dumbledore just doesn’t have the time, or he’s not prioritizing it.

Victoria: Or maybe he thought he was giving the Dursleys enough time to sort of mend their ways. Or there’s also just Rowling didn’t think about it until right now.

Michael: Well, and I know some people have suggested… and I know this is perhaps a big provocative, but I know a lot of people… Steve Vander Ark would agree – from the Harry Potter Lexicon – that Dumbledore intentionally did that.

Victoria: I could see that.

Michael: Victoria, do you think Dumbledore is that much of a puppet master?

Victoria: [laughs] I think he has definitely got some serious manipulations going on. This chapter is a really good indication of the web that he weaves.

Michael: That’s true.

Victoria: This is a really good… it seems small, and you don’t really think about it – at least what Harry is doing with Slughorn in this – and then later on you’re like, “Oh, okay, so this has really far-reaching consequences as to why he wanted Slughorn here and why he used Harry to do it.” And he has a track record of playing things very, very close to the chest and moving chess pieces into position and no one knowing his endgame but himself.

Michael: Mhm. Yeah.

Victoria: Maybe I’m coming from a Game of Thrones side of this a little too much.

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Michael: No, not at all. I think that’s perfectly reasonable because we all have varying degrees of how much we believe Dumbledore is influencing things, so…

Victoria: This is the book where, at least for me, I was getting a little older reading these books and the sheen of Dumbledore the wise elder was wearing away.

Michael: Mhm.

Victoria: So we’re getting glimpses of this person who we’ve always put our trust in maybe isn’t always correct or maybe doesn’t have our best interests at heart.

Michael: Mhm.

Victoria: So that really opens your eyes in retrospect of: Why was he doing this? Why did he let Harry Potter take on Voldemort in Chamber of Secrets and all this stuff?

Terrance: Exactly.

Michael: Yeah. Go ahead, Terrance.

Terrance: I don’t really… see, I was one of the ones that thought, at the beginning, whenever I started reading the books – and granted, I blew through the first four in a week because that was what was out at the time – I thought Dumbledore was the wise elder, and it wasn’t until the later books that I started to see his true colors, and starting to think, even before Deathly Hallows and everything was tied up, that he was just doing this for his own agenda. He was trying to do something, and I wasn’t quite sure what it was. But the character of Dumbledore did a 180 on me. And I’ve said this plenty of times on Hogwarts Radio that he went from being one of my favorite characters to a character that I don’t really like.

Michael: Hmm.

Terrance: I’m not going to say “hate” because you can’t hate Dumbledore, but I just dislike…

Michael: Oh, no, Rosie can. Rosie pretty much hates him.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Terrance: I dislike the way that Dumbledore went about doing certain things.

Victoria: I respect the hell out of him, I think.

[Michael laughs]

Terrance: Really?

Victoria: Yeah, I mean, it can’t have been easy trying to protect the world from Voldemort when half the time nobody believed you it’s coming back, and then when they do you’re hobbled by having to run a school at the same time.

Michael and Terrance: Mhm.

Michael: Yeah, Dumbledore slipped down to the middle of my list.

Victoria: Hmm.

Michael: He fluctuates really depending on what book I’m reading at the time, but…

Terrance: Or what movie I’m watching. [laughs]

Michael: Or what movie you’re watching. Yeah, that’s a whole other matter altogether.

Terrance: “Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire?”

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: But yes, as far as this particular comment goes, and Dumbledore’s relationship with Snape… I think we’ve discussed before that Dumbledore gives Snape way too much wiggle room for how he behaves compared to some of the other characters.

Alison and Terrance: Mhm.

Michael: Especially near the final chapters of Order of the Phoenix how Dumbledore chides Harry about Sirius’s behavior and Harry is like, “Well, Snape was behaving exactly the same way.”

[Victoria laughs]

Michael: So yeah, I do think Dumbledore does give Snape a bit more of a pass. I think more… I don’t think, though, that it is out of an affectionate thing. I think he actually pities Snape and that’s where that comes from.

Terrance: I do, too.

Victoria: Yeah, I agree.

Michael: It’s more like, “Oh, you are pathetic.”

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Victoria: “This is the only joy you have in life, torturing this teenager. I’ll let you have it.”

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: [laughs] But yeah, I do think, though, that again, there is something to what They’ve Taken My Wheezy! said at the end about how Muggles are wizards’ playthings.

Alison: Mhm.

Michael: And even though Dumbledore might have been playing around, I think… we did mention last week that this was almost a potential look at how Dumbledore may have become had he gone with his “greater good” beliefs and followed Grindelwald’s line of thought that Muggles were lesser.

Victoria: Right.

Michael: So I think Dumbledore has tipping points, too, about which way he can go. So I think that’s worth definitely keeping in mind as we continue through the series.

Victoria: I’m surprised child abuse isn’t more of a hot button issue with Dumbledore, considering what happened to his sister.

Michael: Yeah. That’s true.

Terrance: I think he had just tried to push that so far out of his mind because he felt guilty for what happened to her.

Victoria: Hmm, probably.

Michael: Mhm.

Terrance: So it was something that he just said, “Nah, I’m not going to deal with that.”

[Victoria laughs]

Michael: Mhm.

Alison: Let’s be honest, though. He was having fun with that.

Victoria: Yeah, definitely.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: So were we!

Michael: And so were we as readers. So were we.

Terrance: So that wraps up the comments for this week – the listener comments – and if you have a comment on anything that’s ever discussed, go to alohomora.mugglenet.com. You can feel free to leave the comment on the podcast post, and we definitely look forward to reading more comments so thank you so much to everybody that chimed in this week.

Michael: And we have some additional comments, but these will be from our Podcast Question of the Week responses. We had some really great response on this question, which was drummed up by Eric. So thank you, Eric, out there in Universal Studios having fun. Whatever.

[Michael and Terrance laugh]

Alison: We’re not bitter or anything.

Michael: No, not at all because we’re doing Alohomora! We’re having our own Harry Potter fun right now. [laughs] But just to remind you listeners, the Question of the Week was: “When the ownership of Kreacher is uncertain, Dumbledore suggests to Harry, “Give him an order. If he has passed into your ownership, he will have to obey. If not, then we will have to think of some other means of keeping him from his rightful mistress.” If it had turned out that Kreacher did not pass to Harry, what “other means” do we think Dumbledore would have suggested or enacted to keep the Order safe from Bellatrix or to keep Kreacher from talking? How has Dumbledore kept Kreacher from going to Bellatrix thus far?” So before I even get to these comments, I will say that not a large number of you, but a rather notable number of you did suggest to just chop Kreacher’s head off and put it on the wall at Grimmauld Place. [laughs]

Victoria: Oh, there’s the Slytherins!

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: I was going to say, yes, we weeded the Slytherins out of the comments section this week.

Terrance: They’re not all entirely wrong…

Alison: No.

[Everyone laughs]

Victoria: It’s for the greater good.

Michael: I don’t know, I feel like a few Gryffindors would be bold enough to just grab an axe…

[Alison and Victoria laugh]

Michael: … and say, “For the good! For the greater good!” [makes swishing sound] But we did have a few suggestions of that…

Victoria: It’s what Kreacher wants in the end.

Michael: Yes, give the boy what he wants.

[Everyone laughs]

Terrance: Right, exactly. “Off with his head!”

Alison: Oh, gosh.

Michael: But we had a few great comments from some of our other listeners. Ellen Dawn had a unique suggestion that actually nobody else put forth, which was,

“All of the discussion about the Unbreakable Vow in the last chapter makes me wonder if this spell could have been used on Kreacher in order to detain him, had he not been passed on to Harry. Do Unbreakable Vows work on other creatures (‘of near human intelligence’ as Umbridge would say), or can it only be between two humans? Would an elf and its different type of magic even be held to an Unbreakable Vow? And can an Unbreakable Vow be forced upon someone, or does it have to be a willing bond between two people?”

Thoughts on this, you guys?

Terrance: I think house-elves are bound to a different kind of magic.

Alison: Yeah.

Terrance: So an Unbreakable Vow wouldn’t be something that would have to be used because they have to follow orders, correct?

Michael: Yes.

Terrance: So a house-elf’s owner would say, “Do not say anything about this.”

Victoria: Right.

Terrance: And they wouldn’t be able to. I mean, even if they wanted to, it’s… I think that’s what was… wasn’t that what was troubling Dobby in Chamber of Secrets?

Michael: Hmm.

Terrance: When he’s like, “I can’t say!” He can’t say… or was it just more out of fear for that?

Alison: Hmm.

Michael: No, I think it was the magic about a house-elf that didn’t allow him to say anything.

Terrance: Yeah, yeah.

Victoria: I assume Sirius had a plan or at least once upon a time told Kreacher, “Don’t talk about anything to these people.”

Alison: Yeah. I feel like there would also be some kind of time where a house-elf has to stay loyal to a master who died.

Michael and Victoria: Mhm.

Alison: That would just make sense.

Michael: Yeah, there was a lot of discussion in the comments about that, about how long that would’ve lasted if that was the case and whether Sirius did stipulate something near the end of his time with Kreacher because as we know, Kreacher did run off and snitch as much as he was able to Bellatrix, so we’re not quite sure how much he’s allowed and not allowed to say, really, but… go ahead, Terrance.

Terrance: I think it also depends on how loyal that house-elf is because there’s one thing about being an owner of a house-elf and then the loyalty of a house-elf, and whenever you win both of those, well, then you’ve got him.

Michael: Mhm.

Terrance: But like we saw with Sirius, he wasn’t loyal to Sirius. He had to follow orders from Sirius because Sirius owned him, but he was more loyal to Mrs. Black who treated him with kindness and respect.

Michael: Mhm. Yeah, that’s true. Well, because I think as we’ll see in Deathly Hallows and as Dobby has already somewhat proved, and as Hermione has suggested throughout the books, that while there’s an element of magic that’s binding the house-elves, there’s also an element of brainwashing through the centuries, so it’s a mind over matter issue because Dobby, even though by the rules of the wizarding society, he has technically been freed from the Malfoys, he still occasionally is hesitant to say bad things about them even in this book, as we’ll see around, I think, Chapter 19. Because I am wondering, like you said, Terrance, would an Unbreakable Vow just directly screw up house-elf magic or screw up the thing about direct orders from the master? Can that not even be overrode by an Unbreakable Vow? So I guess Unbreakable Vows aren’t that unbreakable in some cases.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: But we had quite a few of you; the listeners who suggested this were Hollywobbles, Skylar White, and They’ve Taken My Wheezy! Skylar White confirmed no relation to Breaking Bad Skyler White.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: But all three of you suggested… and Hollywobbles was the comment I used:

” Lock him in a vault at Gringotts. I know that house[-]elves can [A]pparate pretty much anywhere, but I’m guessing that Gringotts would have protection against that because it[‘]s run by goblins, and they wouldn’t overlook house-elves[‘] magic like so many wizards do.”

Alison: Yeah. Oh, interesting.

Michael: [laughs] Yeah. But as a response, Umbridge Rage said,

“I’ve been thinking about the Gringotts option and how most people think that the [g]oblins would have protections against [h]ouse[-e]lves, but I’ve realized something. Who owns [h]ouse[-e]lves? The oldest and richest wizarding families. People who don’t need to send elves to steal them money since they all have it already. Maybe Gringotts can’t be protected against elvish magic, but nobody is worried about that since the old pure-blood families would never steal from each other, and wizarding society is set up to keep them wealthy and in power anyway. Just a thought.”

Victoria: They would definitely steal from each other.

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: That’s one of the reasons why I think I would go with Hollywobbles’s idea because yes, they would definitely steal from each other.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: And the goblins themselves are very… distrusting? [laughs] And so anything they would want to have locked down. They would want to not let anything or anyone in.

Terrance and Victoria: Yeah.

Terrance: Because goblins see everything as: It’s theirs; it’s just on loan.

Victoria: Yeah, yeah. And they’re so smart; they’d never overlook a very large part of that security.

Alison: Oh, yeah.

Michael: Mhm.

Terrance: Right. Exactly.

Alison: Especially if they know that some wizard could order their house-elf to go steal something for them. [laughs]

Terrance: Yeah, yeah.

Michael: Yeah, I think the… well, and people had actually wondered if in the interim between Sirius dying and Dumbledore calling Kreacher to him to test out the theory, if Dumbledore hadn’t put Kreacher in a Gringotts vault for that period of time, which would be… unless he gave him some food and… it would be rather cruel.

Victoria: Maybe he has one of those trunks that they kept Mad-Eye Moody in.

Michael: [laughs] With seven locks?

[Alison laughs]

Michael: Yeah, because I think you guys are right that… while Umbridge Rage, I think that’s a fair point, I think that’s going off the assumption that all rich wizarding families are just happy with what they have and are good people with good morals, which we have seen is not necessarily the case. [laughs]

Alison: The Malfoys?

Michael: Yeah, yeah, exactly. There are plenty, I think, of rich wizarding families who would love to try and take advantage of Gringotts if they saw that option. And I think you’re right, Alison, that goblins are way too shrewd to overlook that, so…

Terrance: Mhm.

Michael: But the final suggestion, which was put forth by SpinnersEnd, DisKid, Hollywobbles, Paul, and They’ve Taken My Wheezy! was… and I used SpinnersEnd’s comment here:

“Dumbledore might have been able to modify Kreacher’s memory so [that] he either forgot all the vital information completely or remembered it incorrectly, thus feeding the Death Eaters bad information.”

And as a few people did confirm, as we will see later in Half-Blood Prince, house-elves are susceptible to Memory Charms, as we see with Hokey. So that could work. Now, the thing that I was concerned about with that – and I was assuming Dumbledore would be concerned about – is that Voldemort managed to break through a certain person’s Memory Charm and then he killed her. [laughs] So I thought that that could potentially… especially because considering the person who would probably want information from Kreacher would be Bellatrix, and I imagine she is not above doing horrible things to break through Memory Charms.

Alison: But is she better than Dumbledore? I feel like Dumbledore could lock it down pretty well.

Michael: [laughs] I don’t know. I just feel like… because if she didn’t have the means to do it, perhaps she would pass him onto Voldemort to be dealt with, if she felt he had vital enough information which I’m assuming she would. And we know Voldemort thinks nothing of house-elves. So there were some pretty great responses and I wanted to make sure and shout out to those of you who I couldn’t include, but you did make some really great contributions this week: EmeraldSilver, Eric – I’m assuming not our Eric, but a different Eric – Grace McGonagall, GriffinDork, Healer In Training, Hermione Eowyn P, IGotTransfiguredintoARhubarb, Kira Bond, Proud Hufflepuff – as you should be, Proud Hufflepuff – RebeccaTheRavenclaw, RoseLumos, SlytherinKnight, spellephant, and StoneShield128. You all left fantastic comments that I unfortunately could not include in this week’s show. But listeners, if you would like to check those out or contribute some comments of your own, make sure to go to alohomora.mugglenet.com, and you can join in on the conversation.

Alison: Now we’re going to move on to our chapter discussion of Chapter 4.

[Half-Blood Prince Chapter 4 intro begins]

Dumbledore: Chapter 4.

Dumbledore and Slughorn: Reparo!

[Sound of objects repairing themselves]

Dumbledore: “Horace Slughorn.”

[Half-Blood Prince Chapter 4 intro ends]

Alison: So our chapter summary is: After their awkward interaction with the Dursleys, Harry and Dumbledore set off to “pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.” After some initial awkwardness and very uncomfortable side-along Apparition, we meet Horace Slughorn, an old colleague of Dumbledore’s, who the headmaster is attempting to persuade out of retirement. After a vocal parade of Slughorn’s previous favorite students and some rather insensitive comments about Harry’s parents and parental stand-ins, Slughorn agrees to come back to Hogwarts. A pleased Dumbledore then drops Harry off at The Burrow, encouraging Harry to share the details of the prophecy with Ron and Hermione and promising private lessons this year at Hogwarts.

Michael: Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! [laughs]

Alison: Ugh, this chapter. So the first thing we kind of experience throughout this chapter is, of course, Harry doesn’t quite know what to say. But he and Dumbledore actually start having quite the recap of what’s going on in the outside world, and we kind of see that at this point Harry s growing up. Dumbledore’s given [Harry] permission to do magic outside of school, he experiences Apparition for the first time, and they actually have a real conversation.

Michael: Yeah, it was funny when the narration through Harry’s train of thought points out that Harry’s never really had a casual conversation with Dumbledore past the level of student-teacher.

Victoria: Yeah.

Michael: And I was like, yeah, that’s… and you don’t really feel that… all those times because we’re so used to Dumbledore as a character. He’s just one of the characters that we know really well. Then suddenly we kind of have the same realization that Harry does of, “This is awkward…”

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: “We’re hanging out with a teacher.” It’s that exact feeling that I’ve had before where the first time you hang out with a teacher outside of school.

Terrance: Yeah.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: It’s very interesting when you’re with an authority figure and you’re outside of that realm of authority.

Terrance: Yeah, that filter just comes off, doesn’t it?

Michael: Yep.

[Michael and Terrance laugh]

Michael: Oh, yeah.

Alison: It’s a very different relationship.

Michael and Terrance: Yeah.

Terrance: It is.

Michael: It’s funny the things I’ve talked about with teachers who over the years kind of became friends…

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: … because one of my favorite teachers actually called me at LeakyCon and I was like, “Dude, I’m at LeakyCon! Let me tell you all about it.”

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: And I was like, “This is weird!” But also really awesome. [laughs]

Victoria: It’s a nice callback for readers too, for us to be like, wow! It’s been five books and this has never happened? Huh.

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: Yeah, yeah.

Victoria: I feel weird.

Terrance: Yeah.

Alison: It’s kind of the beginning of Dumbledore, like our view of Dumbledore changing as well.

Victoria: Yeah, as a real person.

Alison: Yeah, yeah.

Michael: Mhm.

Alison: Well, much of this conversation they have focuses on Inferi…

Michael: Bleah!

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Alison: No, this is our first time we hear about them, and so Dumbledore explains what they are. And on page 63 of the British edition, it says: “‘They are corpses,’ said Dumbledore calmly. ‘Dead bodies that have been bewitched to do a Dark wizard’s bidding. Inferi have not been seen for a long time, however, not since Voldemort was last powerful. He killed enough people to make an army of them, of course.'”

Michael: See, if they had left this line in the movie, Michael Gambon would have been like, [shouting] “They are corpses! Dead bodies!”

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: [whispers] Dead bodies.

Terrance: [as Gollum] “Dead bodies in the waters.”

[Everyone laughs]

Victoria: Oh my God!

Michael: That’s different.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: That is something else entirely.

Terrance: You know what scares me and what’s really unsettling about Inferi is that okay, Voldemort killed a lot of people, so pretty much… what this is telling me, what this quote is telling me, what Dumbledore’s saying is that pretty much anybody that he’s killed can be turned into an Inferi. Now we don’t know the process of that at all.

Alison: Yeah.

Terrance: We don’t know the spell involved, potions, yada yada… but what’s unsettling is the fact that your loved ones can be the very people that you’re fighting, the very Inferi that you’re fighting.

Alison: Yeah.

Victoria: It’s the zombie battle.

Alison: Yeah. We actually do have some information, speaking of zombies…

[Michael laughs]

Alison: … and how they come to be, from Pottermore. And Jo writes,

“The spells used to reanimate a human body are much more complex than those used, for instance, to make inanimate objects fly. The Inferius may be cursed to respond lethally if disturbed, to kill indiscriminately, and to undertake perilous jobs for its master. Its limitations are, however, obvious; it has no will and no brain of its own and will not be able to think its way out of unforeseen trouble. As a warrior or guardian with no regard for its own safety, however, it has many uses…

Inferi have much in common with zombies, which are mentioned as separate creatures within Harry’s world. I had several good reasons for not wishing to call the guardians of the locket Horcrux ‘zombies’…”

And then this is the part that I found really interesting:

“Zombies of the Voodoo tradition … has it that the sorceror uses their soul, or part of their souls, to sustain himself. This conflicts with my Horcrux story…”

And then she tells us that,

“The name Inferius is a play on ‘Inferus’, which is Latin for ‘below’, but with an obvious connotation of being ‘lesser’ than a living being.”

Interesting that we compare them to zombies, but they’re not…

Victoria: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah. Well, because I remember when I first read the book, I was like, these are zombies.

[Everyone laughs]

Terrance: Zombies exactly.

Michael: And she was very insistent for a long time that they weren’t, but she never explained why.

Terrance: Yeah.

Michael: And I feel really like… that last bit of that explanation on Pottermore was kind of the thing that was all she had to say…

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: That incorporates souls and that is completely in contradiction with the point of using them to guard a Horcrux.

Terrance: Right. Now correct me if I’m wrong, zombies are more of a kind of flesh-eating, seeking people or things – creatures, and Inferi really don’t… they just… they kill, but they don’t eat you.

Alison and Michael: Yeah.

Michael: Well, and they don’t pass on… they don’t make you an Inferi by biting you.

Terrance: Right, right.

Michael: So it’s not… yeah, that’s not the same either. But in general concept of being like the living dead, I think that’s where the zombie thing comes in.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: And it was funny because I hadn’t remembered… I remember when I first read it thinking, yeah, these are zombies, but I forgot that… because they’re only mentioned very minorly in the first book that there are zombies in the Harry Potter world and they’re a separate thing.

Alison: Yeah, they don’t really come up.

Michael: I believe they’re mentioned in Sorcerer’s Stone, I think, once.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: So they’re not a big thing in Harry’s world, and I think she’s since given zombies more of their own definition in the Harry Potter world.

Victoria: Right. She does the same with vampires. She kind of steers away from the really traditional creatures to make her own, which I really respect.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: Well, is that… because Victoria, I always love to ask the writers about how they… what about Rowling inspires them and what not, and I imagine though that’s a very difficult process when you’re culling mythology and what to decide to leave out and what to leave in.

Victoria: Right, because you want to respect the tropes of your genre, but you want to do your own thing with them. It’s a really narrow line to walk. [laughs]

Michael: Yeah.

Victoria: I wish there were more Inferi in these books though because once they started talking about them, I was like, yeah we’re going to get a huge Inferi battle. And we get the one at the end of this book, but they never really come back, to my memory.

Michael: Yeah… because they are so well… I think the Inferi – and I talked about this last chapter specifically, because I was talking about how I think Half-Blood Prince, coming off of Order of the Phoenix, does such an excellent job of setting things up for far in the future of the series…

Victoria: Yeah.

Michael: … in a way that Order of the Phoenix kind of wasn’t doing. And the Inferi here are teased so well…

Victoria: Mhm.

Michael: … and I think, like you said, while their one appearance is very effective, it would have been… with all the set-up they got, it would have really been interesting to see them come up in further…

Terrance: Mhm.

Victoria: Right, and it would have been nothing to have them in the seige of Hogwarts in the last…

Michael: Yeah, yeah.

Victoria: And it would have been so creepy to see dead bodies of people you know coming after you.

Alison: Oh, gosh.

Michael: Or even…

Victoria: Could you imagine Lupin and Tonks as dead bodies coming after you?

Michael: No.

[Alison, Michael, and Victoria laugh]

Michael: I was going to say, the idea that some of the actual characters who died during the battle, if they had been turned into Inferi during the battle, that would’ve been horrifying!

Victoria: I have more of a gory inclination, I guess.

Alison: I think there would have been rioting.

Michael: That would have been a step up.

Alison: That would have been messed up.

Terrance: This is a children’s book, jeez!

[Everyone laughs]

Victoria: Oh yeah.

Alison: Psychological trauma for everyone involved. [laughs]

Victoria: [laughs] I came here to have a good time.

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: Anyway, after Dumbledore and Harry’s conversation, we actually get to meet the namesake of the chapter, Horace Slughorn.

Michael: Yay! [laughs]

Alison: But it takes us a while because as a Slytherin, he has quite the cunning plan to not be found. So, what were our first impressions of Slughorn? Does anyone remember? Did you just follow Harry?

Michael: I thought he was fascinating, especially when he dropped that he was a Slytherin.

Victoria: Yes.

Michael: That’s where I was just, I like you. [laughs] I want to learn more. I really liked the way he talked, and I think the thing that really caught me about him – and again, I mentioned this in the last episode, too – coming off of what was such a massive disappointment with Umbridge… because when I heard there was going to be a female Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, I was really excited. That’s interesting, there’s a some great potential there, I want to see what happens. And then it was Umbridge, who was horrible…

[Alison laughs]

Michael: … and she was just… she was not informative to the world of Harry Potter. She just encouraged ideas we already knew and took them to the extreme. Slughorn is so much more of an interesting grey area, and he is such a massive divulger of information. He has so much to offer.

Victoria: He’s a world expander, definitely.

Michael: Yes. He just drops so much info in such little time, and what she has him drop are such great little hints of what’s going to come up and what other information he has to give.

Victoria: Mhm.

Michael: And so I think she introduced him really well.

Victoria: Mmm. I like that she buried the lead with, “Oh, and I was Head of Slytherin.”

Michael: Mhm.

Victoria: Because as a Slytherin myself, I’d always been looking for some Slytherins who weren’t so demonized, and then we got this old guy who was kind of okay. And I was like, all right, he exists.

Michael: [laughs] Yeah. The way he carries on conversation with Harry, the fact that they kind of just hit it off real quickly…

Victoria: Mhm. And he doesn’t mind Muggle-borns.

Michael: Yeah.

Terrence: Well, I felt kind of comfortable with Slughorn. Yeah, I was following Harry because really at first I didn’t know what to think. But I just… I don’t know, I got… although I didn’t know what to think, I just had that comfortable feeling with him. The way that he talked, he was just so… not flattering, but he was kind of charming a little bit. I don’t know how to say it.

Michael: No, I agree with that. I can see that.

Victoria: There’s a really great writing tactic here…

Terrence: Yeah.

Victoria: Rowling uses Dumbledore to sort of vouch for him, I guess. And Dumbledore, at least when it comes to other people, we trust his judgment. Or we at least trust that nothing too bad is going to happen to Harry while he’s sitting in the next room.

Michael: Mhm.

Victoria: So this is our “You can relax and take a breath” chapter.

Michael: Yeah, I like that because we talked last week about how our first impressions were of Scrimgeour, based on the one line mentioned in the Daily Prophet article that Dumbledore and Scrimgeour had a meeting and it went badly.

[Victoria laughs]

Michael: And it’s like…

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: Just like you said, Victoria, I remember feeling from that line very disappointed.

Victoria: Yeah.

Michael: Because I was like, oh, there’s something wrong here. Scrimgeour is not the Minister that I wanted.

Victoria: Mhm.

Michael: And…

Victoria: And when you met him you were like, okay, cool. He’s described as a lion. I’m ready to go on this guy’s side.

[Michael laughs]

Victoria: He’s an Auror.

Michael: Yeah.

Victoria: Oh wait, Dumbledore doesn’t like him, ehh.

Michael: Yeah, and then to go from that to this, where Dumbledore is pretty much fully endorsing Slughorn to Harry.

Victoria: Mhm. But then of course we find out why.

Michael: Yes.

Terrance: Well, yeah. Okay, Dumbledore vouching for Slughorn… I really don’t get that. Four reasons: Quirrell, Lockhart…

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Terrance: … Lupin, bad Moody… those reasons there. It’s just… no, that didn’t fly with me.

Michael: Well, and see, that’s…

Victoria: Lupin was a good choice.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: Lupin was a great choice.

Terrance: He was.

Michael: Lupin’s awesome!

[Alison and Victoria laugh]

Michael: Well, and as we’ll find out, the thing that I think perhaps would strengthen that is when we do find out that Slughorn’s not teaching what we thought he’s going to teach.

Alison: Mmm, yeah.

Michael: So…

Victoria: Yeah, that was such a cool bait and switch.

Michael: Yeah, it’s done really well in this chapter.

Alison: Mhm. Yeah.

Michael: Mhm.

Alison: I find it so interesting that you all were okay with him. He’s always kind of bugged me.

Michael: Really?

Alison: I think it’s just… he’s so…

Victoria: He’s slimy.

Alison: Yes. And I just don’t like those kind of people. So I feel like if I met him in real life, he would really annoy me. [laughs]

Victoria: Yeah.

Alison: So I’m always just… I don’t know. I find him a very fascinating character, but I think as a person, I’m on Harry’s side.

Michael: Well…

Victoria: I don’t think any of us like him; I think we just come into this thinking, okay, this guy’s not going to try and kill Harry or turn him over to the Dark Lord anytime soon…

[Michael laughs]

Alison: That’s true.

Victoria: … So you’re like, all right, he’s okay.

Alison: Yeah.

Michael: Well, and I will full on admit that I’m fairly sure that Jim Broadbent’s portrayal has endeared me to him more.

Victoria: Oh, definitely. Exactly.

Alison: Yeah. Well, as we’re reading Slughorn, there’s this very interesting quote that I’ve always kind of passed over.

Michael: Yeah.

Alison: But it stood out to me this time, where on page 69 of the British edition it says: “Slughorn’s eyes lingered for a moment on the ring too, and Harry saw a tiny frown momentarily crease his wide forehead.” So obviously we learn later that Slughorn has seen this ring before…

Michael: Mhm.

Alison: … and so my question was, does he recognize it as Tom Riddle’s? And could he be thinking of that memory and that fact? And… well, I guess we don’t know if Dumbledore has given him – or if he’s given Dumbledore the fake memory yet, but could this memory be impacting his hesitation to come back to Hogwarts if he knows Dumbeldore has this ring that somehow is connected to Tom Riddle?

Terrance: Ehh…

Victoria: I don’t know if he would have gone back to Hogwarts if he knew for sure that Dumbledore was on his trail with that.

Michael: That’s why I was surprised that Dumbledore openly showed him the ring.

Victoria: Mmm. Yeah.

Michael: He was like, “Look what’s on the other hand!” [laughs]

Victoria: [laughs] My new bling.

Alison: Yeah. [laughs]

Michael: “My nice new ring, my nice new bling.” Yeah, that was… that shocked me, because like you said, Victoria, how much of a manipulator is Dumbledore being in this chapter? He obviously… because Dumbledore does nothing without reason. He must have thought showing the ring in some way was advantageous to what he was doing.

Victoria: Right.

Terrance: Did Tom wear this ring? I mean, was it something…?

Michael and Victoria: Yes.

Terrance: Okay. Yeah, I need to brush up.

Michael: Yeah, because he – and we’ll go into more detail to that later – but he gets the ring while he’s still in Hogwarts.

Terrance: Gotcha.

Victoria: Mhm.

Michael: And he kills his family during that time.

Victoria: Just a summer holiday.

Michael: Yeah. Right. And then he goes back. So yeah, he still would have had the ring. I know the movie clearly shows him fingering it in that scene. [laughs] Like, “Look at the ring!”

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: So Slughorn would have seen it. But perhaps Slughorn wouldn’t have even…

Victoria: Maybe he vaguely recognizes it? That’s what I assume. I mean, he doesn’t get it yet.

Michael: Yeah, that’s what I was… well, and I thought of this as a podcast question, but I feel like this is actually the answer of why he looks that way, but I had wondered, too if there wasn’t a possibility that Rowling was setting it up that Slughorn knew something about the Deathly Hallows?

Victoria: Hmm.

Alison: Oh, interesting.

Michael: And though maybe that was just a lost plot point on her end.

Victoria: Those are definitely possible.

Michael: Yeah! Because it could definitely have been a safety net to cover her bases because as we found out on Pottermore recently, that’s what Florean Fortescue was meant to do. He was meant to give information about some history that would have helped Harry in Deathly Hallows, and then he…

Victoria: And serve delicious ice cream.

Terrance: Wow.

Michael: And serve delicious ice cream. And now he does neither because he’s dead.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: I can’t imagine that there aren’t… I’d like to think that there are places here – and I think Rowling started to reveal that through Pottermore – where she did cover all her bases and perhaps was thinking, “If this doesn’t work, maybe I can do this instead.”

[Victoria laughs]

Terrance: Oh my God! J.K. Rowling?

Victoria: Is J.K. Rowling with us here in this podcast?

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Alison: Well, speaking of Tom Riddle, who was one of Slughorn’s favorites, we now get the verbal parade of everyone Slughorn apparently has ever loved.

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Alison: So we get brief mentions of Lily, James, and Sirius, and Slughorn is so insensitive to Harry.

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Alison: Which makes me wonder: Does he not know? [laughs] Well, I guess he couldn’t.

Michael: Well, that continues the trend of me wondering just how much information about Sirius’s death has been released at this point. Because that ends up getting pretty glossed over, and from what’s implied, the Daily Prophet really doesn’t make a thing of it. It’s probably because, whoopsy-daisy, we killed an innocent man after chasing him for so many years and incarcerating him for 12. That wouldn’t look good. But yeah, I don’t think that news has quite spread, about Sirius and his relationship with Harry. I mean, even at the end of Order of the Phoenix, Luna asks him if that was his godfather, but she does it hesitantly, and it’s implied that she heard it through some of the classmates.

Victoria: Well, Madam Rosmerta knows about it, so I assume most of Hogsmeade does, too!

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: So yeah, I think it’s interesting because this is also continuing a trend of a very blunt, insensitive approach to the deaths because Vernon just did that in the last chapter.

Victoria: Yeah. It’s letting the reader remember, “Hey, here, Sirius is dead. Did you not get that? He’s dead.”

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: He’s really dead, you guys.

Alison: He’s still dead.

Michael: And yet many, many a person after Half-Blood Prince was released was still like, “He’ll come back! It’s going to happen!”

Victoria: Oh, I was one of those, who thought he was going to talk to Sirius through the mirror. That’s what I thought.

Alison: Well, Slughorn continues to be insensitive with his comments on Muggle-borns.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: He insists he’s not being prejudiced, but guys.

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Alison: Let’s just admit this right now, that he’s pretty prejudiced. Unless you’re some kind of genius.

Victoria: I think for… he also… this is going to sound awful, but he grew up a longer time ago, and it seems like he speaks like a reformed racist, like someone who grew up in the Deep South.

[Michael laughs]

Victoria: And now he’s like, “Well, I’m not being racist. I don’t think that, but that’s just how it was.”

Terrance: [in a strong southern accent] What are you trying to say about us Southern people?

[Everyone laughs]

Terrance: [in a strong southern accent] Now just a minute here.

Victoria: But that’s what I always read into him, being reformed. Maybe he was prejudiced in school and then learned later on.

Alison: That’s a good point.

Terrance: It’s very possible.

Michael: I think that’s absolutely true considering that, as a Slytherin at that time, he would have been surrounded by individuals who would have hated…

Victoria: Oh, yeah. That’s what really spoke to me, the fact that he could come through Slytherin and then be like, “Yeah, some of my favorite students were Muggle-borns.”

Michael: Yeah. He’s just not being quite careful with his words. I think here… and we’ll see to some degree those old prejudices and those old ways of thinking still carry with him. Because the thing that I was always disappointed, too, with Slughorn is once we get to Deathly Hallows and the battle begins, and he’s like, “I would like to leave, right now.”

[Everyone laughs]

Victoria: I would like to leave.

Michael: Ah, I see we haven’t quite changed that much.

Victoria: [laughs] It’s an admirable trait. He’s a survivalist.

Michael: [laughs] But yeah, I think he’s definitely a product of his time, poor guy. And he’s trying. He’s trying really hard.

Alison: Okay, so we get mention of all these different former Slug Club members. We get Dirk Cresswell, head of the Goblin Liaison Office; Barnabas Cuffe, editor of the Daily Prophet; Ambrosius Flume, owner of Honeydukes; Gwenog Jones, captain of the Holyhead Harpies. And then we get one of my favorite images from the books that Jo writes. It says, “Harry had a sudden and vivid mental image of a giant, swollen spider spinning a web around him, twitching a thread here or there to bring its large and juicy flies a little closer.”

Terrance: Ooh.

Alison: So can we talk about the ethics of this? How much control do we think Slughorn seems to have? He seems to have tentacles everywhere in the wizarding world. Do we think… and Dumbledore says he prefers the backseat.

Victoria: I always thought of Dumbledore as the spider.

Terrance: Yeah, yeah.

Victoria: I think that’s Harry looking the wrong… obviously, Slughorn thinks he’s spider, but I don’t think he has any real power beyond putting those people on their paths.

Michael: Exactly.

Victoria: Whereas Dumbledore has it all the way to the end.

Terrance: I think Slughorn just wants to say that he can be associated with those kind of people. Like, “Oh, I’ve met Justin Bieber, and I’ve met…”

[Everyone laughs]

Terrance: I don’t know if that’s a very positive thing, but “I’ve met Adam Levine, and he seemed like a cool guy.” I think that’s the way Slughorn is. I mean, he doesn’t have any real influence. It’s just that he wants to say that he has had contact with these people.

Victoria: Yeah. “I get a hamper every Christmas.” Good for you.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: Yeah. Well, I am… I think the reason, too, that Slughorn does have as much influence as he does is that we have to consider that the wizarding world is a smaller population, so they do seem to center their… people move up through the wizarding world through very fixed institutions. There aren’t that many options for how you get to where you are in the wizarding world. So Slughorn is just a fantastic go-between who just reaps the sweet, sweet rewards of getting people where they want to be. I really did like that he – again, these are, like you said, Victoria, great world building information drops. Because all these people that he mentions have some role in the series in the background. Gwenog Jones is still being mentioned on Pottermore. She had a huge thing on Pottermore during the Quidditch World Cup, which was hilarious, and we have seen Ambrosius Flume already. We met him in Book 3 without knowing his name. Barnabas Cuffe obviously has some influence to some degree, and Dirk Cresswell will come up in Deathly Hallows, so yeah, there’s….

Victoria: Yeah, you know she had an Excel sheet of all these names and is just like, “Which ones…?”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: Just to be able to pick… to have these names so perfectly picked out and have all these positions and backgrounds for them so perfectly drawn, yeah, it’s fantastic to get this kind of world building. Yet another reason I really enjoyed Slughorn was because I was like, “This is more of what I want! More of this!” But I do think that the spider imagery, though, is definitely… even though it’s from Harry, since we have come to trust Slughorn to some degree, or at least be on his side, that’s definitely a note of caution, I think, from the narration, is beware of this guy.

Victoria: And then they get to deal with the giant spider later on.

[Terrance laughs]

Michael: Yes! That’s true! To associate Slughorn with the spider and then have one of Slughorn’s most important moments in the series be…

Victoria: … milking a spider.

[Michael and Terrance laugh]

Michael: Be in that moment, yeah, that’s actually pretty perfect.

Alison: Well, interesting, Victoria, that you brought up that you always pictured Dumbledore as the spider because that was my next point, was Dumbledore really deliberately uses Harry in this moment.

Victoria: Oh, definitely.

Alison: So is this another example of Dumbledore being the controlling puppet master, and is it really wrong to use Harry this way when it’s really helping Harry, Harry just doesn’t know it yet.

Michael: I think this is the… this is so… I don’t know why I laugh at this part, but I, every time… the first time that… when Slughorn insults Umbridge, and then Harry laughs and says, “Sorry, it’s funny,” and then Dumbledore is like, “I have to go to the bathroom, bye.”

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: Wow, Dumbledore, you’re not even hiding how much… it’s quite obvious.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: He’s not… he’s being very blatant.

Victoria: Oh, yeah. I think because he knows Harry can get the job done, and in this instance, it’s not for the worst. He’s not doing something that will harm Harry, but this whole chapter is a great hint of how the rest of this book and the rest of the story in general is going to go. We get such a nice contrast between the playful, fun wizarding world that we’ve come to love with these hints of “Okay, well, now there'[re] these dead body armies running around, and you have to keep your wand out at night, and the real world is sort of seeping in.” This is such a good tonal shift, I guess, from the light of the past books to the darkness we’re going into.

Michael: That’s interesting you say that because I’ve… and we’ve discussed this already with the book but, I see Half-Blood Prince as actually one of the lightest in the series as far as the later books.

Victoria: Right. I think… yeah, because it’s the teenager book, it’s the “Oh, this person has a crush on this person” book, that’s sort of what we remember, and then, I didn’t even think this until I was rereading, but I was like… when you start a book or a movie, your first job is to set the tone, and this book does such a great job of setting “Yeah, we’re going back to Hogwarts, and we’re going to go through what you guys have already done so many times, but it’s going to be a little bit different this time around.” And again, this is because I’m rereading, but I got a real rush of nostalgia because you know what’s going to happen in the last one, and you know this is your last time around going on the Hogwarts Express and stuff.

Michael: Yeah, and I have always wondered if maybe that’s part of the reason she reverts back to that format here. Because Order does not follow the format. It’s a very big break from it, and Book 6 reminds me so much of Books 1 to 3. [Book] 4 is an oddity; it’s its own thing.

[Alison and Victoria laugh]

Michael: It follows the trend, and then it breaks it near the end, so yeah, I get the same feeling when I read [Book] 6, that it’s just like, “This is the pattern. Yay! I like the pattern; I mean, that was fun breaking away from the pattern, but I like sameness.”

Victoria: Yeah. This is the pattern, and then everyone’s dead.

Michael: And then everyone’s dead.

Alison: Oh, God. [laughs]

Michael: But you’re right, too. I think, maybe, perhaps, there’s… what I find interesting about Half-Blood Prince‘s tone is that despite all of this humor, they’re talking about really serious things. Slughorn has just set up the room to make it look like he’s dead. Because people want him dead. That’s the thing that’s carrying through this chapter, but it’s almost like this really dark undertone. There’s a lot of discussion by the characters of, like you said, things that are happening out in the world that are about to seep into their lives, but for the time being, everybody is able to get that protection at Hogwarts, as this chapter keeps mentioning. So like you said, it is that last… this is the last safe haven book, perhaps. the last comfortable…

Victoria: Yeah. I guess… and this is in the movies, but the Warner Bros.’ opening screen, if you watch them all from the front of every single movie, they get progressively darker and darker.

Alison: It gets darker.

Victoria: And this one is the last one where there’s any, I think, hint of light. And then [Movie] 7 and then Part 2 [are] just pitch black.

Michael: Exactly. That Warner Bros. logo is important, kids.

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Alison: Interesting you should mention safe havens, too, because that’s where we go next; we go to the Burrow. Yay!

Michael and Victoria: Yay!

Alison: [laughs] I love the Burrow. But we don’t quite get to go inside yet because Dumbledore wants to talk to Harry in their broomshed.

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Terrance: What? Hang on. Hold up. Harry and Dumbledore in the broomshed?

[Alison and Victoria laugh]

Terrance: Okay, come on.

Michael: There’s always a bit… it makes me think of in the fourth movie when Rita takes him into the broom cupboard.

Terrance: “This is quite cozy.”

Michael: “This is a cozy closet.” “This is a broom closet.”

Terrance: [in a British accent] “You should feel right at home, shouldn’t you?”

Michael: This is insensitive.

[Alison, Michael, and Terrance laugh]

Alison: So we were talking before about [how] Dumbledore is a puppet master, and in this scene, he tells Harry to tell Ron and Hermione about the prophecy. So it seems pretty clear that he’s ensuring a safety net for the plan that’s going to happen in Deathly Hallows and that he’s making sure Harry is going to have help when he – Dumbledore – is dead.

Michael: Yeah, because at this point Dumbledore already knows he’s going to be dead, which is unnerving when you think about it.

Alison: Yeah. Yeah, it is a little bit.

Michael: He’s setting that up. Yeah. I think this is really good, this scene. I actually forgot that they have this little discussion before he goes to the Burrow because of course in the movie he’s just like, “Throw you in the water. Bye!”

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: Which was a not very nice thing to do, so… and this conversation, I think, is very informative of Harry’s newfound relationship with Dumbledore because basically, Dumbledore is like, “I really screwed up last year. I’m sorry. Let’s fix this.”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: And I think that giving Harry that permission… because Harry is almost set it upon himself that he can’t tell Ron and Hermione, and I think that’s really internally damaging him, so I think that’s really nice to hear that from Dumbledore, that he’s like, “Not only do I give you permission to, I implore you to tell them because not only is it good for my plans, but also, it’s going to make you feel a lot better.”

Victoria: [laughs] Also, you’re not going to get anything done without Hermione.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: That’s true.

Terrance: Pretty much.

Michael: See, Dumbledore even knows who the series is really about. [laughs]

Victoria: He knows. And if you need to play another game of chess, you’ve got Ron.

[Michael and Terrance laugh]

Michael and Victoria: Aww.

Michael: Poor Ron. Bless him. Well, and I think, perhaps, Dumbledore knows, too, that Ron’s most important contribution is his loyalty. And that he’s… I mean, as evidenced by what he’ll bequeath Ron in the next book, to remind him of that. But I think, yeah, that he knows that Harry needs… Even though Harry has a lot of people now back on his side, I think he’s saying, “You need to see this directly from the people who care about you the most.” So Dumbledore is still on the love train. That’s all-important here. He’s pushing that a lot here too.

Alison: And I believe this is the scene that Harry recalls in Deathly Hallows when he tells Neville, is he says, “Well, Dumbledore died knowing there were still three people who were hunting them. So I’m going to make sure there'[re] still three hunting.”

Michael: And he wasn’t wrong. [laughs]

Alison: It’s true.

Michael: To give him credit on that front, he did.

Victoria: [laughs] Harry did something right! That’s crazy. [laughs]

Michael: Well, I was thinking about that, actually, because we’ve joked throughout the series that Harry is perhaps not the sharpest tool in the shed.

Victoria: [laughs] Stop.

Michael: He’s got a lot of admirable qualities, but that’s not one of them. But this chapter, I was really impressed with Harry’s observational skills. I don’t know what happened, but they, become a little more honed because he’s very tuned in to what Dumbledore is doing more than he ever has been, considering that – as we’ve said before – he’s only spent time with him in a student-teacher relationship. So to be in this kind of friendship, where he’s actually seeing Dumbledore actively doing what he’s been doing all this time, Harry is pretty on it from the beginning. The imagery of seeing Slughorn as the spider and knowing to be wary of Slughorn and knowing that Dumbledore has intentions for Slughorn, he catches on to that pretty quickly here, so… He’s doing better. Good job, Harry. [laughs]

Victoria: Five years of being almost murdered have finally paid off.

[Everyone laughs]

Terrance: Ten points to Gryffindor.

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: Oh. Well, another thing I noticed reading this chapter was, there’s this description of Harry thinking about his grief over Sirius’s death, and this is just a side note, but I just find this beautiful, beautiful writing. It just seems so heartfelt, and it’s a very real description of JKR’s own struggles with depression and loss. There’s a part where he feels this feeling that he’s come to associate with Dementors, but then he has the whole thing where he says, “But I realized you have to keep up and keep going,” and that just…

Michael: You know what killed me, was when Harry said, “I just keep hating remembering that he’s not going to write to me anymore.” And I was like, “Oh, don’t do that, Harry.” Oh, God. That’s the one that gets me. But I think that… And Victoria, I actually wanted to ask you to speak to that a little bit because I think it’s interesting that we’ve almost spent just a tad over more than Book 5 teaching Harry how to deal with grief. And we haven’t really had a lot of rumination on Sirius in the first three chapters. There'[ve] been those blunt mentions, but Harry has been actively – in the narration – blocking it. And this is the part where he finally has to address it, and he addresses it quite boldly, considering how rough of a journey it was for him in that last book, and I was interested in seeing how you felt that Sirius’s death was dealt with in comparison with Cedric’s.

Victoria: I think because Sirius was sort of his attempt at finding the family he had lost, and then that, too, was taken away from him, and so quickly, it was sort of like when he wouldn’t let himself believe that Dumbledore was coming to get him. At this point, he’s not letting himself believe that this has really happened to him again. But then, quite truthfully, when things start to slow down in the book and he gets to the moment where he can take a breath, he realizes all of this is boiling underneath, and he can’t ignore it anymore, whereas with Cedric, it was an immediate “this has happened right in front of my eyes, and I’m younger, and it’s wrong, and what’s going on is wrong, and no one believes me.” So that was a little bit more, I think, self-righteous, whereas on this end, Sirius has just died in front of him, a second parent has died in front of him, and “I’m going to have to deal with it and move on.”

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, it’s always been interesting to me, because to spend such a lengthy amount – a whole book – dwelling on grief, recovery. And then to go to this. And again, the book that, generally, the fans like, “This is the funny one.” And I’m like, “Not here it isn’t.”

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Michael: This is going pretty deep. This is one of the deepest levels. I think, Alison, you were right to bring that point up about Harry directly addressing depression. Because he mentions, too, that these last two weeks he’s basically been lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

Alison: [laughs] Yeah. That’s why his room is a mess.

Victoria: From a literary standpoint, too, she just couldn’t do two books with Harry being very, very sad, one right after the other.

Michael: Yeah. And well, I think it had already been made clear by the reception of Order of the Phoenix that people were like, “That one wasn’t fun.”

[Alison, Michael, and Victoria laugh]

Michael: So that was upsetting, which is… I think – as Kat has held up, and I totally agree with her throughout the series – Book 5 was very, very important. So I think perhaps that is why, even though it does seem a little rushed because we’ve gotten summary of what Harry’s been up to these last two weeks and how his depression has brought him to this point, I think, Alison, that particular line you said where he says that he’s just got to keep going, otherwise Voldemort wins. I think that feels like a good, well-deserved, justified line, based on what Harry has been through. It serves the purpose of saying, “All right, putting that one away now.”

Victoria: It’s a really good indicator of not necessarily how much he’s grown up, but how much he now understands the world he’s living in and what he has to be in it. I always really like the line in the seventh book in Godric’s Hollow when he’s looking at his parents’ graves for the first time.

Michael: Yeah, that’s one of mine.

Victoria: And he says, “I wish I [were] sleeping under the snow with them,” and you’re like, “Jesus!”

[Michael laughs]

Victoria: “Twist the knife!”

Alison: Oh my gosh, that whole scene just makes me want to cry when…

Michael: I can’t wait until…

Alison: And they’re like, “P.S. It’s Christmas!”

Michael: I’m really glad that… That’s a great comparison to a future chapter, and that’s actually one of my favorite chapters in Deathly Hallows and one that I’m actually sad that people don’t bring up a lot as an example. Because I think it’s one of the most informative moments for Harry in how he views death. So yeah, that’s absolutely a great comparison.

Alison: Well, moving on from that…

[Alison and Victoria laugh]

Alison: As we round out this chapter, Dumbledore tells Harry that he’s going to be giving him private lessons because he wants to have a greater hand in Harry’s education. But thinking back on it, “lessons” probably [was]n’t the right term for these. And I feel like this parallels what happens at the beginning where Harry realizes he and Dumbledore aren’t just having this student-teacher relationship anymore. So what…? Can anyone think of a better term for what happens later on in the school year?

Michael: Sessions of awesomeness.

Victoria: After-school specials.

Michael: [laughs] I liked both of those.

Terrance: Dumbledore’s…

Michael: After-school specials.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: I liked “sessions of awesome.” That’s mine. What was yours, Terrance?

Terrance: Dumbedore’s manipulative web of deception.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Terrance: I don’t know. Because that was the whole point, right? I mean, he was trying to “Here, here! This is the memory I need, but this isn’t the right memory, but that’s why I want you to get it, Harry.” That’s, I mean… whatever.

[Victoria laughs]

Terrance: “After school specials” is number one in my book right now. That’s awesome.

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Alison: That reminds me of an episode of Supernatural.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: One that…

Victoria: The more you know.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: That manipulation piece, I think, is so surrounded about that one particular memory, and we’ll get to that, but I do think that… [laughs] I love how Dumbledore… when Harry asks, “What am I going to be learning?” [as Dumbledore] “Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that.”

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Michael: That’s a great answer on Dumbledore’s part.

Terrance: Leaning what not to do.

Alison: It’s bascialy an info dump.

[Everyone laughs]

Victoria: A little bit of exposition, a little bit of worldbuilding.

[Michael laughs]

Terrance: [as Dumbledore] How to enter and come out of a Pensieve.

Michael: A little bit of…

[Victoria laughs]

Michael: … fortifying into…

Alison: [as Dumbledore] “How to dive into my memories to get what you need.”

[Everyone laughs]

Terrance: I love how we’re all talking like Dumbledore.

Michael: [as Dumbledore] Yes, we are.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: [as Dumbledore] Yes, you get that sing-songy voice throughout.

Terrance: I know.

Michael: [laughs] No, no, I think that’s a great way to call back to how this chapter started, Alison, is that it’s… These aren’t really lessons. This is battle prep. [laughs] Intense battle prep. So with some horrific things that Harry is going to find out. He’s going to be, “Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of delving into the darkest depths of humanity possible.”

[Alison and Victoria laugh]

Alison: All right, and with that, Harry walks off to the Burrow to be fed by Mrs. Weasley, and we end the chapter.

Michael: Thank God. I miss the Burrow so much. Grimmauld Place is great, but the Burrow…

Victoria: I love the Burrow.

Michael: Oh my God.

Terrance: There’s no place like home.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: Indeed, and before we end our show today, of course, we always like to ask our Podcast Question of the Week. And I was pondering because we touched on this a little bit about our first impressions about Slughorn, and this is a big thing about Slughorn that’s come up in the fandom, frequently comes up. In this, his namesake chapter, we finally met Professor Horace Slughorn. When it comes to setting examples of a “decent” Slytherin from the Harry Potter series, Slughorn is often the first to come to readers’ minds. However, Harry’s first impression of Slughorn is not exactly flattering. What is it about Slughorn that sets him apart from Slytherins we’ve met thus far? What qualities, both good and bad, does he share with other Slytherins we meet and will meet? Because, actually, as I was reflecting on it, I was realizing, “No, there'[re] other good Slytherins that we meet.” Slughorn just ends up being the prime example in the fandom. And at the same time, he definitely has a dark side that we kind of touched on, but I’d love for you listeners to go deeper into that and explore his character in relation to some of the other Slytherins we’ve met or will meet.

Victoria: In fan fiction.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: And to do that, just make sure to go to the Alohomora! website – alohomora.mugglenet.com – where the Question of the Week will be posted for you to answer.

Alison: And we want to thank Victoria for being our guest host today. You were a great host, and thanks for coming on.

Victoria: Thanks for having me. This was so much fun.

Michael: You were an excellent guest, Victoria.

Terrance: Absolutely.

Victoria: Thank you.

Alison: And listeners, make sure you check out her book: Red Queen, yes?

Victoria: Yes, yes. Comes out on Feburary 10.

Michael: And Victoria, do you have some places online that our listeners can find you at?

Victoria: Yeah, victoriaaveyard.com is always good, and my Twitter is way too well cultivated.

[Michael and Terrance laugh]

Michael: Oh, they’ll find you.

Victoria: I tweet way too much.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: I’m sure they’re very entertaining tweets, though.

Victoria: [laughs] I try.

Michael: Well, and congratulations, Victoria, on all of the accomplishments you’ve had.

Victoria: Thank you.

Michael: Congratulations on the new book, Red Queen. Like I said, the thing about the blood stuff, perfect for Harry Potter.

[Michael and Victoria laugh]

Victoria: It’s also that if a new Harry Potter book comes out, I can be first in line.

[Michael and Terrance laugh]

Michael: Well, and before we go, too, Victoria, I do like to ask all the writers who come how Rowling has perhaps influenced your work, and I’ve had responses from her worldbuilding to her characters to her incredible ways to weave a plot far in advance, and I was just curious as to how that informed your first novel and your trilogy that you’re working on.

Victoria: Definitely everything you just mentioned. She’s sort of the be-all [and] end-all when it comes to the plan pay-off, and I am currently drafting my third book in a series, and I am using her graph technique of this is what this character is doing at this point in time that really – at least – showed me how to write a book properly. But having grown up with Harry Potter, it’s really hard not to be inspired by every facet of it when you’re writing your own stuff.

Michael: Yeah, absolutely. Makes sense. But congratulations once again.

Victoria: Thank you.

Michael: And again, thank you for being such a great guest, and if you, listeners, would like to be on the show just like Victoria, then write a book.

[Everyone laughs]

Victoria: That’s all it takes, you guys.

Michael: But if you would like to be on the show, perhaps not exactly like Victoria, there is still an opportunity to do that without writing a book. You can check out the “Be on the Show” page at alohomora.mugglenet.com. If you have a set of headphones and a microphone and a recording program such as Audacity or GarageBand or anything like that, you’re all set. We don’t really need any fancy equipment. We just want to make sure we can hear you when you’re talking to us. And while you are on the Alohomora! main site, make sure [to] download a ringtone while you are there because they’re free and you can jam out to our theme song when you get a phone call or a text.

Alison: And if you just want to keep in contact with us, we are on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN, on Facebook at facebook.com/openthedumbledore, [and] on Tumblr at mnalohomorapodcast. You can call us at 206-GO ALBUS (206-462-5287) or leave us an audioBoom on alohomora.mugglenet.com. It’s free. You just need a microphone. But keep them under 60 seconds so that we can play them on the show.

Terrance: And also over at alohomora.mugglenet.com, at the top menu you can click “Store,” and we have House shirts, “Desk!Pig,” “Mandrake Liberation Front,” “Minerva Is My Homegirl,” and so many more hoodies, tote bags, whatever your heart desires. And who doesn’t like saving a bit of money? Enter the coupon code “loveforall” January 29 through February 22 and save a little bit of money there. Free standard shipping in the United States.

Michael: We must have gotten that coupon code from Dumbledore.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: Love for all. And of course, we also have our Alohomora! smartphone app, which I can’t use because my phone is not capable of such things. But most everybody else [i]n the world can! And fittingly, it is available “on this side of the pond and the other,” as Eric loves to say. Prices vary depending on your location. That app includes transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and more. I believe the Alohomora! crew who is at Universal Studios is drumming something up for you guys for this app content this week. But for now, we’re going to head into the Burrow because it’s dinner time and we’re hungry.

[Victoria laughs]

Michael: So we’re heading out, but thank you for listening. I’m Michael Harle.

[Show music begins]

Terrance: I’m Terrance Pinkston.

Alison: And I’m Alison Siggard. Thank you for listening to Episode 122 of Alohomora!

Michael: [as Slughorn] Open the Dumbledore, my boy!

[Show music continues]

Alison: We are reading… [stumbles over words] Can I redo that? Sorry.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: It sounds great. [imitates Alison’s stumbling]

[Everyone laughs]

Victoria: I don’t remember that chapter.

[Alison and Michael laugh]