Transcript – Episode 139

[Show music begins]

Caleb Graves: This is Episode 139 of Alohomora! for May 30, 2015.

[Show music continues]

Caleb: Hey, everyone. Welcome to our last episode in the month of May for 2015. I’m Caleb Graves.

Kat Miller: I’m Kat Miller.

Eric Scull: I’m Eric Scull. And we’d like to introduce our guest this week: Julia. Hello, Julia!

Julia Jorgenson: Hi!

Eric: Welcome to our last episode.

[Julia and Kat laugh]

Caleb: No, I said last episode for the month of May.

Eric: [laughs] For the month of May.

[Julia laughs]

Kat: You always freak out the listeners when you say that. There [are] tons of comments – “Oh my God, I thought he was going to say last episode ever.”

Caleb: One day I’m going to.

[Eric laughs]

Caleb: I’m just going to stop.

Kat: Oh my God! I just figured it out… I think I told you guys this. I just figured out the math and we’ll end approximately one year from right now.

Eric: Oh no.

Julia: It’s so soon.

Eric: Hmm…

Kat: But that’s not including all the fun stuff that we’ve talked about doing afterwards.

Eric: That’s true.

Kat: Wink-wink, nudge-nudge…

[Julia laughs]

Eric: Hey, these are the best years of our lives, suffice to say.

Kat: [laughs] They are.

Julia: We have to do Fantastic Beasts now.

Eric: Yeah, absolutely. There’ll be a lot to do left.

Kat: All 42 pages of it, yeah.

[Julia laughs]

Eric: Yeah, all 42… we could make a page an episode. I commit to that.

Caleb: Oh my God.

Kat: [laughs] Oh, God.

[Julia laughs]

Caleb: I will not commit to that.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Caleb has got other stuff to do, but we don’t.

[Julia laughs]

Eric: Julia, please save this train wreck of a beginning of an episode and tell us about yourself.

[Kat laughs]

Julia: Okay, so I’m Julia. I’m from New Orleans, Louisiana. I recently graduated with a degree in creative writing from Louisiana State University.

Caleb: Sweet.

Julia: And in the fall I’ll be heading over to Bath, England to pursue a master’s in writing for young people.

Eric: Oh my gosh!

Caleb: That’s so cool.

Kat: Wow.

Julia: [laughs] Yeah, it’s exciting to me, too.

Caleb: What’s your house, Julia?

Julia: I’m a Gryffindor through and through.

Caleb: Nice, solid. All right, before we get to the comments for last week’s episode, we just want to quickly remind you to read Chapter 21 of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, “The Unknowable Room,” because we will be discussing it shortly.

Eric: And on last week’s episode we discussed Chapter 20 of Half-Blood Prince, and here with a summary of some of the best points and topics from that episode’s discussion – or sorry, the listener response to that episode’s discussion – is me. Here’s the first bit. First up we heard back from Sabrina, who was last week’s guest and her username is The Half Blood Princess, and she wrote in our comments for last week’s episode:

“Thank you again for having me on the show! There’s a greek myth where Eos, goddess of the dawn, falls in love w/ a handsome mortal and asks Zeus, king of the gods, to make him immortal. She forgets, however, to ask Zeus to make him eternally youthful. So he grows older, and older, and eventually turns into a grasshopper. Re-listening to you guys talking about how Voldy is interested in being immortal, but not forever looking the same, made me think of it.”

Julia: I love this comment. I don’t think Voldemort is getting older – he looks like he’s getting older – but I think they both got the idea that immortality equals humanity, and they both lose their humanity when they lose mortality.

Eric: Yeah.

Kat: Hmm… mhm.

Eric: I love Greek mythology and I love seeing people tie Harry Potter into Greek mythology all of the time. So more this comment and like a hundred more of these would make my life.

[Julia laughs]

Eric: But yeah, this seems… rereading that chapter that we talked about last week, I still get chills when I hear about Defense Against the Dark Arts and seeing Voldemort so drastically changed. It’s just really cool to see and a really cool point from Sabrina.

Kat: Who was a very good guest. I didn’t get to tell her that since I wasn’t on the show, but very good job. Claps.

Eric: Next we heard from Diskid – not That Kid, DisKid – haven’t made that joke in a really long time.

[Kat laughs]

Eric: DisKid says,

“It says when Voldemort saw Ms. Smith’s (name’s too wacky for me to even type!)…”

I’ll put that in there for you, DisKid.

“… possessions that his eyes ‘flash scarlet.’ Voldemort is said to have scarlet eyes after he gets too involved in the Dark Arts. Did J.K. Rowling use these words as […] symbolism to show that he is sinking f[u]rther into the Dark Arts? Or could she even have meant literally? It is said that once Voldemort went f[u]rther into the Dark Arts his eyes were scarlet. He probably still has most of his looks at this point, but were his eyes, literally, beginning to change at this point? He has made a couple [of] Horcruxes, so I don’t think it’s improbable.”

What do you guys think, choice of wording?

Caleb: Yeah, I definitely always assumed his eyes literally were that color because there’s a moment where Hepzibah thinks she notices a change in his eyes. So I felt like there has to be some physical thing happening there.

Julia: What a strange way for them to change though. Are there like flashes of it when he does bad things or thinks bad thoughts?

Eric: It would seem to be a liability that would give him away.

[Julia laughs]

Eric: But I think the scarlet in his eyes is more literal than it would normally be because with Harry too, you’ve got his observer in this moment. It’s Harry who’s in the memory with them and he knows Voldemort and Voldemort’s face and thoughts better than anybody else, so I guess it’s transcribed [that] Voldemort clearly wants what she’s flashing in front of him and Harry picks it out. So maybe his eyes turning red is just Harry recognizing the current Voldemort in old Tom. So his eyes flash red because Harry’s observing and seeing the later Voldemort in the young Voldemort… possibly.

Kat: Yeah, I think that’s probably true, and also I’ve always thought of it as the further Voldemort goes along making his Horcruxes, we know he loses bits of his soul and he’s thinning. So I’ve always assumed that the rest of him would thin out, too. He’s described as really tall and skinny and lanky, and I feel like his skin gets translucent and you can almost see through his eyes, which would make them red.

Eric: Hmm…

Julia: That’s a thought. It’s kind of terrifying.

[Eric laughs]

Kat: Yeah, it’s pretty gross, but that’s always what I thought when they talk about the scarlet eyes.

Eric: He keeps getting skinnier and eventually his pupils become slits, so they get skinnier.

[Julia laughs]

Kat: Mhm.

Eric: So Voldemort’s on a big weight loss regime.

Kat: Not a diet I think’s going to be popular anytime soon. [laughs]

Eric: No.

Kat: Hopefully.

Eric: Well, we heard from PuffNProud a lot last week. Thank you to everyone for their amazing comments and discussions in the comments of last week’s episode. PuffNProud, in a comment that I pulled, says,

“Interesting discussion about the Horcruxes and what powers the items had on their own. I can’t help thinking of Merope wearing the locket and it providing her with powers, courage, or enhancing her magic in some way. Perhaps it was the influence of the locket that allowed her to go after Tom Riddle when her father and brother were out of the way? There has been a lot of discussion about how Merope could have made such a strong love potion when she seemed so inept at magic. I don’t particularly subscribe to that theory because I think her family had a lot to do with it, but what if the locket provided her magic with a ‘boost?’ Surely using your cunning to single-mindedly pursue an (love) interest would fall into Slytherin territory. Maybe the locket enhanced her will, or helped bring out Slytherin qualities further and gives one confidence to do it?”

Kat: Yep. I agree.

Eric: You agree?

Kat: Because obviously… yeah. We see that it affects Ron and Harry and Hermione in very different ways, so there’s no reason that it couldn’t give her not only a confidence boost but a magical boost as well. It is from her bloodline.

Eric: Well, it affects Ron and Hermione when it’s a Horcrux, but I know in the last chapter it kept being said that the cup had magical properties that Hepzibah just didn’t really spend a whole lot of time investigating, and I think Dumbledore says the same thing with the locket.

Kat: Sure.

Eric: So the question, I think, is: what were its magical properties, just knowing that it’s an artifact of Slytherin’s before Voldemort put his soul into it, and could one of those things be courage?

Kat: I still think my point stands, because even though it is a Horcrux, I do think that the magic of the locket, which obviously is part of what drew Voldemort to it in the first place, enhances those feelings.

Eric: Mhm.

Kat: Or the courage or the magic or what have you.

Eric: I’m really wondering… a locket doesn’t strike me as being… Salazar Slytherin doesn’t strike me as being a jewelry-wearing man. So I’m wondering [about] the origin of the locket and perhaps what its use to him was or to a close member of the family, but that’s just me musing.

Julia: Maybe his girlfriend gave it to him, like when Lavender gave it to Ron.

[Eric and Julia laugh]

Julia: A horrible Christmas present.

Caleb: Or there are things we don’t know about Salazar Slytherin.

[Julia laughs]

Eric: There you go. He always had bling hanging from his neck.

[Eric, Julia, and Kat laugh]

Eric: Well, moving on, another comment that we got from our last week’s discussion… actually, this is a long one so I truncated it, but I still have a bit here to talk about. From Hufflepuffskein, who says,

“As a Hufflepuff, I like Michael’s idea that Voldemort’s desire to go after the cup is motivated by his respect for the founders and thus that he respected Hufflepuff… but I was thinking it was something different… Instead of respecting the founders and thus wanting their emblematic objects as a way to memorialize them or put them on a pedestal, perhaps he was hungry to possess these objects (literally in both senses – possess them as in own them and possess them as in occupy them with a bit of his soul) so as to dominate, overpower, and ‘defeat’ them as a representation of his complete power over everything. He wanted to dominate everything. He wanted to be superior over everything, and this includes the founders… and I would suggest even Slytherin. So by stealing Hufflepuff’s cup, for example, and bastardizing it by making it a Horcrux for his evil soul, he is not respecting Hufflepuff. He is demonstrating his domination over her, as a very powerful, noteworthy, and important witch in her own right. Same for Ravenclaw and what he wanted to do with something of Gryffindor’s. With Slytherin it may have been a little different as he felt pride being a descendant and derived a great deal of motivation from learning about his deep magical ancestry, but I still think that making the locket a Horcrux would be about showing that his is more powerful and superior even than his exalted ancestor.

With the ring, even though it is not associated with a founder, it was a representation of his family, and while he was proud of one aspect of his family, his disdained his immediate family – which the ring was most connected to – so by taking possession of the ring, it was another way to dominate a group of people over whom he wanted to demonstrate his superiority.”

Wow.

Julia: I think this makes total sense with Voldemort’s character.

Eric: Yeah.

Caleb: Yeah, I agree. It’s an element of respect that I think comes from a place for him. It’s much more oriented because of wanting to dominate and show his supremacy.

Eric: I say this every week. We have some really intelligent people who do a lot of great thinking for us and on those comments, too.

[Kat laughs]

Eric: All we can say is, wow! That’s an amazing point.

Kat: Yeah. It feels like a copout to just be like, I agree…

[Julia laughs]

Kat: … but I do. So, there you go.

Eric: Yeah. But we also heard once again from PuffNProud, and this is just sort of a public service announcement. They say,

“Oh, and I keep forgetting to do some Lavender [l]ove. We forget she’s a Gryffindor, fought valiantly at the Battle of Hogwarts. I also just finished Book 4 again and had forgotten that she, Dean and Seamus remained with the trio to help round up the skrewts when the rest of the class hid in Hagrid’s cabin. She may be a silly girl, but she’s got some Gryffindor mojo! Lavender [l]ove!”

[Julia and Kat laugh]

Caleb: That’s fair. Maybe breaking up with Ron helped her grow up a little bit…

[Eric laughs]

Caleb: … just like all of them really grew up after their first not-so-real relationship.

Eric: Mhm.

Caleb: But everything she gets, she deserves.

Eric: Wow.

Julia: Ow! [laughs]

Caleb: She’s pretty horrible, especially to Hermione, so… granted, Hermione’s not perfect either, but…

[Eric laughs]

Julia: I think quite a few teenage girls act like that though, and they get over it when they get older.

Caleb: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. She gets over it… she gets over Ron after a while. It probably took her a little while, but then she grew up.

[Julia laughs]

Caleb: And clearly, like this person says, held her own in the Battle of Hogwarts. Got super injured, but…

Eric: Yeah.

[Julia laughs]

Eric: “Super injured…”

Caleb: … she fought… she fought…

Eric: “Deserved every minute of it.” [laughs]

Caleb: No, I did not say she deserved injury. I said everything’s that happened to her so far…

Eric: Oh, yeah.

Caleb: Like the criticism of her character is fair, but like Julia said, that’s pretty… I don’t want to say typical because I really hate stereotyping, but it’s not surprising.

Eric: Well, I just bring this up and put that in the doc because there’s no limit to what you’ll find in our comments of any particular episode, and just to get some Lavender love in there when we were possibly hating on her or prone to hating on her at this point in this book is nice to remember. So that does conclude our comments, but you can always go and check more out on the website. I think there were over 180 of them. So thank you for everyone who continues to keep the discussion alive.

Kat: So now we’ll move on to the Podcast Question of the Week responses from last week. It was a good question, something I’ve often pondered, so let me just recap it for you. The question was: “In this question (Chapter 20) we learn that Voldemort had indeed placed a curse on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts. So, how exactly does this happen? How does one place a curse on an abstract idea such as a teaching position? How exactly does it stay in place? Is the curse placed on the office or some other part of the physical castle? Or could this possibly be some wild coincidence and not a curse at all?” So, a lot of people of course pointed out that Jo has in fact confirmed that there was a curse placed on the position by Voldemort, not a coincidence. So, fine, okay. Lots of comments, lots of theories… oh, it was really good. The first one I picked here was from Jaye Dozier, and she says,

“Magic in itself is abstract – although people have predicted a biological difference in a Muggle and a wizard, how can one really describe ‘magic’ itself? I think the way these books truly thrive is in the way they explore the mysterious and supernatural aspects of humanity that we don’t know exactly how to explain. I always imagined […] Voldemort, in his anger and frustration, proclaiming a curse on the position in a spur[-]of[-]the[-]moment thought that succeeded due to his powerful connection to dark magic. We know that he has already gone f[u]rther than almost any other man in that aspect of magic so far, and it seems likely that a projected thought would translate into a curse from the sheer power of his skill. Then, while he is alive, he would act as the physical ‘base’ for the curse – giving it life, in a sense. Even though I doubt he ever gave a second thought to it, he would continue to propel the curse while alive.”

Eric: Yeah.

Caleb: It’s interesting. I never really… this is probably one of the few ways I haven’t considered it happening – I want to make sure I get the wording right – just the sheer power of his skill. Like he just kind of thought it and it happened. I don’t know if that would be strong enough to create such a perpetual curse over the years. Because if you think about it, you’re affecting… at least in some way, you’re affecting the individual people – like these individual humans are being affected somehow when they go into the room or take the position somehow. So I feel like there has to be a little bit more behind it.

Eric: Well, there’s probably some clues… and I’m not sure if the remaining responses that we have will mention this, but there’s probably some clues in the teachers that we witnessed leave the school as a result of this curse. But it didn’t seem like a curse for any reason. Lockhart ran away…

Caleb: Right.

Eric: … Quirrell was dealing with Voldemort…

Kat: But [Lockhart] did lose his memory…

Eric: Yeah.

Julia: But he would have left the job before that.

Eric: Remus was driven out, and that’s as a result of a childhood grudge, things that Voldemort himself could not have possibly been equipped to have more of a hands-on kind of approach. The fact that none of these jobs work out but it’s for an infinite variety of different reasons, speaks more to an abstract kind of thing that I think Jaye is reaching at here.

Kat: Well, HomeAtHogwarts feels kind of the same way. This one’s a little… let me read it. It says,

“I wonder if it has something to do with more instinctive magic rather than traditional magic with a wand. I feel like it’s something a child might do before they learn how to control and channel their magic. It also seems natural to me that it would have to be a nonverbal spell, just magic that you think about. Maybe putting any energy towards wishing there was a curse on something – even something like an idea – actually does put a curse on that idea. Maybe the more hate or negative energy you put towards thinking about that thing the stronger the curse is. It might not be quantifiable magic but something that happens when you are as powerful a wizard as Voldemort and allow magic to flow out of you at all times.”

So kind of like you walk by it, you think about it, and it happens.

Eric: Mhm.

Kat: I don’t know.

Caleb: So the thing about this is if it’s wandless magic, when it comes down to it, that’s not all that different from magic done with a wand in this situation because it didn’t matter if anyone saw him do it with a wand or without a wand.

Eric: Yeah.

Kat: Mhm.

Caleb: So arguably it would be stronger with a wand than wandless, just in general, like anytime you have the physical contact. But… I don’t know. I see how it would be possible, and if anyone could do it, it’s someone like Voldemort or Dumbledore just by their sheer natural gifts…

Eric: Well, he did spend ten years in a dark forest somewhere studying Dark Arts prior to his arriving at the school, which I assume is…

Caleb: Right.

Eric: So who knows what…

Caleb: But that’s the thing, right? I feel like that means he learned a way of applying it more than just like a thought or a really angry moment that just happened. I feel like there’s some action he has to actively take.

Julia: To me, the nearest approximation to using a curse would be the Felix Felicis, where instead of cursing something you have good luck, and it’s the same sort of abstract magic where there are things outside of the magic that are affecting what’s going on, but the magic guides things.

Kat: Well, it’s funny you say that because CentaurSeeker121 has a theory similar to that. The comment says,

“I was surfing the Internet, trying to find something that might help answer this questionm and I came across a theory. It stated that what Voldemort did to the DADA position sounded a bit similar to the Taboo jinx that was placed on his name in Deathly Hallows. Anytime someone said Voldemort’s name out loud in [Deathly Hallows], they ended up getting a visit from the bad guys. Maybe something similar happens every time Dumbledore announces a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at the beginning of every school year, as in the jinx maybe [sic] placed on the name of the position itself.”

Caleb: See, I dig this because I feel like there’s more substance of stuff happening to make that happen. I really like the parallel to the Taboo.

Julia: So if Dumbledore didn’t announce the position, it’d be fine and not cursed?

Kat: Yeah, somebody brought that up. They were like, “Oh, what if they announce this person as the new dance teacher…”

[Julia laughs]

Kat: “… and they taught DADA instead?”

Eric: Defense Against Dancing is the course I would take to combat that.

Caleb: Or Dancing and the Dark Arts, please.

Kat: Yeah, there you go.

Eric: Dancing and the Dark… that sounds like a class they actually took in one of the movies. Was it [Movie] 4?

[Caleb, Eric, and Kat laugh]

Caleb: Yeah, McGonagall taught that.

Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kat: That’s right.

Eric: No, what I want to say about that, though, is what I didn’t realize until… you don’t think about it until you’re reading this chapter, but Voldemort began… this curse started at least ten or thirteen years before Harry was at Hogwarts. The number of teachers that Hogwarts went through is over ten and possibly closer to twenty because “none of them lasted longer than a year,” says Dumbledore in that chapter. So it’s actually really shocking to think that he wouldn’t have tried pretty much everything: not announcing the teacher, announcing an alias, trying a different office in case it was a curse on the physical office where that person resides, and I’m sure for whatever reason, 20 different reasons for 20 teachers to have been forced out of the school and unable to continue.

Kat: Yeah, because everybody kept bringing up Quirrell, who, just as a reminder, was actually the Muggle Studies teacher the year before. He went to Albania and then came back and was the DADA teacher.

Eric: Oh, I didn’t know that! I didn’t know that.

Caleb: And seemingly not just for a year, but at least for a number of years is the impression I always got.

Eric: Interesting, interesting.

Julia: Dumbledore doesn’t do anything to stop the curse, but he does cater to it. He finds professors [whom] he only wants for a year.

Caleb: What a jerk.

[Eric, Julia, and Kat laugh]

Eric: Well, that’s why he’s running so thin of them, because they know his motives. Well, the position is cursed, but I like the idea – and I think it’s also said in the last chapter – that Professor Merrythought, the former person who held that job, was there for 50 years. So it’s clearly directly related to Voldemort wanting that job, that basically the curse perpetuates itself. It is coming from Voldemort’s sheer force of will, and if he opened up a dimensional rift to get it done, then that’s what he did.

Kat: Well, we have one more comment, speaking of dimensional rifts…

Eric: Oh, gosh.

Kat: I don’t know.

Eric: Was that a perfect transition? [laughs]

Kat: Sure, yeah. This comment is from DavyBJones999. It says,

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence or that said curse is placed on the office or a physical object[s]. I also don’t think that Voldemort intentionally cursed the position, but it was something like when he accidently made Harry a [H]orcrux.”

Eric: Hey!

“Like the [H]orcrux incident, he likely knew how to make such a [curse], but because this is dealing with ancient magic, the emotions Voldemort was feeling ended up enacting the curse. As to how the curse works, throughout the series, Hogwarts has been sort of personified and at times feels more like a living, breathing entity than just a castle with the suits of armor coming to life, some doors leading to nowhere, and the moving staircases. The way that the curse works, I think, is that Voldemort’s magic influences the personality of the school to change from whimsical to dangerous.”

Eric: Oh my…

Caleb: Well-crafted, well-said, but I still think he intentionally did it.

Eric: No, I love this. I love this idea.

Julia: The horrifying prospect to unintentionally curse something for 40, 30 years…

Kat: Yeah. I just liked the point about the castle living and breathing because we know it does have… I mean, it’s not alive – we won’t go that far – but it definitely has something.

Eric: Is it alive, Kat?

Caleb: Oh my God. We’re not doing that.

[Julia laughs]

Kat: No. No, it’s definitely not alive, but it does have its moments, so… it’s cheeky, the castle.

Eric: It does. I like to believe there is a force within Hogwarts that misses Tom and wants him back and wants to see him return, and that force in the school is what is preventing other teachers from occupying his position.

Kat: I’m not sure it misses him, but I’ll give you that.

[Eric laughs]

Julia: Isn’t Peeves a force that the school created? All the energy of the students created Peeves the Poltergeist?

Kat: Yes.

Eric: So there you go. I mean, something… there’s precedent. I like the sheer variety of options that people have explored, even in our picking of their comments, like the Taboo jinx and the accidentally making Harry a Horcrux and us with what we just said about Peeves.

Kat: So there were about 40 other responses as well, so you should definitely go over there and check them out (alohomora.mugglenet.com), and thus ends our Podcast Question of the Week responses.

Caleb: All right, now it is time for our chapter discussion.

[Half-Blood Prince Chapter 21 intro begins]

Harry: Chapter 21.

[Sound of a girl screaming]

[Sound of clattering]

[Sound of footsteps]

Harry: The Unknowable Room.

[Half-Blood Prince Chapter 21 intro ends]

Caleb: All right, so this is a super meaty chapter. There are a lot of things that happen all over the place, so we’re going to get right to it. For a quick summary, Harry struggles still to convince Slughorn to give up the memory, the Apparation Test is coming up sooner and sooner, Ron declares he loves Hermione…

Eric: Aww.

Caleb: … but not in the way we hope.

Kat: Internally and secretly, of course. [laughs]

Caleb: Dobby and Kreacher report on Malfoy. Harry finally figures it out and tries to go into the Room of Requirement. We have a Defense Against the Dark Arts class followed by meeting up with Myrtle and learning about her special visitor before a brief and unusual conversation with Tonks. All right, so first off, Harry is, of course, still struggling with convincing Slughorn. He’s trying to seek council of the Half-Blood Prince, because where else would he turn for answers at this point?

[Eric and Julia laugh]

Caleb: And nothing is changed with Hermione’s end. She is still very opposed to the book, and she keeps reminding him he’s not going to find the answer there. Throughout the chapter, she points this out and keeps reiterating the same things that basically Dumbledore says, that it has to be Harry, he has to use his own natural ability of persuasion that he apparently has, because otherwise, she claims at the beginning of the chapter, that the only way he could do it magically is through the Imperius Curse.

Eric: And that’s illegal, Harry.

[Julia laughs]

Caleb: Yeah, indeed. Though apparently not in Deathly Hallows when they all use it, so…

Kat: Whoops. [laughs]

Caleb: So Harry reminds Hermione that Dumbledore says Veritaserum won’t do it, and he agrees that it has to be his own way of doing it, but at this point, can’t Dumbledore give him some tips? I mean, Harry is clearly struggling a lot, like he does, and I feel like he’s got to give him more than, “Only you can do it, Harry.”

Eric: Well, maybe Dumbledore would give him advice if it weren’t for the fact that Dumbledore is not at Hogwarts right now.

Caleb: Yeah, but he could have given him advice when he shamed him last chapter, which I get so many problems with that, because…

Eric: It was pretty extensive shaming. It’s like, “You know what you did wrong, didn’t you Harry? I appreciate you saying you’re sorry after I’ve given you the silent treatment for 15 seconds.” Now, with Dumbledore and Harry, Harry really seemed to understand what he was saying, though. I just… again, I re-listened to Jim Dale reading that, and it really seemed like it was fairly obvious what Harry would have to do. This whole Hermione in this chapter telling him, [as Hermione] “You just have to persuade him,” is all about… God, now I’m doing voices. I’m going to sound like Michael when he does voices and when he doesn’t do voices.

[Kat laughs]

Eric: But by Hermione saying that, it’s just reiterating what he already knows. Harry is looking for an easy way out, he’s taking the lazy route, but I think Dumbledore did make it clear to him what he needed to do, and I think that Harry understood that he would need to do it. He’s just looking for an assist because he’s… it’s a habit. It’s a terrible habit to have, but he’s looking through the book because, again, he doesn’t really just want to go unprepared to Slughorn’s door. Every time he’s tried – right? – Slughorn quickly shuts off the music he was playing and doesn’t come to the door.

Kat: Yeah, and Dumbledore… he just loves having teaching moments. He likes to make people think about what they should do instead of just telling them how to do it. And sometimes, in this case, it’s infuriating. Just tell him what to do.

Julia: Dumbledore did show him what to do when he took him to persuade him to take the Potions job, and I guess Harry saw what he would need to do, is to…

Eric: That’s true. Right at the beginning of the year, he gave him some tools, or he basically laid it clear what kind of person Slughorn was.

Julia: Do you think this was purposeful?

Eric: No, I really think that Dumbledore… and all of Harry’s interactions with him too. Slughorn’s vulnerabilities have been laid bare. It’s extremely obvious what potential plan of attack would be.

Caleb: So it’s just more Harry is failing than Dumbledore is not doing enough. I mean, I’m fine with that, because Harry sucks a lot, so…

[Eric and Kat laugh]

Eric: Well, I think for Dumbledore… look, he can always have been more clear with Harry, and there were so many moments that you just wish he’d say more, but Dumbledore is assigning homework, so there’s that. I mean, it wouldn’t be…

Caleb: Yeah, homework and a job that Dumbledore knows is going to kill Harry. That’s what’s really messed up for me. I guess rereading it now, that’s why it bothers me more, is because I’m thinking about that in the back of my mind and the first read through, you’re just, “Well, yeah, Harry, let’s go. Get it done.”

Eric: But then when you reread it, it’s, “Oh, headlong to his death.”

Kat: Right. [laughs]

Eric: But no, it wouldn’t be much of a class if Dumbledore didn’t prescribe homework. So at least his is not as gruelling as Snape’s essays.

Caleb: Yeah. All right, well, so once they get past Harry struggling with Slughorn, they’re sitting around, working on homework. Well, Harry and Hermione have been discussing these adult matters that they need to take care of with Slughorn while Ron is just sitting casually to the side, struggling with how to spell words in the English language. But it does lead into a very funny scene because he’s trying to spell “belligerent,” and if I remember right, I think it spells it “bum.”

[Eric laughs]

Caleb: So these are Fred and George’s Spell-Check quills, which seemingly have the effect that once they go bad, they’re at least humorous to…

[Eric laughs]

Caleb: … amuse people, because this is slightly inappropriate, so I’m not going to spell it out. People can infer what they want, but this is the first time I’ve ever really thought about this. I don’t know if other people have, but I feel like Jo… seeing how she writes her non-Harry Potter books, I definitely think she has a slight dirty mind going on here because Augurey – the Irish phoenix – is what he spells next, and it’s spelled O-R-G and then just suddenly cuts off.

[Julia and Kat laugh]

Caleb: What do you think the next letter would be for “Augurey” if it [were] being spelled wrong that way? So maybe just Jo being a litle cheeky there. And we’ll just leave it at that. But then we find the infamous misspelling of Ronald Weasley, Roonil Wazlib, which is probably the best misspelling I’ve ever come across for a name.

Kat: Yeah, I remember when I read it looking on all the social media sites that I was on at that time, which was – God, how long ago was this? – years ago.

Eric: Almost ten.

Kat: So it was probably LiveJournal and MySpace, and of course they were already taken. I was so late to the party. It was sad.

Julia: How long do you think it takes for a quill to spell-check things? Because I think he would realize as he was writing it, he was spelling his name horribly wrong.

Caleb: Yeah, well, it is Ron, so it could have happened instantly and just…

[Julia laughs]

Eric: Oh my gosh.

Kat: The question that I wonder is that, so you have a quill in your hand and you’re writing, okay? You’re making an O for Ron and it makes a Z instead? How does that work?

Julia: I would think the ink would change after the fact.

Eric: Yeah, rearrange itself almost the way that Riddle’s diary in [Book] 2 sucks all the the way in and then comes out with new letters. That maybe it would rearrange it. It’s interesting.

Kat: Okay, so like autocorrect in a computer or whatever.

Eric: Yeah, basically exactly like autocorrect. It’s just that once you’ve scratched the parchment instead of once you’ve typed it out, so it’s…

Kat: Okay, that makes way more sense.

Eric: Well, isn’t it the case…? I don’t want to be jumping ahead too far, but when Snape finds the Potions book, and isn’t it labeled Roonil Wazlib?

Julai: It is.

Eric: And isn’t that because it used to say Ron’s proper name, but after the spell wore off, it went back to the old way? Or is that wrong? Because I’m thinking everything he ever spell-checked correctly with it is now terribly misspelled.

[Julia laughs]

Kat: But wait. But here’s… okay. But why would his name need to be spell-checked?

Eric: Yeah, I don’t…

Caleb: Well, I think he writes his name correctly, and it’s like on Microsoft Word when you spell an unusual name, like “Weasley” gets the little red squiggly line…

Eric: Yeah, I hate that little red squiggly line.

Caleb: … and maybe it just autocorrects. But also, I wouldn’t also be surprised if Fred and George intentionally had a spell system just for Ron built into their Spell-Check quills.

Eric: I know. This is the funny thing. Recently, when he was in the hospital wing… I know it wasn’t on the episode, but it said that he gets this huge birthday package. And I’m just thinking, “Man, they wouldn’t even give him a full discount on their items when he was alive and well in their shop at the beginning of the year, but now he gets this huge present because they’re feeling bad.” But yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised, too, if he had some kind of special faulty quill. I don’t know. It’s interesting.

Julia: It’s something they would do.

Kat: It’s funny to think that everything he’d ever written goes back to bad spelling afterward. It’s scary.

Eric: Yeah, and not even just how he would’ve spelled it, because he knew how to spell “belligerent.”

[Caleb, Eric, and Julia laughs]

Caleb: Maybe.

Eric: Yeah, he knew it wasn’t B-O-B-U-M. That’s a big point.

Kat: B-U-M, right.

Eric: No, but I wonder. I think I’ll be paying attention when that writing appears again with that name because I think these quills are somehow… my impression was always that they were reverting or changing after the fact to just be… basically, the quill is unusable.

Caleb: But really, the important reason that we have all these spelling mistakes is for Hermione’s chance to correct them and then, as she’s doing so, Ron – not really realizing what he said, just maybe a bit of a Freudian slip – “I love you, Hermione.”

Eric: Aww.

Julia: That’s a cute moment.

Caleb: And he doesn’t realize what he says, but Hermione turns faintly pink but merely said, Don’t let Lavender hear you saying that.

[Kat laughs]

Caleb: There [are] a lot of things happening here. Ron, probably for the first time, actually says he loves Hermione even though he doesn’t realize what he’s saying. Hermione recognizes it, clearly shows there’s these feelings she’s reacting to, embarrassment. But it’s also a showing of maturity with her since she’s like, Don’t let Lavender hear you saying that, which is interesting instead of just sitting there being embarrassed about it, especially since it involves Lavender, which she’s been so upset about in the past. It’s hard to describe how I feel this way, but for some reason, there’s a nuance bit of maturity there. Or just… maybe it’s coming to terms with her feelings in some way.

Eric: Yeah, it strikes me as being that way. I think she likes that he said that to her. She likes it a lot. But she’s in a playfully mood or more in just as, Oh, don’t let Lavender hear you… like, “You aren’t able to pledge your undying love to me just yet. You have to clear that thing up with that other girl.” But she does… yeah, when Jo writes that she turns pink, I’m just like, “Oh, I bet she’s been waiting to hear that for years.” She finally did.

Kat: Oh, and just imagine the first time he says it for real. Aww.

Eric: I hope it’s a better moment.

Kat: When he actually knows what he’s saying. I’m sure it’s not over homework.

Eric: Still, you get used to saying the sort of thing. It’s nice.

Kat: Yeah. It’s true.

Caleb: So we know now that Ron clearly needs to break up with Lavender. He even realizes it, and it’s not even like an effect of wanting Hermione more than Lavender even though deep down he probably does, but that’s not his issue. He’s just over Lavender. And Harry asks him, “Why don’t you ditch her if you want to finish it?” He reminds Harry that Harry didn’t have to break up with Cho; they just kind of fell apart because that was such a hot mess. And the real answer, though, about why Ron can’t just finish it is because he doesn’t have the guts to end it, which is super… I hate the word “typical,” but it’s not surprising. That’s what happens with a lot of teenage guys, who, even though they think… even the guys who think they’re all macho or can play girls when they are in high school, they don’t want to have to be the ones to end it. Well, they definitely don’t want to be the dumped ones – no one does. But [laughs] the really rough part for Lavender, though, is… wait, is it Ron that compares her to the giant squid? Yeah, it is, right? He’s the one that calls…

Kat: Yeah.

Caleb: … her the giant squid. Yeah, he compares…

Kat: Mhm.

Caleb: … Lavender to the giant squid, which is really rough that the guy she’s dating says that. But I’m going to be honest: That’s fair. [laughs] She is like the giant squid to him.

[Kat laughs]

Caleb: She’s been smothering him.

Eric: How is she like the giant squid?

Caleb: Dude, she’s been smothering him since day one, and he didn’t realize it at first because he was just trying to snog someone, but she’s smothering him.

[Julia laughs]

Eric: I feel no… I don’t think Lavender is doing anything untoward. I think…

Caleb: Oh my goodness.

Eric: I side with her a hundred percent. She’s doing nothing wrong.

Caleb: What?!

Eric: Ron is letting her snog him and letting her because he wants some.

Caleb: Oh, that’s fine. Yeah, no, absolutely. I agree with that, [laughs] but she’s still smothering him. I don’t care if it is only in the movie her little scene on the Hogwarts Express…

[Julia laughs]

Caleb: That is real. That’s how she is.

Eric: Yeah. Well, okay, but he also pretended to be asleep all those times when she was trying to visit him in the hospital.

Caleb: Yeah, because he doesn’t have the guts to deal with it.

Eric: Harry was telling him even then – right before the Quidditch match, I think – that he was supposed to man up… he didn’t say “man up” but he was just like, “You need to end this because it’s not right,” and Ron was like…

Caleb: Right. He does need to man up, though.

Eric: … “Yeah, I know.” And still, weeks later, he still hasn’t. Sorry, kiddo. You don’t get any sympathy from me, Ron.

Caleb: Oh, I don’t have sympathy for either of them. [laughs]

Eric: Yeah.

Julia: Those plots kind of parallel Harry’s plot. Harry knows what he needs to do – he just can’t man up and do it.

Eric: That’s a good point. That’s a really good point.

Kat: Hmm. Indeed.

Eric: So what… let’s follow that through, then. What’s Hermione needing to do that she just doesn’t want to do? [laughs] Let’s say the whole trio is dealing with the same problem.

Julia: Well, she can admit her feelings for Ron.

Eric: Yeah, that’s true.

Julia: I guess.

Eric: Hmm.

Julia: I think Hermione is very responsible. She does what she needs to do.

Eric: Yeah, she’s not lazing anything.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Yeah. Good point.

Caleb: But what breaks up this moment is Dobby and Kreacher suddenly appearing.

Eric: Ooh!

Caleb: It doesn’t start too well because we find out that Dobby hasn’t slept for a week, and Hermione didn’t even know that Harry had sent them on this mission, so she isn’t pleased that Dobby is taking it upon himself to work 24/7. But we get a few funny moments from Kreacher, who is much less enthusiastic about his work than Dobby, to say the least. He also exhibits a little bit of obsessive tendencies in describing Malfoy after Harry asks if they’ve figured anything out. He says, “Master Malfoy moves with a nobility that befits his pure blood. His features recall the fine bones of my mistress and his manners are those of…”

Eric: I clapped.

Julia: Kreacher needs to write pulp romance.

[Caleb laughs]

Eric: Kreacher knows these words.

[Julia laughs]

Eric: I’m so thrilled. I was like, “Man, you go! Talk about Malfoy some more.”

[Julia laughs]

Kat: You know what? I think Kreacher is actually incredibly smart.

Eric: Yes.

Caleb: Well, yeah, you’ve got to think that Walburga had to have talked like this a lot. They were a very elite family.

Eric: Hmm, that’s a good point.

Kat: Yeah.

Caleb: So he took in… he was probably around a lot of high class speech and things like that, so it’s not surprising.

Eric: We should hear Kreacher do King Lear. He’s…

[Julia laughs]

Caleb: Oh my God. That would be quite the monologue.

Kat: Yes, it would.

Caleb: Dobby does not agree. He doesn’t see Malfoy in such a great light, obviously. And then he almost burns himself alive because he still has his proclivity to injure himself if he speaks ill of the Malfoys, but thankfully Harry saves him. That would have been a really interesting scene – Dobby’s tea-coat catching on fire in the Gryffindor common room and…

Kat: Oh my God, I know.

Julia: Well, they have Aguamenti.

Eric: Oh, yeah, now they know. They would have just spritzed him with water.

Caleb: Yeah, exactly.

Eric: That’s true.

Caleb: I was just thinking of the fire spreading to drapes and everything else.

Julia: [laughs] Oh, God.

Eric: Oh, gosh. Yeah.

Caleb: So we find out from Draco – or from Dobby – though, that Malfoy isn’t breaking any rules but he is keen to avoid detection. He regularly visits the seventh floor with other students who keep watch for him. And then it’s like this moment of dawn that Harry suddenly realizes, “Oh! Guys! It’s the Room of Requirement! Duh!” He even smacks himself on the head, which… deserved because…

[Julia laughs]

Caleb: Come on. Harry, you live on the seventh floor. You know where the Room of Requirement is. I just…

[Eric and Julia laugh]

Caleb: Anyway, it wouldn’t have been as interesting if we didn’t figure it out later, plus Harry gets to slap himself on the head.

Kat: With a book, nonetheless.

Eric: Yeah.

Caleb: With a book.

Kat: Ouch.

Caleb: Also, just funny [that] Harry figures it out and not Hermione, but… anyway…

Eric: Yeah, but I think that…

Kat: Well, he has to be the smart one sometimes, right?

Eric: No, it’s just meant to prove that nobody cares about Malfoy as much as Harry does.

Caleb: That’s fair.

Eric: OTP.

Caleb: Hermione is not thinking about him as much.

Eric: Yeah.

Caleb: Harry thinks about him even when he goes to sleep, as we’ll soon see. But conveniently, the Room of Requirement does not show up on the Marauder’s Map, which is at least some justification for Harry not figuring it out because he keeps watching for Malfoy on the Marauder’s Map, but since he’s not there he can’t see him. I think the next comment is yours, isn’t it, Julia?

Julia: Yes, it is. So we’ve heard about this unplottable spell many times before, and we’ve been to locations that are unplottable like Grimmauld Place and Hogwarts itself. But we’ve never seen this spell in practice until now. So I was wondering what the use of an unplottable… something being unplottable was. If you can still point to the place on the map and say, “The Room of Requirement is here,” or I’m pretty sure you could even probably write in the margins, “The Room of Requirement is on the seventh floor, across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy.” So this is considered a big security feature, but how practical or useful is it actually?

Kat: Hmm.

Eric: It’s a good question. Because the counter… almost a counter argument to that, or a counter argument to the room being unplottable, exists when… I think it’s Ron [who] suggests that the Marauders just didn’t even know about it. So whether or not the Room of Requirement would show up on the Marauder’s Map, whether or not you could see someone inside it, even, has to do partially with whether or not they would have included it in their map. It’s an interesting thing to be brought up here because you’re dealing with a room that… I bet Malfoy is, when he’s thinking of that room, going, “I need a room that’s Unplottable, that Potter can’t get into, that this, that, and the other thing…” It’s all of those things, so it is Unplottable, but in addition to that, we don’t have any evidence because the assumption is the Marauders didn’t even know that room existed. And I like that idea, that there is something that they didn’t know.

Caleb: I was just about to say the same thing.

Eric: Yeah. It’s pretty cool, but also… So we don’t know what that looks like on the outside. The Room of Requirement, as you say, Julia, is in a fixed location. And that makes it really easy to find, but I don’t know if the words would stop coming out of your mouth if you were trying to explain it to someone and it was Unplottable?

Kat: Well, that’d be more like the Fidelius Charm.

Julia: So you can just point to a place in Scotland and say, “Hogwarts is exactly here”?

Eric: You couldn’t, though.

Kat: Yeah, but I mean, I would assume yes, because just because I assumed “Unplottable” means you can’t put it on a map. So you can’t make a physical record of where it [is], but you could tell somebody. You could point to a map and say, “It’s here.”

Eric: Well, you couldn’t point.

Kat: But you can’t… Why not? You can’t draw it on a map.

Eric: That’s plotting.

Kat: No, it is not.

Eric: You would have to say, “Take this river to get to the…”

Julia: This isn’t my point, though. They’re looking at this map and saying, “I know exactly where the Room of Requirement is.” And maybe they’re not actually pointing to it, but they’re looking at the map, and they’re seeing its location.

Kat: But they’re not seeing its location; they just happen to know where it is.

Eric: Yeah, that is true.

Kat: And they’re saying, “Oh, look, it’s here on the map.” But it’s not on the map.

Eric: Or “It would be here on the map,” yeah. “It would belong here, but we’re not able to see…” yeah. So I think even if the Marauders had known about the Room of Requirement, then it would show up on the map when it was maybe being unused or only when it was in use, and you’d be able to see who was in it, unless that person was saying, “Make this place Unplottable,” and then even if the Marauders knew where the room was, the Room wouldn’t show up on the map. That’s what I’m thinking.

Kat: Yeah, I don’t think it shows up there anytime, regardless of whether they knew about it or not.

Eric: Oh, well, I mean, the other thing is, it’s their map, so they would have had to know about it in order for it to be on the map, right?

Kat: Right, yeah, I am under the assumption that they didn’t know about it, but I think if they did and they tried to draw it on there, it might not let them or it would disappear or…

Julia: Well, couldn’t they have just put a note in that location and say, “The Room of Requirement is here?”

Eric: An actual Post-it?

Julia: Yeah.

Kat: But that’s plotting it. That’s plotting it, technically.

Eric: You wouldn’t be able to do it. Yeah, you wouldn’t be able to do it. I like the idea. I think it’s in the previous chapter, maybe. There’s just some reference to ancient magics… Oh, Dumbledore is telling Harry that the castle is a huge stronghold, when they’re talking about why Voldemort wanted to come back the second time. And it’s just that there are these ancient magics that an ordinary student wouldn’t even begin to be able to unravel. We’re talking Horcrux cave-type enchantments that probably go back centuries and centuries, and so maybe some of the Unplottability of the Room of Requirement has something to do with that, and even as cool as the Marauders were, they wouldn’t have been able to figure out a way to make it work.

Caleb: Well, the Kreacher and Dobby meeting finishes up with another amusing quote from Kreacher. Harry tells Dobby that he did a good job, and Hermione, feeling that Kreacher is getting left out, says, “Kreacher has done well too.” Kreacher kindly responds with, “The Mudblood is speaking to Kreacher. Kreacher will pretend he cannot hear.”

[Caleb and Kat laugh]

Caleb: So Kreacher. Always…

Eric: That is his way of saying, “Thank you, Miss Granger.”

Caleb: It’s the closest he’s ever going to get.

Eric: “I heartily appreciate your consideration.”

Kat: He’s such a diva.

Caleb: I love it. Okay, so then the house-elves are off, and now the big question is, what is Malfoy doing? Now that they have a better idea of what’s going on. The trio consider[s] who all these people are that could be with Malfoy. Harry remembers that he overheard Malfoy telling Crabbe that he wasn’t going to tell him what’s happening, that he didn’t need to know. And then Harry has another striking revelation. He suddenly realizes that Malfoy probably stole some Polyjuice Potion when they were in Potions class with Slughorn, and then all these people [who] are standing guard, these different people [whom] Dobby apparently saw, are actually Crabbe and Goyle under the Polyjuice Potion. And I was just thinking, “Harry figures out a lot of things very [quickly], I feel.” Granted, he does get a couple of clues from Dobby, but is it realistic that he would find this out so [quickly]? I mean, not only that, [but] he [also] realizes what the dropped scales were for, that those were a signal to Malfoy inside. Which makes sense to us, right? After the fact. But that’s a lot for Harry to figure out that [quickly]. I think.

Eric: Yeah, I mean, what’s missing from, I think, the first scene… Unless we could go back somehow to Slughorn’s first Potions lesson, and we see that there’s… I don’t know. Where she says, “There'[re] four beakers on the table next to the Polyjuice Potion,” and later in the class, she’s like, “Oh, and by the way, the three beakers were next to the frog spawn Harry needed.” And somehow basically write in that something’s amiss. Harry, out of nowhere, in the middle of, I think it’s, April, says, “Back on September 2, Malfoy stole Polyjuice from that cauldron. Because he would have had access to it because he’s in the same class as me.” That’s way stretching. There was no time for Slughorn to be distracted; we don’t really see Malfoy swooping in anywhere near – that I can recall, anyway – to get the Polyjuice Potion. It’s not a mystery in that sense. Harry is just telegraphing, “Yes, this happened.” And it is probably the remnant of a subplot that was more rushed for the completion of the book. If she had spent more time with it, it may have played out a little differently. But it is very odd. He’s just sort of matter-of-fact stating everything that we actually know to be true.

Julia: Having a good day.

Caleb: [laughs] Yeah. So Harry starts to think more on the Crabbe and Goyle situation. He thinks that they are following along. Oh, well, I think it’s right before Ron makes a quip about why they look so unhappy all the time. Because of course they’re unhappy being Polyjuiced as little girls.

[Eric laughs]

Caleb: But Harry thinks that they’re following along because Malfoy is threatening them with his new Dark Mark. Hermione is not convinced about this. She doesn’t really seem interested still to go down that road with Harry, but Harry is all about it. Hermione reminds Harry about his ADHD and the many things he’s trying to do at once and that he should be focusing on Slughorn, which is what the chapter opened up with. We’re still having an issue with that. But Harry is really, really stuck on Malfoy. He goes to sleep. He’s thinking of Malfoy’s activities in the Room of Requirement because he thinks if he can think about it, figure out what Malfoy is doing in there, he can get access to it just like Malfoy got access to the Room of Requirement when he knew that Dumbledore’s Army was in there thanks to Marietta being a snitch. Or sneak. What is it? Snitch? Sneak?

Kat: Sneak.

Eric: “Sneak” was written on her face.

Caleb: “Sneak.” Yeah. She’s both. [laughs] And as I mentioned earlier, he dreams of Malfoy, trying to figure out these activities. The dream goes from Malfoy turning into Slughorn, who turned into Snape. Which is certainly my kind of fantasy dream.

[Caleb and Eric laugh]

Julia: I actually took a note on that and said that these are the main mysteries of the book. There’s Slughorn’s memory, Malfoy’s mission, and the Half-Blood Prince. So he thinks of these big three plot points of the book.

Eric: And all three were present in Slughorn’s first class because Harry got that book.

Caleb: So Harry spends his free period the next day trying to get into the Room of Requirement. It is not successful at all. I think it’s for the second time in the book. Maybe more. I don’t know if it’s the second time in this chapter or if it was [the] first time [in] the last chapter, but he keeps using the term “brainwave.”

[Caleb and Julia laugh]

Caleb: He keeps hoping this brainwave hits him to try to figure it out.

Eric: It’s funny to point this out, but that’s pretty much all… Harry has done this a lot. [laughs] He has waited for that little voice inside his head to tell him what to do next. Several times.

Caleb: And it’s the voice Voldemort? Is it the Horcrux talking to him?

Eric: No. I wish.

Kat: I think in the past it may have been, at least influencing his decision.

Caleb: So about to try in the Room of Requirement… But actually, let me back up a little bit. Before that, we get the latest news in the Daily Prophet. The first thing is, Mundungus Fletcher has gone to Azkaban…

Eric: Woo-hoo.

Caleb: … where he belongs.

[Eric laughs]

Caleb: The Prophet breaks the news that he was impersonating an Inferius during an attempted burglary. That’s a pretty low level to reach in your life, to feel the need to impersonate basically a magical zombie. And to… Who knows what…? I don’t think we actually know what he was trying to rob, but…

Kat: Probably something stupid, like always.

Eric: You’re right. It is a new low for him. But I really like that. I like that Jo sort of reserved this lowest of lows…

Kat: Low level of scum?

Eric: Yeah, of scum to have that be what he gets caught and thrown in Azkaban for. I like that a lot.

Caleb: Yeah, because they’re locking people up left and right here. Because the next story is, a nine-year-old boy was arrested for trying to kill his grandparents. They think the Imperius Curse was suspected. Actually, granted, I get trying to kill someone. They’ve got to take precautions, but [to] immediately arrest a nine-year-old boy who[m] they think is under the Imperius Curse may be a little extreme.

Eric: Possibly. Yeah, I mean…

Caleb: But we already know they’re going to do that because they’ve done that to Stan, so…

Julia: Well, they didn’t send him to jail. They just arrested him, so maybe they’re just holding him till they figure out what’s going on.

Caleb: Yeah. That’s fair.

Eric: Maybe they’re holding him just long enough to make sure the curse isn’t still active on him? Or… I mean, it would be terrible for that kid to know that he always had a part that murder, but if he’s nine, he probably didn’t kill them using magic. So I don’t really know what the point of Imperiusing a nine-year-old to kill these people would be. I mean, probably one of those “just because we can”-type fancies of the Death Eaters.

Caleb: Yeah. Because it’s not an important family or anything as far as we know.

Eric: Yeah, yeah. It’s just one of the random acts of evil that you would spot…

Kat: But it just says “trying to kill.” It doesn’t say that they’re dead.

Eric: Oh, it just says “trying to kill”?

Kat: Yeah, it says, “trying to kill grandparents.”

Eric: Then the grandparents probably…

Julia: He didn’t actually kill them.

Eric: … fought back. Because grandparents in this book series are bad asses.

Caleb: That is accurate.

Julia: And nine-year-olds aren’t strong, luckily.

[Julia and Eric laugh]

Caleb: So Harry moves along to the Room of Requirement. He tries a couple of different phrases and his theory that if he tells the Room of Requirement enough – something specific enough – then the door will open for him. I found these really amusing, reading through.

[Kat laughs]

Eric: I love your comments [on] these quotes. It’s awesome.

[Julia laughs]

Caleb: So the first one is “I need to see what Malfoy is doing in here,” which, okay, do you, Harry? Do you need to see what he’s doing in there? Okay. This doesn’t work, and the next one he tries is “I need to see the place where Malfoy keeps coming secretly.”

[Julia and Kat laugh]

Caleb: This is becoming a very different story very quickly.

Eric: There’s only one girl guarding the room.

[Prolonged silence]

Eric: There’s the other one…

Kat: [laughs] Eric.

Caleb: I don’t know. That’s a fan fiction I am not ready to talk about. But this does not work. Harry talks to the wall, which is really big progress for him, and then he starts muttering, “I need you to become the place you became for Draco Malfoy.” Still doesn’t work.

Eric: Cleverest one yet, though.

Caleb: That was the best one. I agree.

Eric: I’m glad you agree.

Caleb: [laughs] “I need to see what Draco Malfoy is doing inside you.”

[Everyone laughs]

Caleb: Now, now, Jo. Jo, we got to chill out. Let’s see. Then he realizes it’s not working, and he says to himself, “at the end of which he was forced to conceive that Hermione might have a point that going about this was not a great idea,” which is probably the smartest thing Harry has ever thought. I guess he does think that a couple of times: Just listen to Hermione.

Kat: Yeah, this chapter is a Drarry lover’s dream. Anybody who ships Draco and Harry…

Caleb: Oh my God.

Kat: Yeah, so we run quotes every Wednesday, for anybody who doesn’t follow us on Twitter, and there [were] a lot of comments this week because if you take these things out of context…

Caleb: Yeah, starting with the dreams, it’s the whole chapter.

Kat: Yeah. Very sexual chapter we have here.

Eric: I think it was when Ascendio, I believe it was. Mark Oshiro did the top ten most sexual out-of-context lines in the Harry Potter universe, and it was an amazing presentation.

Kat: I remember that.

Caleb: That’s wonderful.

Eric: Of course, it comes from stuff like this, where it’s not sexual, but if you take it out of context and throw it up on a stage with nine or ten others, including, of course, Book 5’s infamous “Ron ejaculated loudly.”

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: You get a much different story.

Caleb: Yeah, just a little.

Kat: Oh, God. So funny.

Caleb: So after the failed attempt at the Room of Requirement, Harry heads off to Defense Against the Dark Arts, [for] which he is late and losing us Gryffindors our House points like he always does, and Seamus asks Professor Snape the difference between an Inferius and a ghost, which is a fair question. I really love these moments where the plot of the unknown thing going on is just some random question, like Hermione asking about the Chamber of Secrets to Professor Binns back in Book 2. I just really love these moments that are littered through the series. Snape says, though, that there wasn’t an Inferius in the Prophet because this was just Mundungus Fletcher, and he talks badly about him, which raises Harry’s dumbometer, thinking that Snape is a bad guy because he talked bad about Mundungus Fletcher. But Harry, so do you!

Eric: Harry, you wanted to kill him.

Julia: [laughs] Yeah, he did. [Snape] called him “a smelly sneak,” which is very true.

Eric: Those are accurate adjectives.

Caleb: As much as I dislike Snape, I really think he deserves the win that he gets here. He hears Harry muttering to Ron and Hermione about this and then demand that Harry answer Seamus’s question about the difference between an Inferius and a ghost. Harry stupidly responds, “Er – well – ghosts are transparent.”

[Kat laughs]

Caleb: Bravo. But then Snape gives us an adequate answer where we learn a little bit more about Inferi, and they are reanimated by Dark wizards’ spells. They’re not alive, merely used like a puppet to do the wizard’s bidding. A ghost is an imprint of a departed soul left upon earth and as Harry pointed out, transparent.

Eric: Well, here’s where I have a fault with Snape’s whole thing, is he insults Harry’s responses [as] being adequate of a five-year-old or a first-year student or… somebody could’ve answered that, but as they point out, it is the most practical. But then when Snape gives the answer and is talking about Inferi not being alive, well, neither are ghosts. Ghosts aren’t alive. They’re an imprint and therefore would probably be able to articulate a reply to you if you were to talk to them, unlike Inferi, but that’s different than what he’s saying. So by saying that “Oh, Inferi aren’t alive,” it makes it seems like, “Well, ghosts are alive.” There’s not enough there. Snape’s answer is full of just as many, if not more, holes than Harry’s.

Caleb: Yeah, it’s definitely not an adequate answer. I agree.

Eric: And so that’s just his old-school grudge coming back up to us.

Julia: Do you think if somebody else said it was transparent, he’d just be like, “Okay, whatever”?

Caleb: I’d feel like he’d still make fun of them unless they were a Slytherin, but he probably wouldn’t have taken it as far as he goes with Harry.

Eric: Well, isn’t…? No, I was going to say, “Isn’t he teaching Potions and they ask him a Defense Against the Dark Arts…” but no, this year, he’s the DADA professor.

Caleb: So Ron feels left out, and he feels like he needs some attention from Snape.

[Eric laughs]

Caleb: Doesn’t like Snape’s response, proclaims… it’s just really funny, thinking Ron suddenly bursts out to defend Harry, like Harry can’t take Snape anymore. But he proclaims [that] Harry’s description is the most helpful, which is a good point. He uses the old “what if you meet them in a dark alley?” theory.

[Kat laughs]

Eric: [in a British accent] Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon? Also, are you the imprint of a departed soul?

[Caleb, Julia, and Kat laugh]

Caleb: Right. So Snape pretty much… I actually can’t remember off the top of my head. I didn’t write it down, how he handles it. But…

Eric: Ten points from Gryffindor.

Caleb: Yeah, he takes more points from our House. Danggit.

Julia: And he insults Ron’s Apparating ability.

Caleb: Yeah, that’s what it is.

Eric: Yeah, what is that? What is that crap? Snape is in those rooms. He’s privy to those meetings and attempts for one reason and one reason alone, and that’s to control his damn section of the students. For him to be watching Ron… what is this fascination? He’s clearly stalking Ron.

[Eric and Julia laugh]

Eric: And seeing his crappy attempts to Apparate. It was weird and way out of left field for Snape to make this remark.

Caleb: So after they leave class, Lavender is very upset that Ron was insulted in such a way.

Eric: Aww.

Caleb: She comes to confort him, but Ron wants none of it. And there’s [laughs] some gender role swapping going on because Harry and Ron go to the bathroom to escape…

[Kat laughs]

Caleb: … which is what girls do generally as they escape to the bathroom; guys certainly don’t for the most part, but…

Eric: Let’s go to the bathroom.

Caleb: Yeah, I definitely don’t do that with… yeah. But it’s a useful plot point because Myrtle shows up like she does in the bath areas. And in the conversation, he seems to be expecting someone else. The quote she uses is “He said he’d come back and see me, but then you said you’d pop in and visit me too.” I just want to take a brief moment to point out… I don’t think we’ve hit Myrtle since Jo pointed this out, but we do know Myrtle’s full name now. It’s Myrtle Elizabeth Warren, which is really funny for Americans because Elizabeth Warren is a senator, and Jo pointed that out when she named her, so…

Eric: After the fact. She didn’t intend to…

Kat: A really awesome senator; I’m just saying.

Caleb: Yeah. I don’t want to get into politics, but she is an awesome person. So makes Myrtle a little more awesome, but poor Myrtle, always scorned by boys who are too busy for her, no matter who it is, and she reminds Harry of the one the… because Harry says, “Don’t you belong in the girls’ bathroom?” Because that’s the area that they had been avoiding for so long. And Myrtle reminds Harry of the wonderful moment she visited him in the prefects’ bath.

[Kat laughs]

Caleb: Which, [laughs] I think we can all agree, is one of the highest points of the series.

Eric: “Hi, Harry.” Or what does she say? Like, “Woo!”

Caleb: Yeah, she does a lot of the wooing, that’s for sure.

Kat: It’s so wonderfully creepy in the movie. I love it so much. [laughs]

Caleb: So then Myrtle describes the boy [whom] she was expecting. She says that he’s sensitive, people bully him, he feels lonely and has no one to talk to, [and] he’s not afraid to show his feelings. So I really don’t remember – and I wish I did – who[m] people thought she was talking about. I don’t know. Looking back at it now, it may seem obvious it’s Draco even though it’s a contrasting description just because of the juxpositionist learning so much about Draco just before this.

Kat: I’m not sure anybody would ever pick Draco. Because that’s so opposite. Even now when I read it, even knowing that it’s him, I still have a hard time picturing him that vunerable.

Caleb: So actually maybe a better question is, do we think that he was legitimately these things? Or is this just Myrtle imposing those descriptions on him?

Eric: If he gave her the time of day, I would say it’s absolutely true, everything she says.

Kat: Well, there’s not going to be anybody in the castle more sympathetic than Myrtle, right? I mean, she hated the fact that she died and how she died and why she died, so…

Eric: And I know she probably doesn’t know that Voldemort killed her, but I mean, Draco’s beef is with Voldemort. [laughs] So…

Kat: You think she doesn’t know by now who killed her?

Eric: Yeah, no. All she saw were these horrible yellow eyes.

Kat: Yeah, but you don’t think nobody’s filled her in in the last four years?

Eric: No, hell no. Absolutely not.

Julia: Does Draco know?

Kat: He must.

Eric: About the Chamber? No.

Julia: No, that Voldemort killed Myrtle. Because if he was given a task to kill somebody else for Voldemort, that might have been a reason he opened up to her so much.

Eric: Huh. That’s interesting.

Caleb: Maybe, no?

Julia: Think of that.

Eric: It is interesting, these two talking and now… but I think, for me, it was… for Malfoy, probably the impenetrable wall of death is protecting her from sharing his secrets or… she’s not even human. It’s not like… you’re confiding in another soul who’s like a soul. [laughs] So she’s less likely to give you crap in the real world.

Caleb: So Harry tries to get the secret that she’s keeping about this mystery boy. But Myrtle says she will take his secret to the… and then Ron, always sensitive to Myrtle’s situation…

[Eric weeps]

Caleb: … cuts in, “Not the grave, surely? The sewers maybe…”

[Kat sighs]

Caleb: So that’s all they get out of out of Myrtle. So the last piece of the chapter deals with Harry’s last attempt at the Room of Requirement. Ron and Hermione head off for more Apparition practice because their test is coming up. Harry can’t because he’s not old enough.

[Eric laughs]

Caleb: Hermione reminds him he needs to work on Slughorn again, but he says he’s been hard at work, and it seems pretty fair from his description that he keeps trying to go up to him, but Slughorn seems to know what’s up; he’s avoiding him; he gets out of class quickly. So it’s not too successful, so Harry heads up to the Room of Requirement again. After – I should point out – he sees Goyle hanging outside of it on the seventh floor on the Mauarder’s Map. So that’s what motivates him. He gets up there; he sees it’s the same girl with the brass scales. And Harry, under the Invisibility Cloak, has one of his more creepy moments.

[Eric laughs]

Caleb: He goes up to Goyle [and] whispers seductively in his ear, “Hello. You’re very pretty, aren’t you?”

[Kat laughs]

Caleb: And this sends Goyle screaming in terror, running away. Harry is in this very serious moment and then he shifts so easily into this creeper to try to get Goyle away.

Eric: It’s somehow a gender taunt or something.

Caleb: Yeah. And he laughs about it. So Harry… it’s just very amusing how easily he shifts in that moment. So with Goyle gone, he’s trying to get into the Room of Requirement again. He gets mad at it because it’s not working. He kicks the wall – more progress – he hurts himself.

[Eric and Kat laugh]

Kat: “More progress.”

Caleb: Tonks suddenly shows up. This was really random and surprising to me. It did it again when I reread it. It just really comes out of nowhere that Tonks is suddently there.

Eric: Yeah.

Caleb: She hears him say “Ouch” when he kicks the wall, and Harry notices that she looks terrible even from the last time she saw him. She’s thinner, her mouse-colored hair is lank, and she says that she’s looking for Dumbledore; she’s wanting to talk to Dumbledore. Harry points her in the right direction but she says she knows where it is, so… I can’t remember if there’s something later in the book that I’m forgetting – remember, everyone, we read this one chapter at a time – but I feel like there’s not. I just feel this is very unusual. She didn’t see Dumbledore. If she didn’t see him, why is she wandering about the seventh floor? Because she’s supposed to be keeping guard, I thought, outside.

Julia: Right.

Caleb: It’s just weird for her to be showing up trying to get info from Dumbledore, and she’s just some lost soul wandering the halls of Hogwarts.

Kat: No, I agree. I was thinking about this and it never pays off. I don’t understand why Tonks is here in this moment. I don’t understand why she has to cross paths with Harry. What does this accomplish?

Eric: Well, what Harry has done… because the scales dropped to the floor. He could’ve levitated them before they dropped and that would’ve been the smarter course of action. He’s actually waiting for… now that the scales have broken, he sees in his mind’s eye that Draco is on the other side breathing heavily basically because he knows that someone is out there, and that he can probably never come out of the room ever because Harry is always going to be there waiting for him to come out. Then he gets interrupted, so obviously Draco has an exit route and I think that’s why it happens: So that Draco can have an exit route. But if Harry had just saved the scales from dropping – maybe been less of a creep to Goyle and somehow figured out another way for doing it without tripping the alarm – Draco would have exited on his own in a normal amount of time. You know what I’m saying? That may have been a lot sooner than Harry would have been waiting around otherwise. But it’s a mind game. Harry wanted to freak Draco out by being like, “Aha! I’ve taken your guard and you know it!” But then Tonks is the only one that can show up and save that from happening.

Julia: I think that’d be the reason it was kept in, but it does seem like there’s something else going on here that was taken out of the books later on.

Caleb: Yeah. I mean, it sets up the conversation we’re going to talk about in just a second, but that’s not that important right now. I agree; I always thought there would be more.

Eric: In terms of wandering the halls, though, I have to admit to being the creeper who did that at my high school. Whenever I’d go back for some reason or see an old teacher, I would just wander the floors because I’d be like, “Oh, I went to school here, this was…” I’d assume it’s just the same for Tonks.

Caleb: It’s just weird she’d be on the seventh floor. She had no reason to ever really be there.

Eric: Yeah, well, Dumbledore’s office isn’t there, is it? It’s below a couple of floors.

Caleb: Yeah, yeah.

Eric: So yeah, unless she had… she might be just walking down memory lane. It’s irresponsible because she’s supposed to be on guard duty for the castle, but if that weren’t the case, I wouldn’t have any issue with her walking around because it’s a school where she went to for seven… everybody who went here went here for seven years. They had wonderful times at Hogwarts, I’m assuming, and so why wouldn’t you just walk around and shoot the shade if you were there?

Kat: I don’t know. It still… it just doesn’t ever pay off. I don’t get it.

Eric: I do… well, the Tonks thing is underwhelming, but it’s a ruse because she’s in love with Remus. That’s the whole thing; it’s not Sirius, it’s Remus.

Kat: Right, but who cares?

[Julia laughs]

Eric: Well, I do.

Kat: I just mean that I don’t understand why this moment has to happen right now.

Eric: Well, okay, and let’s take that to the conclusion: What if Dumbledore were there? She’s doing what exactly with Dumbledore? Trying to get him to weigh in on her relationship problems with Remus?

Kat: No, no, just checking in on him because she asks Harry if he’s heard from anybody, so clearly Remus has been underground for a while and she hasn’t heard from him and wants to make sure he’s alive and okay. That’s what I always assumed.

Eric: Oh.

Caleb: Yeah.

Eric: It is a bit immature and selfish to come and take the headmaster’s time because you’re wondering… although, unless if Remus is directly reporting to Dumbledore, then it makes slightly more sense to ask him if he’s heard from him.

Kat: I would do that. I would do that.

Julia: She does say that the Daily Prophet is behind on the times, and then doesn’t elaborate on that.

Eric: Hmm.

Caleb: Yeah.

Julia: So it does seem there’s some missing piece of news here that’s not mentioned ever again.

Caleb: Right, and so that’s what I was about to get to because I think that’s what, it seems, is almost the pay-off. Like you said, she mentioned that the Prophet is behind the times, and it almost seems like she’s going to tell Harry something about the Order, or say something and Harry is going to try and get it out of her, but that moment complete dissolves after Harry mentions Sirius, and then Tonks gets really emotional and then the moment just leaves and they part ways. It’s a very strange ending to the moment, too, because it even furthers that fact that the main reason she’s upset is because of Remus and not Sirius, but it’s the emotion of Sirius that breaks the moment here.

Eric and Kat: Yeah.

Caleb: So anyway, I guess it frustrates me more because Tonks is one of my favorite characters and I always want more from the few moments we get with her. So I was just hoping we could get more here.

Eric: Yeah.

Caleb: But Ron and Hermione have returned from Apparition practice. Ron has done seemingly better; he’s getting closer. But Hermione obviously killed it. The final conversation of the chapter, though, is over this very unusual moment with Tonks, and Harry considers that she might have been in love with Sirius, especially considering the Patronus change that he saw that he thought might be because of that, which isn’t… I mean, we obviously know that people intermarry in families in the wizarding world, so I guess it’s not a long stretch. It’s definitely unusual. Thank goodness it wasn’t the truth.

[Julia laughs]

Caleb: So Ron makes a comment, though, about Tonks sulking and how this is something that women just generally do. One of his more sexist comments in the series.

Kat: Mhm.

Caleb: Hermione slams him right back, though, for sulking over Rosmerta not laughing at his joke back in Hogsmeade. And it’s a joke about a hag, a healer, and a Mimbulus Mimbletonia, which I really want to know this joke.

[Everyone laughs]

Eric: Yeah.

Caleb: It’s obviously bad, but…

Kat: Did you Google it to see if it exists?

Caleb: No, I didn’t. No, I’m going to do that real quick.

Kat: Yeah, do that.

Caleb: I’m going to ask her on Twitter. I’m going to ask J.K. Rowling on Twitter: “Hey, so what was that joke about the hag, the healer, and the Mimbulus Mimbletonia?”

[Kat laughs]

Eric: I’ve been trying to ask her questions that she answers recently and I haven’t inspired her yet. But I feel like that one would be innocent.

Kat: Well, I think it’s 10% inspiration and 90% perfect timing.

Eric: Yeah.

Caleb: Oh, so the Harry Potter Wiki doesn’t say what the joke is but it makes a good point. It says apparently it’s not very funny, but her lack of reaction could have had something to do with the fact that she was under the Imperius Curse.

Eric: Right!

Kat: Oh.

Eric: What if she would have normally found that joke to be funny and Ron’s mojo is put in question by Hermione and it has nothing to do with that?

Caleb: Yeah, who knows? If she wouldn’t have been under the Imperius Curse, she could’ve thought it was hilarious and they could’ve run off together and fallen in love.

Eric: I think that’s exactly what would have happened.

Caleb: [laughs] That is actually the motivation for Rosmerta being under the Imperius Curse, so that would not have happened.

Eric: Yeah, we’re meant to wonder why she didn’t laugh at his joke. It’s a huge clue.

Caleb: Yeah.

Kat: Wow.

Caleb: And this, I think, is probably the most abrupt ending of a chapter in the entire series. So Hermione makes the comment about how Rosmerta didn’t laugh at his joke and it made Ron sulk.

Eric: For twenty minutes, right? She says that a girl wouldn’t cry for twenty minutes over that.

Kat: “Sulked for half an hour.”

Caleb and Eric: Yeah.

Caleb: And then the chapter ends with, “Ron scowled.”

[Kat laughs]

Eric: Yeah. It has to end with something.

Caleb: [laughs] It is such an abrupt, weird ending. That’s the end of the chapter.

Eric: No, just wondering about the things we’ve talked about during this discussion and this episode about how there are some things that maybe make it seem like something has been cut here. There’s something that doesn’t quite gloss the same way that the book usually glosses. Either it’s pacing-wise or characters showing up in weird places or things not fully explained or talks summarized and told instead of shown is happening in this chapter. So I wonder if this is just another example of, okay, the chapter ended. It’s just like somebody went through with a red pen and just made it work without it being too pretty. I mean, it’s pretty. It’s Harry Potter; it’s more pretty than anything else I’ve read. But you know what I’m saying with this chapter ending abruptly. Maybe that has something to do again with maybe a subplot was cut and so it doesn’t end as nicely as it might have.

Kat: Entirely possible.

Julia: I think that ending captures the mood of the entire chapter: Scowling.

Eric: Yeah.

Caleb: But it’s a big chapter; a lot of things happened. It sets a lot of things up.

Kat: So I guess now we’ll go into our Podcast Question of the Week for this week. So we touched in this episode a little bit about the relationship that’s happening here between, well, the inferred… inferred? Implied? Inferred relationship between the unknown still, but we know, Draco and Myrtle. So I really wanted to touch on that because I think it’s really interesting that Draco chooses Myrtle to open up to. So I guess here are my questions. There’s a lot of them, and hopefully you guys can make some sense of it here. So first off, “Why is Draco actually talking to Myrtle? Why did he choose her? Was it a chance that he ended up there? Clearly he didn’t end up in the girls’ bathroom so Myrtle must have been in the boys’ bathroom for some reason. I won’t go too far into that. But why is Draco talking to Myrtle? And is it because she’s simply there or is it because he can charm her into keeping his secrets? Or is she simply sympathetic to his vulnerable state because maybe she sees herself in him a little bit? Did Draco mention that he was a Death Eater or that Lucius is his father? And what exactly is he telling her? How many details is he getting into with her? And do we think she is actually not telling anybody? Because she is bragging here to Ron and Harry about this boy that has been visiting her.” So I’m really interested to hear what you guys think. I know it’s a lot of questions. Ponder it, come up with something good, and go over to alohomora.mugglenet.com. Send us an audioBoom, too, and you could hear your comments on the show.

Caleb: We would like to thank our guest, Julia, for joining us on this episode of Alohomora!

Julia: Thank you for having me.

Kat: We hope you had fun.

Eric: You’ve got to take a lot of photos when you’re over in Bath. That’ll be super exciting.

Julia: I will.

Caleb: It’s going to be a lot different from Louisiana.

Julia: Oh, yeah. [laughs]

Caleb: Wait, so that actually reminds me, have you by chance read Maureen Johnson’s Shades of London series?

Julia: Yes, I have! I love that series!

Caleb: Yeah, you’re totally living that story. Well, you’re not going to a boarding school or whatever it is to finish high school, but Louisiana to England.

Julia: Yeah, and she captures a lot of the cultural changes as well.

Caleb: Yeah, that’s super solid. So just don’t choke on anything, or if you do, survive so you get a little magic.

Julia: Some ghosts.

[Julia and Kat laugh]

Caleb: Yeah. All right, well, if you would like to be on the show like Julia, just head over to our main site alohomora.mugglenet.net and click on “Be on the Show!” If you have a set of Apple headphones or something similar, you are all set; no fancy equipment needed. And while you’re there you can download one of our ringtones for free.

Kat: And in the meantime, if you just want to keep in touch with us you can find us on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN, facebook.com/openthedumbledore, our Tumblr is mnalohomorapodcast, and of course our phone number 206-GO-ALBUS – that’s 206-462-5287 – and as I mentioned before, you can always leave us an audioBoom. If you listen to the special feature this week, you will hear one. It’s free; all you need is an Internet connection and a microphone. Go over to alohomora.mugglenet.com, click the little green button in the right-hand column – that thing – and leave us a message. And it can be anything. And you might just hear it on the show.

Eric: And there’s also the Alohomora! store, wherein we sell House shirts, Desk!Pig, Mandrake Liberation Front, “Minerva is my homegirl,” and so many more options, sizes, varieties of all sorts of stuff. Go […] check that out, definitely, for sure. It’s [on] our website. Go to alohomora.mugglenet.com and click on “Store.”

Caleb: And make sure you check out our smartphone app, which is available all over the Muggle world, and if it’s not for you, then maybe you’re cursed like a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. It has really great things, like transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and much more. All right, well, that’s going to do it for this last episode in the month of May.

[Eric and Kat laugh]

Caleb: I’m Caleb Graves.

[Show music begins]

Eric: I’m Eric Scull.

Kat: And I’m Kat Miller. Thank you for listening to Episode 139 of Alohomora!

Eric: [as Moaning Myrtle] Hello? Hello, Draco? You can open the door now. It’s safe. You can open the door. Come on out. Open the Dumbledore.

Caleb: That sounded like a horror movie.

Eric: Oh, God.

[Kat laughs]

Eric: [as Moaning Myrtle] Hello, Draco.

[Show music continues]