Transcript – Episode 166

[Show music begins]

Rosie Morris: This is Episode 166 of Alohomora! for November 28, 2015.

[Show music continues]

Rosie: Hello everyone, and welcome to a very chilly November episode of Alohomora! I’m Rosie Morris.

Alison Siggard: I’m Alison Siggard.

Kat Miller: And I’m Kat Miller. And our very special guest today, you may know him from a past episode or two: Steve Vander Ark, writer and creator of the Harry Potter Lexicon. Hello, Steve.

Steve Vander Ark: Hey, how are you doing?

Kat: Oh, we are wonderful.

Steve: Good to be here.

Kat: Thank you for joining us.

Steve: Oh, my pleasure.

Kat: Six books later, but glad to have you back.

[Kat and Steve laugh]

Rosie: It’s been a long time.

Steve: Well, I keep watching my email, wondering if I’m going to get invited back, and I just kind of had gone to despair. But then I got the email, so I feel better now.

Kat: Oh good, we’re glad. Tell our listeners a little bit what you’ve been up to over at the Lexicon.

Steve: Oh, there’s a new version of the Lexicon coming out very, very soon. We’re currently in a closed beta – if anybody wants to be part of it, just let me know. But it’s going to be… basically the whole goal was to get it to be responsive and like 21st century like the web, instead of looking like 1999. So we’ve been working very, very hard on this for the last two and a half years. We’ve got 30 editors from all over the world working on it, so it’s getting there. Very, very soon it will go live.

Kat: Wow, so it’s going to be mobile friendly and everything then?

Kat: Mobile friendly and everything. But it won’t look like Pottermore.

Alison: Thank goodness for that. [laughs]

Kat: Oh, Pottermore.

[Alison laughs]

Steve: Well, the funny thing is – this is when we were designing our homepage – we actually were starting to use big blocks of color just to kind of get a sense of things, and then Pottermore came out and we were like, “Whoa. Hold up. We better change some stuff,” because we didn’t want to look like that.

Kat: Right. Totally understandable.

Steve: Not that I have anything against Pottermore, but…

Kat: We’ll just zip our lips on that one.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: Where can listeners get in touch with you if they want to be part of the beta?

Steve: Oh, probably the easiest way is to email me: steve at hp-lexicon dot org.

Kat: Perfect. Okay. And remind us what house you identify as.

Steve: Ravenclaw.

Kat: Ravenclaw. Perfect. Okay. Two Eagles, two Puffs.

Rosie: Yay.

Kat: Perfect. Although, Alison is a flip-flop, but…

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: … today she’ll be a Puff. And just before we hop into our recap, we want to remind you guys this week we are going to be discussing Deathly Hallows Chapter 16, which is “Godric’s Hollow,” a very sad chapter, but so good.

Alison: But before we get to this chapter, we’re going to go recap a couple of comments from our last chapter, which was a very long discussion and you guys kind of continued that by posting really long comments. So there were a lot of them to go through, so I could only pick a couple. I’m so sorry. There were a lot of really good ones, so make sure you go read all of them. And the question comes from Lupinionated. Haha, Lupin…

Kat: That’s a really good username. Very clever.

Alison: … who says,

“I was thinking about Gamp’s Law in terms of files on a computer. Summoning food would be similar to using the search function to find a file, transforming it could be akin to editing the file, and increasing the quantity is like copy and paste. In all of these things, the file’s information is already there, meaning that all of these tasks can be carried out with ease. To create that same file without using computer programmes and to go through the effort of writing it out in binary would be immensely difficult, if not completely impossible.I think that food and magic might be similar. We see that it is possible to conjure creatures that could be used as food (Desk!Pig, anyone?), but I think the general consensus is that this isn’t a true form of life and thus wouldn’t have the nutritional value that a natural creature would have. It could be possible that creating something that would nourish the body and not just fill the stomach requires magic that witches and wizards just aren’t capable of, hence Gamp’s Law.On another note – that safe behind Dumbledore’s portrait means that the ‘Dumble Door’ is an actual physical thing. :P”

Kat: Nice.

Alison: So I thought this was interesting because last week, we talked a lot about okay, so how exactly does Gamp’s Law work.

Kat: Yeah.

Alison: And I think this is a really good metaphor to kind of help explain why it can do what it does.

Kat: I just like that somebody has taken my software angle from two episodes ago and applied it to something else. So Lupinionated, good for you. But I like it. I think this is a very clever analogy for Gamp’s Law, and I would tend to believe that that’s probably true.

Steve: I’m just contemplating the point. I think it’s really good because the problem we have is that we have phrases in Chamber of Secrets where Molly “conjures” up a meal. And I mean, what exactly is she doing, and I think… I hadn’t listened to the whole discussion from last time, so I didn’t want to jump in and start repeating things, but I think this is a really good analogy.

Kat: Yeah, I think it’s a clever way to look at it.

Rosie: Yeah, with that conjuring up the meal. That’s… if she’s going to be using ingredients to make the food rather than just summoning it out of thin air, then that’s like editing the files, isn’t it? So you’ve got all of the component parts…

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: … it’s just putting them all together.

Steve: Which is exactly what we do when we cook.

Rosie: Exactly.

Kat: Right.

Rosie: It’s just… [unintelligible]

Kat: Yeah…

Steve: It’s just that you can make the sauce spray out of your wand, which would be really cool.

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Kat: It’d be much easier. Much less cuts with the knife, right?

Alison and Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: I also like, too, that Lupinionated brought up binary. You know, how creating the file without using the computer and going through the effort of using binary? I don’t know, that’s just pretty cool.

Steve: Mhm.

Alison: Yeah I think it’s interesting too to think that maybe with Molly’s thing… for example, we have computer programs that give templates – like Word and whatever – for things that you create that you just are adding to, so maybe that’s another way that this works too.

Rosie: Yeah we get so used to using the shortcuts and the ready-made things that we forget about the hard work that’s going on in the other side. So magic has probably got all of that hard work in it – it’s just that it’s been simplified and simplified over centuries that they don’t even think about it anymore they just do it.

Kat: That’s true. Very good.

Alison: All right, our next comment is one of those long ones. [laughs] It’s from Hufflepuffskein who’s talking about Michael’s idea about the physicality and kind of interaction of Horcrux objects. They say,

“LOVE Michael’s idea about the physicality/interact-ability of the [H]orcrux objects. I just wanted to recap the thoughts, see what everyone thinks, and pose an extension [and] a reply to myself… Ring – As Michael mentioned, the ring is highly interactive as a wearable, something that you engage with by putting it on and then keeping it on (or taking it off). As to be mentioned for the locket below, I also think the placement of this wearable item [… ] interesting. Being on the hand, this might relate to the work or the skills or the tasks (in the sense of manual labor) carried out by the bearer. Diary – The interactive nature of the diary is pretty clear in both the physical sense and emotional sense as Ginny pours her feelings out to it. This could relate to the communicative aspects of the bearer or perhaps by extension the social aspects of the bearer. Locket – The locket is another wearable, and the bearer must interact with it physically for it to be worn, but Eric also emphasized the importance of the placement of this wearable near the heart as the symbolic location of the emotions or soul, and so relating to the spiritual aspects of the bearer. Cup – Michael mentioned that the physicality of this cup is important, whether one drinks from it or holds it as a container of some substance. This could relate to the intake aspects of a bearer, in the sense of need and requirements for living. Diadem – As the last wearable, Michael mentioned that the diadem connects to the brain, as the center of thought and consciousness. This relates to the bearer’s intellect and perhaps even, in some senses, the source of their magic or their magical skill (as opposed to intuition or emotion associated with spells like [the Patronus Charm]). Nagini – I really liked Alison’s idea about the physicality of Nagini as a weapon. You could also think of Nagini as a nourisher (for Voldemort when he was drinking her milk), [… ] so this may relate to a dependence aspect of the bearer. If taken in the sense of a weapon, perhaps this could relate to the interpersonal power or dominance aspects of the bearer.”

Kat: Wow.

Alison: Yeah. [laughs]

Rosie: So many things. That was really cool.

Kat: I like that it seems to be… I like this breakdown of the Horcrux… -es. Horcruxes? Horcruxi? No. Horcruxes. I guess I never really thought of them in terms of the senses before. And the different parts of the body that they may affect when being worn or used. I think that’s super interesting.

Alison: I really liked that about this comment. Sort of… it’s how you interact with the world and each of them relates to that.

Rosie: The diary [is] kind of interspersed with all of these wearable items… and we’ve gone hand, heart, head… but then the diary seems to be quite a different thing compared to the others. They say that about the emotional sense that Ginny pours her feelings into it, and I’ve always kind of… you’ve got this idea of the soul being split so many times in the books and the fact that the first Horcrux we get introduced to is a diary. You know, with your emotional pouring of feelings out into it… people say that you pour your heart and soul into things. It’s just that kind of parallel and that idea that maybe if we’ve got the ring on the hand, the locket to be the heart, the diadem is the head, then the diary kind of represents the soul as it’s kind of embodied emotional thoughts. So yeah, I really like that idea of this different break down of all the different things.

Kat: The diary too is a little bit of all of them. I mean, like…

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: Somebody’s soul. It’s your heart; it’s your head. It’s the other things that you said. Ha, I rhymed.

Rosie: It makes you wonder the other Horcruxes that were planned and never came to fruition. You know the diadem happened, but Nagini was never meant to be the last Horcrux. Whatever it was going to be…

Kat: Harry.

Rosie: … Harry’s Horcrux. When Harry was killed – or was meant to be killed. I wonder what it would have been.

Alison: I wonder if he was trying to get the sword of Gryffindor, which would still have the same… or at least using it as a weapon, it would still have the same impact as Nagini for that.

Rosie: Yeah, true.

Kat: Yeah, that is true. I mean, they symbolize the same thing, I suppose.

Steve: I really like this, because I’ve never really looked for or seen a pattern in the different Horcruxes, except for things that belonged to the Founders. All of a sudden, this puts it in a whole different light, and gives everything… it puts you into – I hate to say it – into the mind of Voldemort. Why was he choosing certain things? It seemed random to me until I read this and I thought, “Oh, that makes sense.” It is like I’m taking myself apart, but it is all part of myself. Interesting.

Kat: So deep. I don’t think Voldemort was thinking about this. I wonder if Jo has thought about this. The different aspects.

[Rosie laughs]

Alison: Yeah. I think it is interesting, though, to see it this way, because you’re splitting your soul, the embodiment of yourself, your identity, usually is how people think of souls. And to split it into different pieces and siphon them off to different objects that have different parts of your identity and yourself.

Kat: Yeah. It is very clever. Very clever.

Alison: Yeah. No, that was… good job, Hufflepuffskien.

Steve: If I start thinking about the reactions of those Horcruxes when they were destroyed, the locket was all about the heart, because it was Ron’s feelings about himself but especially about his relationship with Hermione. But I don’t think we can carry that too far because we didn’t watch the diadem die.

Rosie: Oh, but we can, because the diadem was destroyed in the fire, and then we had the whole snake thing chasing after us. And the head is very much the place of anger, you are hot-headed. So we’ve got the idea of fire there! That is quite cool. [laughs]

Kat: Oh, wow.

Alison: Interesting.

Steve: Very, very interesting. Okay, and that is the show!

[Everyone laughs]

Rosie: No, but seriously, we have to thank Hufflepuffskien for three years’ worth of amazing comments like this now.

Alison: Really, though.

Rosie: We are in so much debt to you and your amazing theories. Both Hufflepuffskien and everyone else who has donated their amazing brain thoughts to our show.

Steve: We need to get this person adding commentary on the Lexicon. We’re adding commentary onto entries, and this would be beautiful.

Alison: Ooh!

Kat: There you go. You’ve been recruited, Hufflepuffskien.

[Alison laughs]

Steve: Yes! Get in touch, get in touch. I need you.

Alison: Well, before we end comments, I also wanted to give a quick little shout-out to Weird Sister. Your comment was too long to put on, but it was brilliant, so everyone head on over to the main site and read it. It was about the discussion we had last week about the parallels between Jews in World War II and goblins in the series, and it was fascinating and beautifully explained. So everyone head out and read Weird Sister’s comment.

Kat: That sounds fabulous. I haven’t had a chance to peruse the site yet this week. So I’m excited.

Alison: Yeah. It was just a little too long to include. Otherwise I would have.

Kat: We’d have another two and a half hour episode on our hands.

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: Well, the lengthy discussions also carried on into the Podcast Question of the Week. And there were 20 or 23 or something comments that were there when I was checking to get notes for today’s show, but some of them, you had to click on “Read more” several times to get to the end of the comment, and they are just amazing discussions about Ron and his feelings. So before I read any of those out, here is a quick recap of what the question was: “In this chapter – meaning Chapter 15 – Ron Weasley becomes less of an active part in the trio. From simply yawning during a Horcrux discussion, to leaving the room during Harry and Hermione’s epiphanies, Ron experiences troubling thoughts in this chapter which lead to his departure. Which actions of Ron’s are a result of well-reasoned thought and which are emotional responses due to his wearing of the Horcrux? Would he have made the choices he did had he not been influenced by the Horcrux? Or would he have still chosen his worry over his family without the VoldySoul influence?” And I thought this was a really interesting question. A lot of people said that they were having issues with Ron and how whiny he is, particularly in this chapter. But there were some really interesting in-depth character analysis-es… analysis-sees? I don’t know how you would say that word. [laughs] And I’ve got four still quite lengthy comments to read and discuss. So here is the first one, and it is from Iamhuffledorhearmeroar. And I love your username.

Alison: Nice.

Rosie: [laughs] It says,

“Ron and Hermione in my mind very cleverly placed metaphors for Harry’s heart and mind as he goes on his journey to defeat Voldemort. Hermione is always the clever and methodical one, and that gives [H]arry insight and clarity in confusing situations, much like his mind. Ron is strong willed and yet very vulnerable at the same time. His reactions are almost always [of] his emotional side. In this way he is much like Harry’s own heart. When Ron does choose to leave, it is because of a cleverly placed metaphor on JK Rowling[‘]s part in which all [lose] heart. This also makes it all the more appropriate for Ron to be the one to abandon the group for a short time. [Losing] Ron is metaphorically the group [losing] heart in their daunting task. He is also the one most easily influenced by the Locket because he is most vulnerable in the group because he is the heart of the group.Therefore, he is reacting to the influence of the locket. This is also why he is given the [D]eluminator by Dumbledor[e]. Dumbledor[e] knows [to give] him the one thing that will allow him to find new hope. This in turn he shares with the group and give[s] the trio new hope in their quest to defeat the [D]ark [L]ord.”

So it’s really just saying that Ron is the absolute heart of the group and therefore is the emotional undercurrent throughout all of the tasks that they face in this book. Do you guys agree?

Steve: I think that puts it very well.

Alison: Yeah, no, I think this is really interesting, and I think that’s always been a really good kind of analysis of the trio and how supportive Ron and Hermione are of Harry and what their roles are in helping him finish his mission. So yeah, I think it’s… I’ve never thought about, though, the part where they say that it’s Rowling making us all lose heart because he disappears for a little while. So yeah, I like that.

Kat: And I think, too, it’s really the only thing that could make Hermione even for a second reconsider what they’re doing. And because her heart is also with Ron, so she’s not… that the group isn’t just losing his heart, so to say, but it’s losing Hermione’s as well.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: I think that the undercurrent of the amount of symbolism and the amount of emotion that went into Chapter 15 is partly why your episode was so long last week, Alison.

Alison: Yeah. [laughs]

Rosie: So to have that reflected succinctly in this comment, yeah, I would agree that that chapter is one where everything is looking very bleak. And they’re all losing their way on their path. And they had to lose Ron to…

Steve: So it’s like the Order of the Phoenix part of it.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: Yeah. Pretty much.

Steve: I was just thinking about the fact that Ron seems to fall off from the group. He did in the quest for the Philosopher’s Stone; he’s the one that got left behind. And when they went looking in the Chamber of Secrets, he got left behind. Poor Ron seems to be left behind a lot.

Alison: Oh, yeah.

Kat: I think that’s because sometimes you have to learn to follow your head and not your heart.

Alison and Steve: Ooh.

[Steve laughs]

Kat: I mean, I don’t know if that’s always true. But I feel like sometimes it’s true.

Alison: That was a very [unintelligible] to say.

Rosie: But your heart will always return stronger.

Kat: Right.

Steve: There you go.

[Rosie and Steve laugh]

Rosie: We’ll probably discuss this a bit more in a minute, so let’s have another comment and see what else comes out. The next one is from SlytherinKnight. This was an incredibly long response, and it’s a really, really interesting one. I would urge everyone to go and read it over on our site, but I’ve picked the third and shortest paragraph from that comment to read out to you guys because it’s quite a different way of looking at things, I think. And they say,

“All of Ron’s adventures at Hogwarts were in Hogwarts (outside of fifth year), and it came with the comforts of a warm bed, plenty of food, and being surrounded by the presence of Dumbledore, McGonagall, etc. And I think that stunted Ron in a way that he couldn’t handle the harsh realities that the Trio would face on their journey. Harry was easily the most prepared, and Hermione was mentally tough and stubborn enough to batter her way through it, but Ron had always been surrounded by friends and family, with the comforts of home, so to go from that to camping in the middle of nowhere with no clue on when their next meal would be[… ] Sure, some of that blame can be put on Dumbledore for not telling/giving Harry all the information he needed, but Ron, IMO, just wasn’t strong enough and hadn’t gone through the suffering and toughening up that Harry and Hermione had due to their childhoods.”

Alison: I think this just really goes back to the point we were talking about at the end of last week’s episode of Ron and his privilege and how he’s starting to see what his privilege was.

Rosie: Yeah.

Alison: And that was his loving, supportive family and his growing up in a really good situation. And yeah, I think that’s a really big character development for Ron; is to see what he’s had and to appreciate it a little bit more.

Kat: Well, definitely because he has always been the Weasley who wants everything that he doesn’t have. He wants wealth; he wants to be famous. He’s always picking on Harry because, “Oh, God, you’re famous. Everybody knows who you are and I’m just Ron Weasley, Harry’s stupid friend.” And I do think it’s an important moment for Ron to realize, you know what? His life hasn’t been all that bad. Maybe he wasn’t rich and didn’t have all the newest clothes and all that, but there are more to things in life than money and being famous.

Rosie: And I think it’s important that when we do rejoin Ron in a few chapters time, he actually says how uncomfortable he was feeling with Bill and Fleur when he actually got there. So it’s quite an immediate growing up that he experiences. As soon as he’s left Harry and Hermione and regains that aspect of comfort, he realizes that actually he really should be out there with his friends and he should be following through with the difficulties that they were going to face. So he does learn that lesson quite quickly and does grow a lot from it.

Kat: Mhm. Because he’s not stupid…

Alison: No.

Kat: … no matter what people tend to think about Ron. He has good intuition and he’s street smart, as they say.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: And so I do think that’s a very good point. I’m glad that he regretted it immediately, quite honestly.

Rosie: Yup.

Alison: Oh, yeah.

Kat: Because I would think significantly less of him if he hadn’t.

Alison: Yeah. And I think that goes back to this family aspect because I think he says something like, “How was I supposed to face everyone if I abandoned you?”

Rosie: Mhm.

Alison: He learned this loyalty and doing what’s right from his family, and yeah, I would have been disappointed if he hadn’t carried the lessons he learned growing up through to this.

Kat: Yeah, he wasn’t being very Gryffindor in that moment, was he?

Alison: No.

Rosie: And maybe that was due to the locket. So Socksareimportant says,

“I think Ron himself sums it up very nicely when he comes back; he says, ‘It made me think stuff, stuff I was thinking anyway, but it made everything worse.’ The Horcrux didn’t make Ron have troubling thoughts; it simply amplified them. I think with the lack of progress that the trio are making, Ron starts to think about what his purpose is within the group. Harry is there because he has the information about the Horcruxes and the prophecy. Hermione is being helpful with her book and spell knowledge. Ron just doesn’t know what to do to be helpful. I think Ron was always worried about his family. I think without the locket, it is possible that Ron still would have left, but it would have taken him much longer to leave. The locket acted as a catalyst.”

Kat: Hmm. I like the part of this comment where it says that Ron just doesn’t know what to do to be helpful.

Rosie: Mhm.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: Because I think that’s incredibly true. I feel like Ron has always… while he has good intuition and he definitely brings something to the trio, I definitely think that he has probably, personally, thought or felt a little useless at times. And I feel like that is probably a big part of how he felt in the time leading up to when he leaves. “What am I here for? What am I doing?” So I’m not entirely sure he would have left without the Horcrux because I think that Ron’s loyalty is one of his biggest strengths.

Alison and Steve: Yeah.

Steve: I don’t think he would have left without the Horcrux.

Kat: Yeah, not at all.

Steve: I think he would have thought about it and would have wanted to, in a way, but I don’t think he would have.

Kat: Yeah.

Steve: I think that was all the Horcrux’s doing.

Alison: Yeah. I don’t think he would have left. I think he might have done something maybe a little risky to try and get in contact with his family, but not abandon them.

Kat: Yeah, I could see that. And I do think that if Hermione had been like – which would never in a million years happen – “I’m out of here,” Ron would have been like, “All right, cool. I’m gone, too.” Because that would have given him a chance to leave.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: But Hermione would never leave, so Ron would have never left.

Rosie: I think it’s interesting. I agree with the really interesting thing being Ron doesn’t know what to do to be helpful, and if we are thinking about what the characters symbolize and that kind of thing, if Hermione is the head and the intellect, I think Ron has always seen himself as the brawn of the group, as the… all the way back in Philosopher’s Stone/Sorcerer’s Stone, whatever you want to call it, he was the knight on the horse that would go into battle and sacrifice himself.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: And I think one of the things that the movie does really well is reminding us in this scene that Ron is injured at this point. The movie shows him as still looking very ill, and still having his sling on, and all of this kind of thing. He’s been injured by the trip to the Ministry, and so I think if we want to continue all these symbolism talks, we could see Ron almost as if he’s like an amputee sufferer at this moment. He’s feeling like he’s lost the one thing that he can do. He’s lost the strength.

Alison and Steve: Yeah.

Rosie: He’s lost the ability to do something.

Kat: To protect, really.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: And he doesn’t know who to be anymore.

Kat: That’s a good point.

Rosie: So he leaves to try and escape the shame of that, I guess.

Kat: Yeah, because you definitely forget that he’s injured.

Rosie: Yeah.

Alison: Oh, yeah.

Kat: I mean, he did have a chunk of skin scooped out of his arm.

[Alison laughs]

Kat: That’s so gross.

Rosie: He only had Hermione and essence of dittany to heal him as well. It’s not like he had a team of Healers de-splinching him.

Kat: Right, exactly.

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: Of course, if I had to have somebody around, Hermione with some essence of dittany would be okay.

Kat: Yeah, yeah, I think that we would all…

Steve: It does add a Shakespearian quality to the pound of flesh.

Alison: Very true.

Kat: Oh, that’s true.

Rosie: Well, our final comment comes from Ilovelunalovegood, and it says,

“Ron implies that he had a conversation with Hermione, which Hermione doesn[‘]t deny. He says things that he felt, and when he comes back he accepts that it wasn[‘]t all the locket talking. The locket was clearly a catalyst and affected Ron the most for […] those reasons we have discussed; he was more emotionally available, more emotionally vulnerable and has arguably always been more worried and insecure than the other two. Without the locket, I imagine things wouldn[‘]t have been as dark among the trio, frustrations would have abounded, but they might have lasted longer together and gone to Godric’s Hollow together and then Lovegoods… nothing really changes in the plot :p I would point out that there the question shouldn’t narrow it to ‘well-reasoned thought’ versus ‘Horcrux influence’; a third option is ’emotional fears he would have been feeling regardless.’ Clearly, the Horcrux exaggerated those fears and even turned ‘well[-]reasoned’ fears into serious worries and anxieties.”

And I think we pretty much summarized all that in what we were saying earlier anyway, but that just neatly rounds it off into one nice comment for us.

Alison: Yeah. I think, too, that the thing that we’re maybe a little bit missing is that the Horcrux amplifies Ron’s emotional reaction, which I think had he not had it on [and] had that influence, he would have been able to think more logically about his emotional reaction. He can’t do head over heart or balance the two out.

Steve: What is the… was it illogical? Was it a good decision to wear that Horcrux?

Alison and Kat: No.

Steve: Why didn’t they just leave it on a bed post? Who cares? And what’s going to happen to it? If anything would come in there and get the Horcrux, it would get them first.

Rosie: Well, maybe that’s part of the Horcrux’s magic as well.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: It doesn’t just harness your insecurities, but one of your insecurities is that if we leave it alone it might get lost. It’s got some kind of safety net on it that, “You must keep me with you at all times.”

Steve: Quite often we see in the books that things happen which you can either say, “Okay, that’s just an obvious plot device,” or, “There’s some force to the magical items which force things to go their way.” I mean, why did Harry not take that Horcrux off before he dived into the water? He took everything else off.

Alison and Rosie: Yeah.

Steve: He’s got a big heavy locket there. Why didn’t it occur to him to take that off? Because I think the Horcrux does exactly what you say; “No, no, you want me by you.”

Rosie: We’ve seen that in all of the Horcruxes, thinking about it.

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: Mhm.

Rosie: So Dumbledore knows not to put on the ring and yet he does it anyway. There’s something compelling him to put on the ring.

Steve: Right. Yeah, very good point.

Rosie: Both Ginny and Harry feel compelled to write in that diary, not just read it…

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: … but write in it.

Steve: Mhm.

Kat: Yeah. I know you mentioned Dumbledore and the ring. I do think that there were other motivations to put on the ring.

Rosie: Yeah.

Alison: Oh, definitely.

Rosie: The Hallows…

Steve: But something had to overcome his incredibly well-honed sense of common sense.

Kat: Yes.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: When Harry uses the ring, he touches the stone and moves it. He doesn’t actually put the ring on this finger, which Dumbledore seems to do.

Alison: Oh, yeah. We kind of touched on this last week too when… we were talking about… I think it might have been Eric [who] brought up that there are instances in the magical world where things kind of walk away by themselves…

Rosie: Mhm.

Alison: … so that could have been a concern. Or even just that Harry has to have things in front of his face to remember that they’re there a lot of times.

[Rosie laughs]

Alison: And so it could have been that where he just felt the need to have it present all the time to remind him what he had to do. But it was a bad idea anyway.

Rosie: So those were our Question of the Week responses this week. Thank you, guys. There were so many more over on the site that I really do encourage you all to go and read; they are so interesting. Thank you all so much. Be listening out for our next Question of the Week at the end of the show.

Kat: Ooh, all right. So here we are at our chapter discussion.

[Deathly Hallows Chapter 16 intro begins]

Hermione: Chapter 16.

[Sound of church choir]

Hermione: “Godric’s Hollow.”

[Deathly Hallows Chapter 16 intro ends]

Kat: Okay, so here we are at Chapter 16. Ron is gone, Hermione is heartbroken, and Harry realizes that Ron was probably right. News of Hogwarts reaches their ears via the obnoxious portrait of Phineas Nigellus, and it seems that Dumbledore’s Army is trying to reform – yay! Harry finally convinces Hermione – I mean, kind of convinces… she wants to do it on her own anyway – that they need to make the trip to his birth place, and with the help of Mad-Eye’s favorite brew they descend on the Wizarding village and find the ghosts of Christmas past.

So before we get to Godric’s Hollow, which obviously is going to be a very large chunk of this discussion, I want to talk about a couple of things that happen inside of the tent. So they wake up seemingly the morning after Ron has left, and they’re packing up, getting ready to move, and Hermione is dawdling, as you do when you’re kind of missing somebody and hoping that they’ll come back. And Harry says that Ron would be able to re-enter the enchantments. So basically once they move, Ron wouldn’t be able to find them, but Ron has already left. So I’m wondering how he would be able to find them again. Is that just part[ly] because he was in the enchantments when they set them?

Alison: I don’t know if he could re-enter the enchantments, but he would at least know where they were… which he wouldn’t after they moved. So at least if he knew where they were, he could come and start shouting for them and they would probably run out and grab him.

Steve: Which is basically what he did later.

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: Remember he said he walked around, knew they were there, and was trying to figure out where when he did actually come back, so that makes sense.

Alison: But he can’t find them unless…

Steve: Mhm.

Rosie: I’m not so sure…

Steve: He has to somehow be able… almost like the Fidelius Charm.

Alison and Rosie: Yeah.

Steve: If you know where it is, you can go there but…

Rosie: But I think…

Steve: … once they move to a new spot…

Rosie: Yeah. I think with this particular enchantment, if you made some enchantments on your tent and then just stepped outside the perimeter and [were] never able to get back in again, that doesn’t seem very safe. I think because he was within the enchantments when they actually cast them this time, that would allow him to re-enter.

Alison: Okay, yeah.

Steve: That makes sense.

Rosie: But then… yeah, he wouldn’t find them this time.

Kat: Okay, so he’s included because he was there when the enchantments were cast.

Rosie: Yeah.

Steve: Mhm.

Rosie: Otherwise you would never be able to step more than ten feet away from your tent. [laughs]

Alison: Yeah. [laughs] How could they know where that boundary is if it’s invisible?

Kat: Yeah, that’s a good point.

Alison: How do they know when they’ve gone too far outside of it?

Rosie: And Hermione left…

Kat: I wonder if it’s just like a standard range or something.

Alison and Rosie: Yeah. Maybe.

Kat: Or it’s kind of like wherever you walk around and cast them is where the boundary is.

Rosie: Yeah. So maybe you always just count twenty steps away.

Steve: I almost think of it like one of those dog collar things that should kind of give the sensation of…

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Steve: Not to make light of it, but as you get close to that edge you’re going, “Oh, okay, I’m getting there. I can feel that magical energy,” or whatever.

Alison: I guess that’s kind of the route the movie takes because they show the invisibile wall.

Steve: Mhm.

Alison: Yeah. Huh.

Kat: I don’t know about any of you, but I also laughed pretty hard when Hermione has her moment, and then Harry’s like, “What, what, what?” and he turns around expecting to see a Death Eater unzipping the tent.

Alison: Yeah. [laughs]

Kat: I laughed pretty hard at that moment because – I don’t know – I feel like Harry should probably trust Hermione’s casting spells. Oh, but I guess… yeah, this is her at this point.

Steve: [unintelligible]

Rosie: It just shows how on edge they all are, I guess.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah, I suppose. I don’t know, I just laughed. So we mentioned Phineas a little bit, and he gets a little bit of play in this chapter finally. Hermione has taken to setting him out in a chair, and Harry thinks that perhaps it’s probably to kind of fill the void that Ron has left, which I think is pretty cute.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: Poor Hermione, missing her man and doesn’t even really understand why yet. So how much do we think that Phineas knows at this point? Because obviously we find out later that he has been tasked by Snape to find out where they are, right? I’m not wrong in that?

Alison: Mhm. Yeah.

Kat: Right, okay. So how much is he playing along with egging them on with everything he says about Snape and Hogwarts and all of that?

Alison: Well…

Steve: I think he totally is.

Alison: Oh, yeah.

[Alison and Kat laughs]

Alison: He’s a Slytherin. He’s using whatever he can to achieve his ends.

Steve: That picture from later of Dumbledore and Snape and Phineas Nigellus all together trying: “Okay, what are we going to do? How are we going to get there? How is this going to work? Can you get in touch?” It’s this little group of the most improbable three conspirators you can possibly imagine trying to manipulate things from off-scene. I just find it a little bit strange that a portrait of Phineas Nigellus happens to come along on the camping trip from hell.

[Alison, Kat, and Rosie laugh]

Steve: It’s a little bit of a stretch. [She] wasn’t even sure she was going to take all her library books, but she takes a portrait of Phineas Nigellus…

Alison: Well, it makes sense why she’s stuffed it in the bag, though.

Steve: Right. Yeah, I get that.

Alison: It was almost accidental.

Steve: It’s a bit handy, a little bit handy.

Kat: It is. What is she supposed to do with it after they leave Grimmauld place? She can’t just toss it somewhere.

Alison: Just throw it out. [laughs]

Kat: Yeah. At least he is there. I suppose if I were Hermione, I would want that around because it is some sort of connection to the outside world, even if it is just to the headmaster’s office at Hogwarts.

Steve: So it’s her version of Potterwatch, kind of.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah, at least at the moment, I think.

Steve: Mhm. I guess… what I just said was a little scoffing at the idea that she carries this around, but on the other hand, yeah, in her mind this is okay. This gives us a connection back to the Hogwarts end of things, and in some way we can keep track of what’s going on.

Rosie: And it’s Hermione…

Steve: That’s true.

Rosie: … so she’s looking for the help of an adult there as well – not only an adult but a past headmaster of Hogwarts.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: So, it’s someone with authority and someone who should know what they’re doing if they ever really did need help.

Steve: Mhm.

Kat: Someone that she may not necessarily trust but also trusts?

Alison and Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: If that makes sense.

Rosie: With enough learning that it counts to her.

Alison: It’s a huge thing with all of them in this book that they’re all looking for someone they can look up to and rely on, and this is Hermione.

Steve: Another example of how well Rowling writes her characters.

Alison: Mhm.

Kat: Oh, she’s a genius.

Steve: When you see the subtlety of their mental state, at their age, at their suddenly being thrust into this situation of having to be adults, which they’re not in a sense yet, they’re way out of their depth in some ways but having to figure it out. Truly impressive the way she writes it.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: It is, I think. And that’s something that we praise a lot, Jo’s ability to make teenagers real.

Alison and Steve: Mhm.

Kat: And I think that this emotional stuff – for lack of a better term – is really strong, very powerful.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: I’ve been thinking about this: Who do we think Phineas’s allegiances lie with? Do we think it’s to the school in general?

Rosie: I think he’s magically bound to be allegiant with the headmaster.

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: To help the headmaster. Mhm.

Rosie: So that has to be part of it.

Alison: But I think for the most part, he’s kind of in it for himself.

Rosie: Yeah.

Alison: I feel like he’s probably extremely curious about what they’re doing anyway.

Kat: But he’s just a portrait, so how can he be in it for himself?

Rosie: Well, all the headmaster portraits seem to have quite a lot of the personality of the headmasters.

Steve: Mhm.

Rosie: They’re the most magically enchanted of all the portraits, if possible. They’ve got so much of their knowledge and so much of their personality that is designed to guide people that they seem to be just that much more fully formed than other portraits that we meet.

Steve: I would agree with that, yeah. But what if they wouldn’t have ended up with a portrait of Phineas Nigellus along? How would they have worked this out?

Rosie: Well, Snape never would’ve managed to give them…

Steve: How would Snape have managed this?

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: This is very, very fortunate that that happened. They would have had to come up with something else.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah, I’m not sure what Jo could have substituted for this, because Phineas Nigellus makes so many things happen and connects them to different parts of the story in different ways.

Rosie: I guess maybe the two-way mirror would’ve been more of a key feature.

Alison: Yeah. Maybe he would have sent house-elves. [laughs]

Kat: [laughs] Maybe.

Alison: Pulled a Harry.

Rosie: Poor Dobby.

Kat: Either way, it would’ve been cut from the movie, so it doesn’t really matter.

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Kat: So I guess since we’re speaking of portraits, we’ll move on and talk a little bit about Hogwarts. It comes up a few times in this chapter obviously because Phineas is at Hogwarts, and he’s giving them little bits and bobs about what’s happening there, and Harry is missing Hogwarts big time. He’s starting to pull out the Marauders’ Map and looking at people and watching them and…

Alison: Aww!

Kat: … hoping that Ginny will feel his stare when he’s looking at her in the Gryffindor common room. A little bit creepy…

[Alison laughs]

Steve: Oh, I’m not going creepy on that. No, I’m not going creepy on that.

Kat: No, it’s mostly…

Alison: I don’t think it’s that creepy; I think it’s just…

Steve: It is. Let’s face it, it’s super creepy…

[Alison and Kat laugh]

Steve: But you know what, it’s…

Alison: At least he’s not standing over her actually.

Steve: Watching her sleep. I saw that in a movie somewhere.

Kat: Yeah, exactly. So, Harry imagines Ron back at Hogwarts, and the book says that he keeps waiting to see Ron’s little bubble pop up with his name there…

Steve: Mhm.

Kat: … because he’s protected by his pureblood status. But I was thinking, wouldn’t Ron be questioned pretty harshly…

Alison and Steve Oh, yeah.

Kat: … due to not only his relationship to Harry, but the supposed Spattergroit?

Steve: Yeah, he wouldn’t have been protected at all.

Alison: No.

Kat: Yeah. That’s what I thought, too.

Rosie: I think… was it…

Steve: Isn’t his poster one of the three at the… although, maybe that’s movie…

Rosie: That’s movie.

Steve: I thought he was one of the Undesirables that…

Rosie: Within the information that Harry found in the Ministry, it says that the Ministry believes that Ron is at home, ill with Spattergroit, so he’s not believed to be off with Harry at the moment. But saying that they were all spotted at the Ministry as a trio, I think that cover might have been blown…

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: So yeah, it’s a bit naive of Harry to think that Ron would go back to Hogwarts. And it’s definitely naive of Harry to think that Ron would go back to Hogwarts because Ron is not so academic.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Kat: Right. Exactly.

[Steve laughs]

Rosie: Probably not going to go back to school without his friends.

Steve: No, I can imagine him going back to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.

Rosie: Yeah, exactly.

Alison: Yeah.

[Steve laughs]

Alison: Well, I feel like that thought was more a little bit… it’s just an angry thought.

Rosie: Yeah.

Alison: Because Harry is mad at Ron.

Steve: Yeah. Mhm.

Rosie: And it’s wishful thinking just to have some kind of way of seeing…

Alison: Yeah. And almost, too, maybe because that’s what Harry wishes he could do.

Kat and Rosie: Yeah.

Alison: Harry wishes he could just give up and go back…

Rosie: Aww.

Alison: And so, maybe he’s self-projecting onto Ron.

Kat: And he even mentions that. He’s like, “Oh, but wait, I can’t go back. Hogwarts is basically the Ministry of Magic these days.”

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: Mhm.

Kat: Danger-wise. Which I understand why he would say that because of Snape, but I’m not sure the danger level is the same personally because there are other teachers there. There’s Snape, who is bad, but “not really”…

[Alison laughs]

Rosie: But there’s also the Carrows.

Kat: Personally, I don’t truely believe that.

Rosie: There’s a direct line to Voldemort at the school at the moment…

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: … even more…

Kat: Yeah, right. Through the Carrows.

Rosie: … than the Ministry…

Kat: I don’t know, I still don’t see Hogwarts on the same danger level as the Ministry.

Steve: It would have really put Snape in a weird position, though.

Kat: Mhm. It would have.

Alison: [laughs] Oh, yeah.

Steve: Because his cover would have had to have been blown at some point. He can’t… he would have had to sit Harry down and say, “Look, I’m really on your side, okay?”

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Steve: “Work with me here.” Because what else could he have done?

Rosie: There would have been no way it would have worked.

Alison: [unintelligible]

Rosie: The showdown would have happened a lot sooner had Harry gone to Hogwarts.

Alison: Oh, yeah.

Kat: Okay, so Harry finally… I’m not sure he gives up the idea of returning to Hogwarts, but at some point he peels himself away from the Marauder’s Map and from staring at Ginny, and they start to talk about the Deathly Hallows symbol, which Hermione finds in Beedle the Bard when she’s perusing it. And she has Harry look at it and she’s like, “What is this?” And Harry says, “Oh, that’s Grindelwald’s mark. Krum told me.” And Hermione’s kind of flabbergasted because she had never heard of that before. And then she brings up the point that “Why didn’t Scrimgeour recognize it?” And I think that’s a pretty valid point.

Steve: Yeah, he spent 31 days poking all over the thing.

Kat: Yeah.

Alison: Because I don’t think it was very well-known, that connection between Grindelwald and that symbol. Because Krum talks about it mostly by saying that Grindelwald had put it on the walls and in books and stuff at Durmstrang.

Kat and Rosie: Mhm.

Alison: So I feel like that’s a very Durmstring – I can’t speak today – Durmstrang [laughs] central idea that it’s connected to Grindelwald.

Rosie: Yeah.

Alison: So I don’t think that anyone outside of that – people who had gone to that school – would think of that.

Rosie: If we think about how long it’s been between Triwizard Tournaments and the fact that international Muggle/Wizarding relations haven’t been that great between the different Wizarding schools for years and years and years, maybe there really aren’t that many students from Durmstrang that actually interact with students from Hogwarts. And Scrimgeour definitely went to Hogwarts rather than somewhere else, so if he doesn’t have any knowledge of the Hallows, which he definitely doesn’t seem to have, there’s no reason for him to know it.

Kat: Which surprises me because the Hallows [are] supposed to be this urban legend.

Alison: But I don’t…

Rosie: But it’s a very small urban legend. The fairytale is known …

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: … more than the actual myth behind it.

Steve: It’s definitely a niche thing.

Rosie: Yeah.

Steve: And I don’t think… it’s not really Grindelwald’s mark.

Rosie: No.

Kat: Right.

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: They’re interpreting it that way, but it’s really just he’s after the Hallows – that was a big deal to him – so he made the mark on the wall. People misinterpreted that as being his symbol, but [it’s] not. He was just putting down some other symbol.

Rosie: Celebrating having the wand perhaps.

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: Right.

Kat: Okay, so we’re saying that Scrimgeour didn’t recognize it because it was just too small of a myth…

Rosie: Yeah.

Steve: Right.

Kat: … to get.

Steve: Yeah.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: But it’s in a children’s story.

Rosie: But not the Hallows itself…

Alison: But it’s not… yeah.

Rosie: Not the symbol.

Steve: Not the Hallows.

Alison: The symbol isn’t in there.

Rosie: Only people who know the symbol… only the people that know the original myth know the symbol. It’s drawn by Dumbledore above the story in that particular copy of the book.

Kat: I suppose.

Steve: Right. Yeah, it’s not actually… am I correct in thinking when it says it was drawn in ink…

Alison: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s hand-drawn.

Kat: … that it was Dumbledore himself [who] added that symbol as a little flag for Hermione: “hey, pay attention here”?

Rosie: So more to the point…

Steve: Could have been a little more clear, but…

Rosie: All of the other stories in Beedle the Bard have a little symbol above them – they have little illustration. Why doesn’t the Tale of the Three Brothers? That’s a bit odd, publishers. What are you doing? [laughs]

Alison: Maybe Dumbledore got rid of it.

Steve: Or maybe it does. It just doesn’t mention that because Dumbledore also added his own.

Rosie: Maybe.

Kat: Right.

Steve: Whoever art-directed that book needs to have a look at it again.

[Rosie laughs]

Alison: Or maybe Dumbledore used magical Wite-Out to white out whatever was actually there and draw in his own.

[Everyone laughs]

Steve: The opposite of a revealer.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah, I suppose, huh. So I guess since we brought up some magical white-out, we’re going to talk about another little magical potion here: As I mentioned, Mad-Eye’s favorite brew, Polyjuice Potion. So Hermione finally agrees to go to Godric’s Hollow, but she has all these contingencies: They have to be under the Invisibility Cloak and they have to take Polyjuice Potion, and I feel like there’s something else…

Steve: Well, after she realizes they’re leaving marks in the snow…

Kat: Oh, right. Erase the footsteps.

Steve: … she wants to have them march along and erase the footsteps behind them.

Kat: Right, and Harry’s like, “No, just stop.” But…

Steve: “We don’t even look like us.”

Kat: No. But I was wondering if the Polyjuice… do we think that the Horcrux could affect physical magic like Polyjuice in any way? Because Harry’s wearing the locket… probably not, but I wanted to at least discuss it.

Alison: I think there’s a difference between potions and magic from your wand, because we do see it affect Harry’s ability to make a Patronus. But I feel like potions are going to be different, and the Horcrux seems more intent on messing with mental and emotional states than physical states.

Steve: Sure.

Rosie: And that’s why it affects the Patronus as well, because of the emotional connection to create that spell.

Alison: Yeah. So my inclination would be… it’s not going to affect use of a potion.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah. I was inclined to think that as well, but I thought it was an interesting thought anyway. And Steve, since you had brought up the footprints, I laughed incredibly hard because they’re taking all these precautions, and then they just Apparate into the middle of the square and it’s snowing…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: And so…

Steve: Actually, they Apparate up the street.

Kat: Oh.

Steve: They don’t Apparate into the square.

Kat: Well, either way, their footprints just start in the middle of the road.

Alison: [laughs] Yeah.

Kat: And it made me laugh. Plus, they’re using their real names, and I feel like you should probably be using different names if you don’t want to draw attention to yourself. I don’t know, just a couple things I thought of.

Steve: Yeah, once they actually got there, all pretense fell away and they just went for it.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah, it really did, actually.

Steve: I think they felt safe there.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: They did feel safe there. And they leaned on each other a lot. There were a lot of really nice Harmony moments in this chapter, for all the shippers out there.

Steve: Mhm. Yeah.

Kat: And rewind just a little bit, before they left, I thought there was this great moment when Harry is talking to Hermione about Godric’s Hollow, [and] he compares her to McGonagall.

Alison: As he should!

Kat: Yeah. And it’s a parallel that we draw a lot, but I thought it was just great that Harry finally recognized it.

Rosie: But is it in asking for permission as well: “Please, can I go to Hogsmeade, Hermione? Please?”

[Alison, Kat, and Rosie laugh]

Kat: Yeah, right, exactly. Well, he knows his place.

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Steve: Speaking as a husband, it didn’t even strike me as odd.

Kat: Oh, boy.

[Steve laughs]

Kat: And two, in that moment, Hermione is like, “Oh, you never connected the fact that Godric Gryffindor… it was named after him?”

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: And I was thinking, obviously they have A History of Magic and they’re supposed to read it for their classes or whatever – obviously Harry never does – but is there not some sort of welcome letter with a brief history of the house?

Alison: Nope.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: “This was named for Godric Gryffindor, who was born here, and this happened here.” I feel like that’s something that should happen.

Rosie: Yeah, but it’s a school. No one’s got time for that. [laughs]

Alison: Yeah. I feel like…

Kat: Okay, so you didn’t get a welcome letter when you got into Oxford?

Rosie: Not explaining the history of New College, no. I had to find it out myself.

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: Do you know that when it says… his response is that he opened it just the once. You know when that was, right?

Rosie: Yeah. But that’s what has always bugged me about Harry. You’ve discovered this whole new magical world, and you aren’t in the slightest bit interested to find out anything about it?

Alison: [laughs] I know!

Steve: Do you know… the one thing he got from that book, the one thing, was the name of his owl.

Rosie: Yeah.

Alison: [laughs] Yeah!

Steve: He opened it up, he found the name Hedwig, went with that, and he never opened it again.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Steve: Because he says he only opened it once, so there you go.

Alison: Well…

Steve: That was the one time.

Alison: He opens it twice, doesn’t he? Because he’s writing that essay about witch burnings.

Rosie: Yeah, he has to open it a couple of times, but he’s never actually paid attention to it more than once.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: That’s what he means.

Steve: I just get such a kick out of that.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Yeah.

Steve: And then she writes that he smiles, and his face… his muscles are stiff because he hasn’t smiled in so long.

Kat and Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: Oh, it’s so sad.

Steve: Mhm. Brace yourself, it gets sadder.

Alison: I know.

Kat: Yeah, I know. Not ready for that.

[Steve laughs]

Kat: They’re in Godric’s Hollow now and they’re walking around, and they come upon this little church. And it mentions that people think that the little church is haunted, and it reminded me so much of the Shrieking Shack.

Rosie: Mhm.

Kat: I just thought about all the ghoulish things that could happen in there, especially in a Wizarding village. It could be anything.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: Okay. So they walk through the square and they come upon this war memorial which… I guess it never really struck me before. I mean, I understood the significance of it, but it’s a statue of three people. It says, “a man with untidy hair and glasses, a woman with long hair and a kind, pretty face, and a baby boy sitting in his mother’s arms.” And that is just so sad, and also probably slightly weird if I were Harry.

Rosie: Yup. [laughs]

Alison: Yeah. [laughs]

Steve: Yeah.

Kat: Because he’s never had the chance to really interact with his parents, and here is this statue of them with him as a baby. Who knows how long it’s been there? I don’t know.

Alison: I would say it was fairly recently – not recently – fairly soon after everything happened.

Rosie: Yeah. I would think within a year of it actually happening and them celebrating the fall of Voldemort.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: So you think that’s what it symbolizes then?

Alison: Oh, yeah. Or even just… I don’t know if it’s the fall of Voldemort or if it’s the wizarding community of Godric’s Hollow mourning the loss of this little family that I’m sure they…

Rosie: Yeah.

Steve: It’s a war memorial.

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: It’s a memorial to those lost in the war.

Rosie: Yeah. And their deaths ended the war as well. Their deaths was the fall of Voldemort, so they become the symbol in the way that Harry is the Boy Who Lived. That statue is the statue of the Boy Who Lived.

Alison: Yeah. And I would assume that community – the wizarding community in that town – would be fairly close. I mean, there are several of them there, so I feel like it would have felt… I mean, I guess they were in hiding, but there would have been some connection to…

Rosie: Yeah.

Alison: They’ve lost important people of their own.

Steve: Mhm. Right.

Rosie: This statue and the graffiti and everything around the house is honestly one of my favorite things about this book.

Alison: Yeah. Oh, I know.

Rosie: And all the times that I’ve gone to the studio tour and every time I see that house, I just wish there was some kind of messenger board that people who actually visited the set could write on.

Alison: Yeah! Yeah!!

Rosie: I want that to become an idea, because that would just be so gorgeous.

Kat: Okay, I feel like I need to pass that on to my Studio Tour friends.

Alison: Yeah, where they could have the ones that are in the book, but then people could add… oh, man.

Rosie: Yeah. Because the books have affected so many people’s lives in the same way that Harry does within the books. So, that wall would become something that would be self-fulfilling prophecy. It would be amazing. I would love to see that.

Alison: Oh, that would be beautiful. Oh my gosh.

Steve: That would be amazing. That would be…

Alison: I’m going to cry.

Kat: I’m legitimately going to pass that on to them, Rosie.

Rosie: Good! Yay! [laughs]

Alison: [laughs] Yeah.

Kat: That’s such a good idea.

Rosie: I think it every time I go, it’s just… yeah. I love this moment in the books, just the whole town, the whole village of Godric’s Hollow. From growing up in the English countryside and having all of these little villages with a church and a war memorial and all those kind of things in the little thatched houses like their house would have been is just… this description of this village is perfectly evoking what it’s like to have a sleepy village in the English countryside. And for it to be exactly how I would imagine it but magical and to be all about these characters and this story and all that kind of thing, I just love Godric’s Hollow. This is where I want to live. [laughs]

Alison: Yeah. [laughs]

Kat: Well, Steve, you were telling me before that you found a village that fits the description in your travels.

Steve: Yeah, I wrote about it in my book, In Search of Harry Potter. We did a lot of investigating, trying to find the village because, as you say, there are many villages which fit this description. But we focused on North Devon, because that’s where it’s supposed to be, and tried to find one which had the right arrangement of road… which is why I mentioned, no, they didn’t come into the square…

[Rosie laughs]

Steve: They were up the street, because I can remember looking at the maps and trying to find one which had a street in the right place, a little road coming into the square, that had the war memorial, that had the church in the right place, so you would logically come down this direction. And we did find a little village that fit all of the descriptions and spent… we started where they would have Apparated in and then came walking down toward the church and past the war memorial. And very, very interesting, the kissing gate, they actually had one pretty much like the one in the book. But then we went on through, and it had just rained, and so there was this beautiful sunshine trying to come out through the clouds. What was interesting for me as an American, I was expecting to see a pointy steeple on a church, which in retrospect is crazy because that’s very much an American picture. But the church, actually, in this little town, had the Norman style square top on it. And we were walking through, looking at all the gravestones because our goal was to try to find at least one name that could have been a wizarding name. And we walked around, and my girlfriend at the time was looking and she was a little bit off to the side, and I was looking down right along the back fence area and all of a sudden she said, “Lily.” And I turned around and she was staring at a gravestone, and I went over there, and the names Lily and James were on this gravestone.

Kat: No.

Steve: And so we kind of stood there and it still gives me goosebumps to think about that moment. We stood there just kind of staring at this thing, saying this can’t be. [laughs] You know? Seriously, really, this can’t be! And there we stood in this little churchyard in North Devon and…

Rosie: Could you remember the name of the village?

Steve: Of course. And it’s funny because we stayed at the inn there that night, and I remember I was writing that afternoon after we had, before we went down and had dinner. And I was writing about the experience of coming into the town and everything and as I was writing, some school kids were getting left off and I kept thinking to myself, “I wonder if they realize that I am right now writing that their little village is the dead ringer for Godric’s Hollow?”

Alison: Hmm.

Steve: And they were clueless, of course. That was one of those moments, writing and researching that book, that’s just amazing to me that’s just mind-boggling. And I couldn’t believe it. Now to be fair, James was the guy’s middle name. Lily was the first name of the woman on the gravestone, and the man’s middle name was James. But even still, just to find those two names right next to each other, on a gravestone, in this little village which matched the description perfectly from the book was stunning.

Kat: Yeah, that doesn’t bother me. I don’t care that it’s his middle name.

Alison: Yeah, nope.

Kat: That’s perfect.

Steve: No, uh-uh, because I figured that just like… I’m a Muggle, so I couldn’t see it properly.

Kat: Right. Oh, there you go. Perfect.

Alison: Yeah, I’m going to need to know where that was, because [laughs] trip planning time.

Steve: It’s in the book.

Kat: Yeah, you’ll have to find the book I guess, huh? It’s funny that you mentioned kind of how powerful and meaningful that moment was for you, because, well, obviously I think we’d all like to walk through there. But Harry has moment where he’s thinking about how meaningful it would have been to visit Godric’s Hollow with Dumbledore.

Steve: Yeah.

Kat: And how much it would have meant to him to share in this history of what Harry I think is becoming realize is how similar their lives were in a lot of ways.

Steve: Yeah, and I wonder if Dumbledore would have felt the same way because I feel like Dumbledore spent a majority of his life running away from that. From what he saw as this tremendous failing on his part, the tremendous personal cost that it was that he had to pay for his foolishness and his folly. I think that means, just the simple fact that he never trusted himself to be with anyone for the rest of his entire life, you know, this very, very long life. He chose to spend his life alone, because of the mistake that he made in trusting one person, in loving one person, a hundred years ago, that he kind of there’s a lot of similarities between him and Snape, who obsessively hangs on to the memory of the one person and the things that happened in the past.

Kat: Oh, I’m so glad you didn’t use the word “love,” thank you.

Alison: [laughs] Yeah.

Steve: Oh! No, that’s… no. Okay. I know where you’re at with that. No, no. I would not use the word “love” in that case.

Alison: Good.

Kat: Yeah, I think that that’s true, and it sad that Dumbledore reacted that way but I suppose that’s not an uncommon thing.

Steve: But then you just wonder, because Harry wonders what it would have been like for him. What would it have been like for Dumbledore, to go with Harry, and the two of them face back their pasts, together?

Kat: Yup, yup.

Steve: That may have been very, very cleansing and an epiphanal moment for Dumbledore to have gone back to Godric’s Hollow in that mode.

Kat: Yup.

Steve: Would have been interesting.

Kat: Do we think… so where is Dumbledore right now? Because…

Steve: He’s dead.

Kat: No, I know that, but… I mean, I know that…

[Everyone laughs]

Steve: It’s in another book.

[Alison laughs]

Steve: Maybe… did I just spoil that for you? I’m so sorry.

Kat: Damn it, Steve. No, I mean…

[Steve laughs]

Kat: He shows up later at King’s Cross, which is some kind… [sighs]

Rosie: I’m not always… yeah.

Kat: In Harry’s head, but not in Harry’s head.

Rosie: I don’t think that that Dumbledore is really Dumbledore. I think that’s…

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: … Harry’s Dumbledore.

Kay: Yeah.

Rosie: I think Dumbledore…

Kat: Okay.

Rosie: … has moved. He went to join his family.

Kat: Yeah, he’s with his family wherever that may be.

Rosie: Yup.

Kat: Yeah.

Steve: As Luna says, “It’s not like we’ll never see them again.”

Kat: Right. Aww.

Steve: So that’s where he is.

Kat: Yeah.

Alison: Aww.

Steve: He’s finally got his deep desire that he would have seen in the Mirror of Erised.

Kat: Socks?

[Kat and Rosie laughs]

Steve: No, being [laughs] back together with his family and probably wearing socks.

Kat: Probably wearing socks, yeah.

Steve: Yeah. [laughs]

Kat: So I guess speaking of getting back together with family, they’re walking down the street towards the church and that they… Harry is thinking about the place that he grew up and the little cottage. And on page 323 of the American edition, he says, “He was not even sure whether he’d be able to see the cottage at all. He did not know what happened when the subjects of a Fidelius Charm died.” False.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: He does know what happens actually.

Alison: He does. [laughs]

Rosie: But I guess…

Kat: And that stood out to me a lot this time.

Rosie: There’s a difference there where the Fidelius Charm on that house was a very small, little known Fidelius Charm. Only one person supposedly knew the truth. And that person turned out to be the one that betrayed them et cetera. But with Grimmauld Place, they all knew the secret and it all kind of ballooned out from there. So it’s a very different thing.

Kat: Do you think so, though? I’m not sure the Fidelius Charm cares about how many people is included.

Alison: Well, I think so if it too, could be: there is an explosion in this house.

Rosie: True. Yup. [laughs]

Alison: And I wonder if that that influences magic in that…

Rosie: Like the actual house is pretty historic.

Kat: It was a magical explosion so…

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: … I suppose that’s possible.

Rosie: And it also… is the Fidelius Charm on the house or is it on the people inside?

Alison: Oh, yeah.

Rosie: Probably the house.

Steve: So I think the one on Grimmauld Place, I think was on the house.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: Right.

Steve: But this one is actually on the people. So he’s wondering what would happen if there was a Fidelius Charm on specific people and if those people died, I think he has never studied hard enough to know the answer to…

Rosie: Yeah.

Steve: Well, it’s not all that tricky of a question…

[Rosie laughs]

Steve: … quite honestly.

Kat: He’s never studied…

Steve: He should have paid a little more attention…

[Rosie laughs]

Steve: … in Flitwick’s class and he probably would have been good.

Rosie: I think it’s a momentary worry that he’s actually in this place now…

Steve: Mhm.

Rosie: … and he’s not quite sure what’s going to happen. So it’s one of those…

Steve: Right. Where he’s thinking, “Where I am I going to find it?” Mhm.

Kat: Right. He just wants to experience that emotional moment so much that… then I guess…

Steve: Right.

Kat: … I never thought about the fact that it was on the people and not on the house. So…

Rosie: Well, we don’t…

Steve: I’m just saying when we were in out version of Godric’s Hollow, we found a nice open field with a gate that went nowhere that we decided that’s where it was.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: But you couldn’t see it…

Rosie: The Fidelius Charm still exists.

Kat: … because Muggles.

Steve: Well, no but… well, clearly yeah because I couldn’t see it, so…

Kat: Yeah. [laughs] Exactly.

Rosie: But Hermione can see it as well, can’t she?

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: Mhm.

Rosie: So the Charm has to have been broken for Hermione to be able to see it. Whereas…

Kat: Right.

Rosie: … with Grimmauld Place, the Charm was passed on as far as we know.

Steve: Oh! Because you’re saying… I never thought about that because Harry would still be able to see it because…

Rosie: He was there.

Steve: The spell was cast on him as well.

Rosie: Yup.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: Whereas Hermione had no connection to the house.

Steve: Ooh! That’s right.

Rosie: But, then again, the other thing would be that once they died, the whole of the wizarding world knew where they died and knew what had happened in that house. So does the Fidelius Charm…

Steve: That’s true.

Rosie: … then break because everyone finally finds out where it was because everyone has been told?

Steve: That’s the way I look at it. I think that the Charm broke at that point…

Rosie: Yeah.

Steve: … because the subjects are no longer alive. And then the aftermath is, “Quick, get in there and hide the evidence and throw a few Memory Charms around.” But actually the way I looked at but, I never thought that it would linger.

Kat: But they don’t quite make it to the cottage in this chapter; that’s the next chapter. But they do, in fact, make it to the graveyard. And this… the whole chapter has been leading up to this moment. Harry has mentioned before that, “Yeah, sure maybe the sword is going to be there,” but he really just wants to go and have an emotional experience with the place that he grew up and with his parents. And before we get to James and Lily, Hermione and Harry are walking through the graveyard looking, as different people but still using their real names, which I still find very odd.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Hermione has a bit of a moment and goes, “Oh, look… oh, wait. No, sorry I thought it said Potter.” But in fact she finds Ignotus Peverell’s grave, however we’re not given a last name.

Alison: Isn’t that his last name? Peverell?

Rosie: Yeah, Peverell is his last name.

Kat: Yes, I know that, but in this chapter…

Steve: It isn’t mentioned in this chapter.

Kat: … it’s not mentioned.

Alison: Oh.

Steve: So what did she see that made her think it was Potter?

Kat: Right, and also I mean that’s clearly intentional because later if we had been given the last name at this point later on when Beedle the Bard, when The Tale of the Three Brothers is read that would have been a connection that I think we would have automatically made.

Rosie: But the brothers’ names aren’t mentioned in the story.

Kat: But…

Rosie: What… Kat… do you have…

Kat: … Xenophilius mentions them.

Rosie: Yeah, okay. Do you have the book on you, Kat? What does it actually say in that line then? Because I’ve always… I’d forgotten that it hadn’t mentioned Peverell.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah, so there are several different parts. So this line says, “‘Here,’ cried Hermione again a few moments later out of the darkness. ‘Oh, no, sorry. I thought it said Potter.'” and then Harry walks over and she goes, “Harry, look that’s the mark on the book.” And they start talking about it and then it says, “Hermione lit her wand and pointed it at the name on the headstone. ‘It says Ignotus, I think'”, and then Harry says, “I’m going to keep looking for my parents, all right.” and then walks away. Yeah, I just thought it was very telling that the last name at that moment isn’t given to us.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: Meant to keep us guessing, I suppose.

Rosie: The fact that it is Ignotus in that graveyard is kind of important because Ignotus is the one who is given the Cloak of Invisibility, and therefore Ignotus is the one who is Harry’s ancestor. So it just proves that his ancestry, his line, has been in Godric’s Hollow all the way back to the original Deathly Hallows. For Harry.

Alison: Right, yeah, which makes me think even more that James and his family had been living there beforehand.

Rosie: Yeah, definitely.

Alison: Before the deadliest turn, and so the Potters were definitely a part of this community in this village, and their loss would have hit them hard.

Kat: Yeah, I think that’s a good point. I’ve never… I mean I guess I’ve thought about that, but I never made the connection, because we don’t know if the other two were there.

Rosie: Yeah.

Kat: Because it’s not mentioned.

Alison: Yeah.

Steve: Right.

Kat: But we assume that they’re not.

Rosie: And it’s just quite a nice symbolism as well, you know, Ignotus is the one who gets the Cloak. The Cloak is hiding… for the Potters to go into hiding in Godric’s Hollow, it just is what that niceness wrapping up into there. [laughs]

Kat: Yeah, it is for sure. So Harry leaves Hermione looking at that grave, and he’s walking around and he stumbles upon a couple of other surnames of friends he went to Hogwarts with. He finds probably a distant relation of Hannah Abbott in here. We assume that he found others, but it doesn’t really mention. But eventually, hears Hermione’s voice from far away and she says, “Harry, they’re here. Right here.” And so he goes over, and they’re at the tombstone of James and Lily Potter, and it’s mentioned in here specifically that it’s made of white marble. Just like Dumbledore’s tomb, and so I decided that that was probably a pretty important detail, so I did a little bit of research about the symbolism of white marble. I mean, surprisingly there wasn’t a whole lot, but most of what the website said was that it’s a symbol of purity and immortality. Which I thought was very interesting considering the Hallows, and how entrenched that is in Harry’s family history. Immortality, because isn’t it Dumbledore that puts the headstone together? For James and Lily.

Alison: Yeah, I think so.

Steve: I don’t know about that. Oh, I was thinking about the one for Kendra and Ariana.

Alison: Oh yeah, who… does it say who did James and Lily’s?

Kat: Because who can it be?

Alison: It can’t be Sirius, because Sirius is in Azkaban.

Kat: I’m 99% sure that it’s Dumbledore because of the quote that’s on it.

Alison: Yeah, that would make sense.

Kat: Yeah, and also the word “marble” is a derivative of a Greek word, “marmeros” maybe? Which means “shining stone,” and they’re usually obtained from Greece or Italy. So not a whole lot of info on the white marble, but I do think it’s a nice parallel to Dumbledore, someone else who was really important in Harry’s life who also came from Godric’s Hollow. All right, and the big one here… well, I guess James and Lily was really the big one. We have that nice moment where Hermione puts the ring of roses, which I thought was really sweet. It definitely made me cry this time.

Alison: Yeah.

Kat: I feel like as I get older I appreciate different moments in the series, and this was one, this time, that… when I read it the first time, I probably hadn’t experienced a whole lot of death, but again, as you get older that happens more and more often, unfortunately. And so it hit me a lot harder this time.

Alison: The line that always makes me seriously cry every time is when Harry is standing there, and it’s the line that says he wished for the first time he was under the snow with them.

Rosie: Aww.

Steve: Yeah.

Alison: And it just destroys me every time. I’m going to cry right now thinking about it. [laughs] It’s just so… you just feel for Harry so much in that moment of the life he could have had and the life…

Steve: Right. Inviting friends over.

Alison: Yeah, and the life he should’ve had, honestly.

Rosie: And to have this moment in the middle of such hardship as well, having just lost Ron.

Alison: Yeah, on Christmas Eve, a time when he should’ve been…

Rosie: With family.

Alison: Honestly, yeah, he should’ve been with his family. He should have been with his parents and… oh, it just kills me every time. I remember the first time I was reading it just sobbing because it was just… ahh.

Steve: I think we’re seeing a little of Jo, again, writing about her life experience because the death of her mother was such an important influence on the books, on the story, and on her life. I think we’re seeing her putting some of her own feelings into words of what it feels like when you stand there and you look at that gravestone.

Kat: Yeah, it’s hard for me to talk about this moment. I haven’t lost a parent but obviously, that’s something that we will all go through at some point in our life, and I just… it’s really powerful. It’s a powerful moment, and you’re right; the fact that it is coming at such a hard time for Harry… it’s hard. Okay! Well, moving on to the next grave we’re going to talk about here since we’re in a graveyard, right? Before they get to this point, they find the grave of Kendra Dumbledore and Ariana, and there’s a really nice quote. It is part of a Bible verse, which I’m going to read here. The verse is Matthew 6: 19-24, and it says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. Where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” So I thought it was important to look at the entirety of that passage so that we know where that is coming from. Obviously, the line on the tombstone is simply, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” I don’t have a whole lot of experience with verses and this, so can you guys speak to, a little bit, about this passage for me, please?

Alison: Yeah, usually… so it’s part of the Sermon on the Mount, which is usually considered Jesus’s big… sermon. [laughs] Hello. And where a lot of really important things are said, and usually this one is talking about putting what you love and the things that matter in more spiritual matters and in serving God than in being worldly and materialistic; that the most important things are the things that you can take with you to heaven, not the things that stay here on Earth.

Steve: Yeah, it’s about having your priorities straight. If your priorities are on things… mammon is a word meaning money and materialism. If that’s where your priorities are, then that’s where your heart will be and that’s where your life will aim. And the passage is basically saying the most important things are, as you said, the things that you’re going to have for a priority in your life are the things that are more spiritual, that transcend just stuff. And so that’s basically what that’s saying. Now of course, we can discuss why Dumbledore would have thought that that was a good quote to put on that headstone because I personally feel like he is saying, “This was my treasure. This was where my heart should have been and it wasn’t. Don’t let this happen to you.”

Alison: Yeah. I would definitely agree with that, especially considering what had just happened to him; that he was looking for power and he was looking for prestige and things that shouldn’t have mattered as much as his mother, as much as his sister, as much as his brother. Yeah, so I think definitely this is Dumbledore regretting what he did in his youth and this is where he starts turning everything around, starting with choosing this quote for the grave.

Steve: I would agree with that.

Rosie: I think it could also have another meaning. So with it being on Kendra’s grave… and normally the quotes on graves are symbolic of the person within the grave, not of those that have been left behind, in general. To say where your treasure is, there will your heart be also, to take it away from the rest of the meaning of that quote [and] just simplify it down to this one thing, it’s saying Kendra’s treasure was her family. It was keeping Ariana safe. It was doing everything possible to protect her.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: So where your treasure is, there will your heart be also, I guess, could mean… Ariana at this point is still alive, so Kendra will always be with them and Kendra will always be with her family, in heart at least.

Alison: Yeah. Well, also just the fact that Kendra died protecting Ariana, trying to take care of her.

Rosie: Yeah, exactly. So just saying that love will live on after death.

Kat: And the last part of the verse where it says no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other… I can’t be the only person that thought of Snape.

[Alison and Steve laugh]

Steve: No.

Alison: Yeah, no, there’s definitely a parallel there.

Rose: A lot of meaning in this verse. [laughs]

Kat: Well, thank you, I feel… and this is not my tippy flippant. I feel very enlightened, actually, because I had never read the entire verse before and I think that it is important to look at that stuff, so thank you. I very much appreciate it. And with that, as I suppose we wipe our tears away from our cheeks, we conclude chapter 16 of Deathly Hallows.

Rose: Which, of course, leaves us with our Podcast Question of the Week for this week. And we slightly touched on this earlier, but we didn’t want to go into too much depth about it so that we can hand it over to you guys to discuss and to think about. And our question this week is going to be: “Why did Dumbledore never tell Harry of their shared history in Godric’s Hollow? They both have a lot of family tragedy connected with this village and they both have very meaningful reasons to return to this village and to learn more about themselves and their history by visiting it. But Harry never gets the opportunity of going there with Dumbledore; of going there with someone who actually knows about all of the stories connected to the village and knows about his history. He instead has to learn it through gravestones and through Hogwarts, A History and through A History of Magic and all of these books and all of these passed down stories rather than a personal connection. So why did Dumbledore choose to keep this particular emotional story from Harry when it’s so obvious that Harry has been yearning for some connection to his family for so long? Even if Dumbledore didn’t want to burden Harry with the story of the Horcruxes and the story of the Hallows so early, as he always said that he wanted to protect him, why could he not give him this little element of human family life that he so desired?” Let us know what you guys think. As usual, the thread will be up on the website, so please go and check out alohomora.mugglenet.com and answer with your ideas.

Kat: That’s a good question. Do you think Harry ever makes it back to Godric’s Hollow?

Alison: I always imagined they moved there after…

Kat: Aww.

Alison: … that he and Ginny raise their family there.

Steve: You don’t think they live in Grimmauld Place?

[Kat laughs]

Alison: No, I think Harry would have wanted to go back to this idyllic little village and raise his family there the way he felt like he should have been raised and have that normal life.

Kat: That’s sweet. I hope that’s what happened. Well, Steve, thank you again so much for joining us. It was fabulous to have you with us once again.

Steve: My pleasure. I absolutely love being on this show. Absolutely love it.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Oh, good. We’re glad to hear that. Unfortunately, it’s almost over, though, so…

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: We’ve still got months to go, Kat.

Steve: What, the show is?

Kat: It is, yeah.

Rosie: We’re only halfway through the book.

Kat: We do still have months to go. That’s true.

Steve: So you’re telling me that when this is over, it’s just going to end?

Kat: Well, if we told you…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: … wink, wink.

Steve: Okay. Well, never mind.

Alison: All right, and if you would like to be on the show, listeners, go and check on our “Be on the Show” page at alohomora.mugglenet.com. Like we said, we might not have very long, so if you want to be on, get on while you’re guaranteed. If you’ve got a basic set of headphones with a microphone you are all set. No fancy equipment needed. And while you’re on our website, make sure you download a ringtone for free.

Kat: And in the meantime, if you want to keep in touch with us, you can find us on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN, facebook.com/openthedumbledore, on Tumblr at mnalohomorapodcast.tumblr.com, our Instagram is @alohomoramn, our phone number is 206-GO-ALBUS – that’s 206-462-5287 – and you can always send us an Audioboom. So it’s free, all you need is an Internet connection and a microphone. Head over to alohomora.mugglenet.com, press a little green button in the right-hand menu, and leave us a message under 60 seconds if you’d like to hear yourself on the show.

Rosie: And also coming soon, we’re going to be on Google Play, so keep an eye out for that one. But we also have our wonderful store where you can find house shirts, Desk!Pig, Mandrake Liberation Front, Minerva Is My Homegirl, Obligatory Genius Moment, which we should have said many times today but we were just implying it throughout instead…

[Alison laughs]

Rosie: … and many, many more. There you go.

Kat: We’ll say it now instead.

Rosie: Obligatory Genius Moment is a perfect T-shirt for this chapter. Also, maybe working on a little bit of a seasonal treat that will hopefully be coming out before Christmas if I manage to get it done in time, so keep an eye out for that one and do go and check out our store.

Alison: Also, make sure you check out our smartphone app. It’s called the Podcast Source, and it’s free, and it includes all sorts of wonderful things along with episodes including transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, and so much more. And now we’re going to go dry all our tears maybe from this very sad chapter.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Alison: And before we leave, we just want to make sure all of our American listeners have a very great Thanksgiving. I guess by the time this episode is released it’ll be after, so we hope you all had a wonderful holiday, and that everyone who’s not in the US has a great weekend.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Alison: I’m Alison Siggard.

Rosie: I’m Rosie Morris.

Kat: And I’m Kat Miller. Thank you for listening to Episode 166 of Alohomora!

[Show music begins]

Rosie: [in a teary voice] Open the Dumbledore.

[Show music continues]

Kat: What’s a good word to describe Phineas Nigellus?

Alison: [blows nose loudly] Obnoxious?

Steve: I don’t know what that word was, but it fit perfectly. That loud…

[Kat laughs]

Alison: Sorry!

[Alison and Steve laugh]

Alison: Sorry.