Transcript – Episode 228



[Show music begins]

Beth Warsaw: This is Episode 228 of Alohomora! for September 17, 2017.

[Show music continues]

Beth: I’m Beth [Warsaw].

Alison Siggard: I’m Alison Siggard.

Michael Harle: I’m Michael Harle, and our guests today, listeners, are two of our longtime listeners, who[m] we just had the pleasure of hanging out with recently, Shauna and Jon! Shauna and Jon, say hello to our listeners!

Jon and Shauna Evans: Hello!

Michael: And tell them a little bit about yourselves, how you guys got into Harry Potter, and your Hogwarts Houses, anything you want to share about that.

Shauna: And Ilvermorny. All that fun jazz.

Michael: All that. All the pieces and parts.

Shauna: So hello, everyone. I’m Shauna Evans. This is actually my second time on Alohomora!, but I didn’t get to tell my Harry Potter story the first time. Sad face.

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: The way that I got into Harry Potter was I thought it was stupid.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Shauna: So in the summer of 2000 when Goblet of Fire came out, that was the first time I heard about Harry Potter, and I saw it on the news, and they were like, “People are lining up at midnight to buy this children’s book.” And for some reason I thought it was a picture book when they said it was a children’s book. And I was like, “Why are people lining up at midnight to buy a picture book? This is stupid.” I was 14; it sounded really dumb.

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: So all summer, everybody was hyping this book up. I went to London; people were like, “Oh look, this is where J.K. Rowling just bought a flat. It’s amazing.” I was like, “I don’t care. This is stupid.”

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: I wish I knew where that was now. But anyway…

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Shauna: Later in the summer, I went to a bookstore with a friend of the family who was in college, and she was telling me, “Oh, everybody at college is reading these Harry Potter books, so I’m going to buy this first one.” Then I finally saw what they looked like. I was like, “This is not a picture book at all. This book is almost 800 pages long. Wow.”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Shauna: So I bought the first book to be cool like the college kid, and I read it, and I liked it. I didn’t love it. I loved the ending because I thought the Quirrell reveal was very clever. But I started loving them from Chamber of Secrets on because I myself am a big keeper of diaries, so having a diary that talks back to you seemed really cool.

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: And that was 17 years ago. And now I’ve read them countless times and [seen the] movies and [been to] theme parks and all that jazz.

Michael: Oh my goodness. And Jon, did you think Harry Potter was stupid too? [laughs]

Jon: I was vaguely aware that it was a thing. And I heard that the trailer for Star Wars: Episode II was going to be in front of this Harry Potter movie. So I thought, “I’m really excited about Star Wars.” I walk in there not really knowing what to expect. The moment the wall opens into Diagon Alley, I was completely in. I made sure that I had all four books that were out at that point for Christmas, read them in two weeks, and that was that. And the less said about Star Wars: Episode II the better.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: I was going to say, at least you got one good thing out of that experience.

Jon: Oh God, yes.

[Alison, Beth, and Michael laugh]

Michael: Yeah, that turned the tables on that quite a bit. And you two are in the same House, right?

Shauna: We are. We are both Ravenclaws, consumamte Ravenclaws.

Michael: Aww, a pair of Ravenclaws. It’s adorable.

Shauna: I know, and yeah, we’ve been married for six years. And we’re hoping to start a family someday soon, and we are really hoping that we have a daughter because we have the perfect last name for a Harry Potter-named daughter.

Alison: Aww!

Michael: Oh yes, that’s right! Oh my gosh!

Alison: That just made me really excited!

Shauna: I know!

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: So listeners, everyone send good vibes for us having a daughter someday in the near future.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: Oh, that’s fantastic! And of course the other great thing about having Shauna and Jon on the show, listeners, is, they joined us for that event that you are probably so tired of us talking about because we mentioned it every episode, especially those of you who didn’t get to join us. But we hope we did a good job on social media of making you guys a part of it, those of you who couldn’t make it, because we wish you had been there too for [MuggleNet Live! 2017: Nineteen Years Later]. It was an amazing event. We were all all over the place that night, and Shauna and Jon were there. I had the immense pleasure, actually, of going to the park a few days before the event, and I spent pretty much the whole day with them, which was amazing! And your lovely family, Shauna’s parents, Tom and Beth, were so fun to hang out with. You guys were just a hoot and a half.

Shauna: Oh stop, you were fun to hang out with too.

Michael: I’m all right, but no, it was great. And Alison, Beth, you guys want to talk a little bit about what the experience was like for you guys?

Alison: Yeah, it was amazing. It went so fast, though.

Michael: It did.

Alison: I remember someone was like, “We’ve got five minutes left.” And I was like, “We’ve got five minutes left? What have I been doing all day?” What have I been doing all day? I was chasing Luke Youngblood all day, which was really, really amazing. I was on the Talent Team, so I was in charge of basically shepherding Luke Youngblood – Lee Jordan – everywhere. And guys, it’s just incredible how much the cast still connects to Harry Potter. Just watching him go through the park, he was so excited about everything.

Michael: He had never been to the park yet, right?

Alison: I think he had gone earlier that day, but I don’t think he spent a lot of time…

Michael: But never before that trip, right?

Alison: Yeah. Yeah, so he was just so excited about everything, all the details. We rode the Hogwarts Express, and he was looking out the window and he was like, “It looks just like home! It looks just like home!” And he was so excited.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: He did the wand experience himself, and I got to be there. This is probably my favorite moment of the night. And so I was recording it for him, and the wand keeper asks his name, and I was expecting him to do his own name, but he said, “Lee Jordan,” and I think I almost dropped his phone because I was freaking out a little bit.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: And it was absolutely incredible. At one point, if you were there, listeners, you probably saw us running, literally running, down the street to go from Ollivanders to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes to go meet up with someone. So if you saw two blurs shooting down, that was us. But it was great. I got to meet… Beth, had we met before that?

Beth: No, we met for the first time, which was awesome.

Alison: Yeah, so we met met for the first time.

Beth: Yeah, and I also met Michael for the first time too.

Alison: Yeah, I basically tackled him.

Michael: Yes, Alison caught me in… I now know what Hagrid’s rib-cracking hugs feel like because Alison totally sidelined me with this hug.

Alison: I tackled you.

Michael: It was great. It was great because you had Luke Youngblood in tow with you. And all of a sudden, you were like, “Michael, this is Luke Youngblood.” And he was like, “Oh hi, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” And I was like, “How is this happening?” And at that moment when you caught me, I was…

Shauna: Wait, was I there for that? Was that when we were handing out wizard cards?

Michael: I believe you were because I believe at that point, Shauna, you were holding my wizard card book because I had inadvertently found myself surrounded by ten listeners who had remembered that I had promised them wizard cards.

Shauna: Yeah, Michael seemed as popular as the talent.

[Michael and Shauna laughs]

Alison: He was. He was. That’s true.

Michael: It was really terribly flattering. At one point, Rosie did come up to me, and she said, “Michael, you have more people around you than the talent right now.” And she had to drag me away from everybody because the park was closing. But I didn’t want to go. I just mostly ended up finding myself standing in pockets of Diagon Alley throughout the evening. This is the weirdest feeling of all time, listeners, that people come up to me and go, “Are you Michael Harle?” And I’m just like, “Yes, that is my name.” But I’ve never heard people say my name like that before. That is just pretty wild.

Alison: You were in your “Nineteen Years Later” costume.

Michael: Yes, but I made the mistake of keeping my hair blue, and everybody thought I was Teddy Lupin. But Beth, what were you up to on that night?

Beth: I was helping coordinate the event, both before and during the event, which was a ton of fun, but it was also a lot of work. And so the event was basically me just circling the park, running from place to place. And I was standing for the entire thing. I had my adrenaline pumping for the whole thing. Someone came up to me and asked me if they could bring me a plate of food, and I was like, “No, no, I’m fine. I’m not even hungry.”

[Beth and Michael laugh]

Beth: And then I got home, and I sat down on the bed for a second, went to stand back up, and I was like, “Oh my God. My legs don’t work, and I’m starving.”

[Alison, Beth, and Michael laugh]

Alison: Yep. That’s what all of us did.

Beth: But other than that, I think before the event, we were worried that there wasn’t going to be enough to do, and people were going to be bored. And then during the event, in the moments that I was able to slow down and watch people enjoying the event, I was realizing that people were just loving being there and being in Diagon and soaking all that in, and the time just totally flew by. And from what I’ve heard, people had a really great time, so I’m really happy with how it went.

Alison: It was a really magical night. So cliché, but it really was. I don’t know. It rained in Orlando that day and the days following. Not as bad as they’re experiencing right now, but there was some rain. And just the parks at night. Listeners, if you’ve never been to the parks at night, it’s a whole different experience.

Shauna: Especially when the dragon spits fire.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: I missed her every single time that night. We would hear her go off and we’d be around a corner.

Shauna: I was standing under the dragon with Christian Coulson when the dragon spat fire. And I had just finished taking a picture with him and he would just go like, “Oh! Oh, God! It’s going to do that thing!” And he’d angle his phone upward. I was like, “We’re having a moment. This is amazing.”

Michael: [laughs] Well, and as a reminder, listeners, you can follow all of us or MuggleNet or Alohomora! on Twitter, and you can actually go back through pretty much all of our tweets and see what we got up to that night because we got lots of pictures in Diagon Alley with the talent. I finally got to meet Christian Coulson. It was quite a lovely moment for me. But really, honestly, as great as that was, my highlight of the night was putting out the call unofficially to the listeners, “Hey, come meet me in front of King’s Cross station and I will read you the epilogue.” And I had about 30 people join me in front of the station. And I just read the whole epilogue, and we had a mini Alohomora! discussion, a five-minute Alohomora! discussion, and then we went to the train and we rode the train together! And one of my favorite parts of the train [was] after we got to Hogsmeade and the train was just about to go back. Shauna popped into our compartment. And she was dressed as Tonks, and she was just like, “Is everybody all right? Nobody got hurt by the Dementors? Because my husband has some chocolate in our compartment.” And I was like, “Ahh!”

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: Aww!

Beth: That’s amazing.

Shauna: Jon said his biggest regret that night was not actually bringing chocolate with him.

Alison: That would have been amazing.

Michael: I can tell you from experience doing Lupin cosplays the chocolate would have melted in your pocket.

[Alison, Michael, and Shauna laugh]

Jon: It was hot out.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: It was really warm.

Michael: Very warm. Kudos to all the listeners who joined us and all the people who joined us who were in cosplay like some of us because it was not easy to do.

Alison: I don’t understand how you people were wearing robes. I just don’t understand.

Michael: Pretty sure we were riding purely on adrenaline by that point.

[Alison and Beth laugh]

Michael: But the other thing, too, is I have to give a shout-out to some of the listeners [whom] I ran into. I couldn’t believe I was getting to meet some of you in person. I briefly saw davybjones999; I saw you at the end of the night and I heard you at the panel. You asked a question to one of the stars, which was great. And let’s see, who[m] else did I run into? Oh, I ran into… I believe her name is Kiersten, The Fizzing Whizbee on our discussion forums, and you had a fantastic Gryffindor outfit. I ran into… oh, ThatTimeRemusWaddiwasiedVoldy, I met you in person! And that was fantastic because your username is one of my favorites! I got to sit next to DisKid during the panels; Dis was there, and that was amazing as well. We talked about the Harry Potter video games a lot. Who else? Oh, and there were two girls who[m] I bumped into. I’m so sorry. I apologize. I don’t remember your names because you two just ran up to me, asked me if I was Michael, and then we talked, and then you had to go away. But you guys were so nice, and you said you were going to be auditioning for the show, and I hope you do. And also, Mary Kate and her mother, Jane, I believe it was. Oh, and of course, Beth and Alison, you both got to meet, I believe, Jill and Allen.

Alison: Oh yeah, we had lunch.

Michael: Yes, and we got to go ride Gringotts with them, and they were fantastic.

Beth: Jill and Allen were great. They were very kind to me when I was very scared of Gringotts.

[Alison, Beth, and Michael laugh]

Michael: Yeah, they were fantastic. And some of those listeners are not on our main site as commenters. They told us that they just hang around in the shadows and just listen, and we hope you start contributing. It was so great getting to talk to all of you and hear your ideas outside of the show in Diagon Alley. That was really cool to be talking Harry Potter in Diagon Alley. And I only hope that someday we can all get together and do that again because it really was an amazing experience.

Beth: Michael, I didn’t get a chance to actually be at your reading of the epilogue, but I did see a video of it after. Is that video available for any of the listeners?

Michael: Yes, that video is actually available. You can see it through Twitter, through the MuggleNet Live! twitter. I will make sure [to] retweet it. I know some of the MuggleNet staff are hoarding videos of that that they have not edited together yet because I’m sure they’re still coming down from the high of the event, so there will be probably more videos coming out. But you can find it through MuggleNet Live!, and if you can’t watch it there, you can link directly to our Periscope as well and watch it through that; it’s still up on the Periscope there. And that has the whole reading.

Alison: I just saw the end last night, and I started choking up.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Alison: To be perfectly honest.

Shauna: Being there was crazy because I looked over as Michael is finishing reading, and there was McGonagall and Dumbledore and Rowena Ravenclaw standing together underneath the King’s Cross sign, and I was like, “This is the most amazing thing ever!”

Michael: [laughs] Yeah, and some of them were more of our listeners. And listeners, please make sure on the main site, on the comments, shout out who you were, what you were dressed as, what our interaction was that night, because I do have them all in my head; they’ve all just jumbled together. They were all very special. It’s just that it was quite a wild ride that night, so I want to make sure [to] acknowledge you guys properly. But Shauna and Jon, did you guys have fun at the event?

Jon: It was absolutely fantastic. Went far too quickly…

Michael: Yes, that’s what things like that do.

Jon: … but it was amazing. And honestly, riding on the Hogwarts Express was fantastic because I haven’t ridden a train like that since I was about five years old because [I] don’t do them anymore because they cram you in like sardines now.

[Michael laughs]

Jon: But I remember growing up we’d go on trains like that to visit my grandparents, so it was fantastic.

Michael: Aww, that’s great. I’m glad the train ride was special.

Shauna: I think there just wasn’t enough time to do everything.

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: The panels were fantastic, and then by the time we got to the park, ate dinner, went and did Michael’s reading, [and] rode the Hogwarts Express, Gringotts was closed. Then we had to get ice cream, and then we were chasing talent around, and then all of a sudden, they were like, “Okay, you have to leave now.” And I was like, “What?”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: Yes, no, we were all very saddened, I think, by how quickly we had to hightail it out of there. I knew that the park was going to be emptier with just that limited number of people. I really underestimated how empty it was going to feel. I think I walked into a few shops right when it started and everybody was getting food, and I was like, “Oh my God. There’s, like, nobody in Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.”

[Alison laughs]

Shauna: Nobody really went to the shops. Michael, I didn’t get to tell you. I got a Pygmy Puff, and I did the whole naming ceremony.

Michael: Yay! [laughs]

Shauna: But nobody was there!

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Shauna: We were screaming the name of my Pygmy Puff, and nobody was there to witness it. I was so sad.

Michael: Well, here we go. What’s the name of your Pygmy Puff?

Shauna: Keith.

Michael: Keith. Attention, everyone! Ding! Ding! Ding! We have Shauna here, who’s just picked up her first Pygmy Puff! And its name is Keith! Yay!

[Everyone cheers and claps]

Michael: There we go. [laughs]

Shauna: Thank you.

Alison: Speaking of the shops, I have to say, one of my favorite stories from the night was, I was talking to Sean Biggerstaff’s guide, Amy. Shout-out to Amy. Go Amy.

Michael: Yay!

Alison: [laughs] And she said that he had never been inside Quality Quidditch [Supplies] before. So she said he caught sight of it and he wanted to go inside. So they went inside, and she was like, “It was the most animated I saw him all night. He practically skipped into the store.”

[Michael laughs]

Alison: And it was the cutest thing in the whole world. [laughs]

Beth: That’s great.

Shauna: That’s so cute!

Michael: It was his store. I feel like he has all rights and privileges to go in there and be like, “Can I have all of this for free? All of it?” [laughs] “I’ll take the lot.”

Shauna: Did anybody get him a wand? Did he get an Oliver Wood wand?

Alison: I don’t think he did.

Shauna: Ugh!

Alison: I think the only one who did was Luke. Like I said, guys, it was amazing.

Michael: I’m actually quite shocked that 50 people didn’t descend upon him with wands that they bought that night for him because yes, he said at the panel [that] he never got his wand, because Oliver never really even uses a wand in the movies, poor thing. But he was like, “They made my wand, so where is my wand?” So yes, poor man needs a wand. Contact Sean Biggerstaff over Twitter for that matter. But yeah. So again, an amazing event, one of the major dates in Potter history. Listeners, of course, too, if you weren’t there, we know you were doing something special that night, so of course, in the comments this week, tell us what you were up to on the night of the event and what you were doing for Nineteen Years Later. But actually, in tandem with Nineteen Years Later, a little connected to that, we have our discussion for this week. Alison, you want to tell our listeners about that?

Alison: Yeah, so instead of Nineteen Years Later, today, we are going to talk about Nineteen Days Later, so what happened in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts. So we’re not quite at Cursed Child time yet, which we’re living in right now, guys. We’re living in Cursed Child time! What a time to be alive.

[Alison, Beth, and Michael laugh]

Alison: But we’re going to talk about some of that immediate aftermath. And this is actually suggested by our listener Matthew Ousley on the topic submit page at alohomora.mugglenet.com. So guys, go use that page and tell us what you want us to talk about and we will talk about it.

Michael: And Matthew, we know your last name is really pronounced Ousley [pronounces “AUZ-lee”], but we’re going to keep saying “Weasley” because it’s more fun that way and you said you thought that was funny. So we have your permission. We’re going to keep butchering it for fun. But thank you again for suggesting this, because it was the perfect topic as a follow-up for Nineteen Years Later. I thought that this would be a really fun one to do. And before we go on to the topic itself, though, we want to make sure [to] give a shout-out to our Patreon sponsor for this episode. This episode is sponsored by Brian Levine on Patreon. Thank you so much, Brian Levine, for helping us out with this main topic episode. And you, listeners, can become a sponsor for as little as $1 a month. Our Patreon patrons will already know by the point this episode is released that you got a special video with a very special announcement that we’re going to talk about in a second. And you guys got that first on Patreon. And it’s finally happened! It’s officially happened! Oh my God, you guys, I recorded the first episode of the Let’s Play!

Alison: Yay!

Beth: No way! [laughs]

Michael: It actually recorded and it went through, and you’re going to get it on Patreon. I’m so sorry this took so long, but it actually has come to fruition, and yes, that will be up on Patreon very shortly. And I will be doing some backlogs of some episodes so we can get those out a little faster to you. And we will continue to release exclusive tidbits for our sponsors on Patreon. I should also mention, we do have a perk for I believe it’s the $15 level, where I will read to you. I will read you a chapter that you select from any of the Harry Potter books. I will read aloud to you. We will set up a Skype date, and you can watch me read, and we’ll have a little mini Alohomora! chat. But make sure, listeners, a few of you have actually gone for that perk, and I need you to contact the Alohomora! email. So email us at alohomorapodcast@gmail.com, and let’s get that set up, because I want to get you your reward because you deserve that for being such a great Patreon sponsor, just like Brian Levine here. Thank you again, Brian. And as I mentioned, there was a special video that was released on Patreon recently. And that video did announce that… We have at least one of our voices here. Our brand new voices, Beth, Beth Warsaw and Katy Cartee Haile, are joining us as official hosts on Alohomora!! Yay!

[Everyone cheers]

Beth: I’m so excited, you guys.

Michael: [laughs] Beth has been an excellent contributor to the show before, listeners. Actually, we now have a new search function on our main site. You can actually search for Beth’s previous episodes, but she has been an excellent contributor, as has Katy. You guys, I’m sure, know that she’s been on a lot of episodes recently. I’m sure you would’ve been upset if we didn’t make her a host at this point. But yes, we were looking for two new voices, and we knew we already had them hiding in the wings. So thank you for joining us officially, Beth. Welcome to the Alohomora! fold.

Beth: Thank you for having me.

Michael: Oh, of course. My gosh.

Alison: We’re so excited.

[Beth laughs]

Michael: And with that, we go into Beth’s first official host discussion on Alohomora! We are going to talk, as Alison said, as Matthew Ousley put it, Nineteen Days Later, or the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts. So we split this into a few different categories here so we can make sure [to] cover our points in a somewhat organized fashion. And what we also did is, we put out the call to you, the listeners on Twitter, to help us out with some questions you might have had about “Hey, this huge battle ended. People died. Wars were won. The wizarding world was changed as we knew it in the UK. So what does that mean for a lot of things?” There are still some questions that we feel might have been unanswered, unexplored, could’ve been gone into a little deeper by Rowling. So let’s start with that pocket of our three main characters, the trio, and that’ll extend out to some other characters that they are very closely connected with. But Andrew Hill, one of our regular listeners, @dcuo21955 on Twitter, asked, “Do you think any of them went to counseling after the battle to check their mental health?” What do you guys think about how the trio dealt with what they went through in the immediate aftermath?

Alison: Considering wizards’ history with that, I’m going to say no.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Alison: That’s just not a thing apparently wizards have caught on to, which is concerning.

Jon: Honestly, yeah, if the wizarding world dealt with horrific childhood trauma, Tom Riddle wouldn’t be as messed as he was in the first place, and none of this would’ve even happened.

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: I mean, I teach special education, and I’m always amazed that Harry is not way angrier than he is as a teen. I have students who have gone through a lot of trauma having to do with parents and stuff like that, and they’re generally not as well adjusted as Harry is, considering his parents were not only murdered, but murdered rather publicly, and everyone knew about it, and everyone kept throwing it in his face. So he was pretty resilient from that, so I don’t know. Maybe he bounced back from the battle okay.

Beth: I don’t know about that.

[Michael laughs]

Beth: There’s a good chance that Harry did a lot of crumbling inside himself after the battle. And I’m sure that we get some Book 5 Harry back every so often.

Michael: So the only, I think, remote mention of any kind of, perhaps, counseling or therapy in the wizarding world that’s even eluded to by Rowling was when she did the discussion with Emma Watson about how Hermione and Ron might need marriage counseling at some point. And it’s hard to use that as a citation because how much of that was she saying seriously, in what context she was trying to put their relationship in and whatnot. But I think that’s the only reference she’s ever made to anything like that. Other than that, the books themselves seem to suggest that one of the best ways to address those kinds of issues is to just talk to somebody you trust. And I think we saw a lot in Deathly Hallows especially that Harry never felt he could do that because Dumbledore told him not to during…

Shauna: I was going to say, if that’s the case, who[m] would Harry have spoken to after the Battle of Hogwarts? Who was left as a figure of authority that he would trust?

Alison: Quite soon afterward, I feel like he and Ginny probably had a nice long heart-to-heart. They’ve been apart for how long now? I just feel like they probably took some quiet time and helped each other a little bit through that. Because I think, especially at the end of Half-Blood, that’s the person Harry starts to feel like he can connect with these traumatizing experiences with the most. And I’m sure he had some good conversations with Ron and Hermione as well. It also wouldn’t surprise me if Harry dug up the Pensieve and maybe he used that as a way to sort through everything that had happened to him. Or to maybe share it with Ron, Hermione, and Ginny, or maybe someone else [whom] he felt he needed to, especially having just used it to get a greater understanding of Snape’s story. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Michael: I was even wondering if he might’ve talked to McGonagall.

Shauna: Yeah, I think I would put more stock into that because he seems to hide his emotions and his issues from his friends. He doesn’t talk to them very often, which I understand. Sometimes I think I feel like that too. You want to talk to somebody who has some life experience and can… I’m not saying… Ginny definitely has similar experiences to him, having also been possessed by Voldemort, but he never seemed to be sharing much with them.

Michael: Do you think Harry has gotten better at that? Because part of the restriction…

Alison: Yes.

Michael: Yes? Well, we know because part of the restriction was that Dumbledore told him not to share a lot of that stuff. But we’ve also seen in the past that Harry does have a natural secretive nature about him just because of what he was raised in. Do you think he might’ve started letting that go after a while?

Alison: Well, I think after talking to Dumbledore in however you want to interpret King’s Cross of what’s going on in Harry’s head, I think there’s some implication that Dumbledore regrets living his life so secretively and not trusting the people who cared about him. And I think Harry might’ve learned from that.

Beth: I think that Dumbledore really lived his life to an extreme, and Harry learns to see the benefits of some of that stuff but also learns where it stops being helpful and starts being hurtful. And so I can see him sort of kicking away some of those positive lessons from Dumbledore and putting aside some of the other more harmful ones.

Michael: Oh, I like that. Because I love that, the “King’s Cross” chapter. Even Rowling cites “The Forest Again” as a big major favorite from Hallows, but I really love “King’s Cross,” because I feel like that [is a real revelation not only] for Harry but for Dumbledore in his own way as well. I love that idea that Harry takes so much away from that that he says, [as Harry] “Oh, I can go live my life and maybe not make the same mistakes that you made now.”

Alison: Even talking to Aberforth, I think, might’ve been helpful with that, where Aberforth tells him, “We grew up with secrets and lies, and Albus was so good at it.” And Harry realizes, “Yeah. He was so good at it I knew nothing about him. Didn’t realize he had a brother.” Aberforth has been living this holed-up existence, and especially because Harry cares about his people, the people around him. And I think he wouldn’t want to affect them that way, having them feel like they have to stay silent and not work through things together.

Shauna: Well, and speaking of childhoods, what do you think bedtime stories in the Potter-Weasley house were like?

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Shauna: Dad, tell us about the time you vanquished the Dark Lord again!

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: Well, if Cursed Child is any indication of that, Albus doesn’t want to hear about it anymore.

Shauna: Grumble, grumble.

Michael: Snooze. Heard it.

Alison: I wonder how much of it came from actually Harry, though. I feel like a lot of it may have come from the rest of the family and maybe Harry and Ginny sat the kids down at a certain age and were like, “Let us tell you the whole story so you know exactly what happened.” But then they left it at that and then everything else just came from family bringing stuff up at different moments and everybody in the wizarding world talking about it. And [it] wouldn’t surprise me if someone had bought Rita Skeeter’s book and [it] was passed around as a joke.

Michael: Well, and okay, speaking of home life with the Potters, Shauna and Jon had an excellent question, which was also asked by Matthew in his original email suggesting the topic. But do you guys want to address this question? Because I think it’s an excellent one.

Shauna: Okay, so if we’re talking about immediately after the Battle of Hogwarts, where does Harry go to live? Obviously, in the summers prior, he went to live with the Dursleys. He doesn’t have to do that anymore. Does he go to live in Grimmauld Place by himself, or are there too many memories to do that immediately? Does he go stay at the Burrow for a while? And if he does, does Mrs. Weasley have to put some extra charms around the house…

Alison: [laughs] Oh no.

Shauna: … to keep an eye on them and make sure things are staying PG-13? I don’t know.

Jon: They’ve been apart for a year. They’re beginning their relationship again. And after all the stuff they’ve been through, it must be pretty intense.

Beth: I’ve read many a fan fic of…

[Alison, Jon, Michael, and Shauna laugh]

Beth: … Ron and Hermione and Harry and Ginny all sharing an apartment, the four of them. And I think that’s sweet.

Alison: Or that Ron and Harry went and got one by themselves and… I feel like he might’ve stayed at Hogwarts for a little bit right after. Just because he…

Michael: To help with cleanup?

Alison: Yeah, to help with cleanup and also just because Hogwarts was always where Harry felt most at home. And so I think that would’ve been a comforting thing to help rebuild, to help work through some of that trauma that happened there while he was there, and he was also still connecting with his old memories where that was home. So I think he might’ve stayed there for a while.

Michael: Well, we know there’s a place for him, technically, because he was supposed to be at Hogwarts that year, and he did go up to the dormitory at the end of the main part of the story. So theoretically, he does have…

Alison: Kreacher bringing him sandwiches.

Michael: Yes, yes, so he has a place to stay. That makes sense to me. And Cursed Child interestingly didn’t answer this because it didn’t specify where Harry lives. It just says it’s the Potter house. And I had always wondered if he turned Grimmauld Place into his family home, because he does also seem to have an attachment to Grimmauld Place in some ways. And also, it’s a free house, which is…

Shauna: The prices of London real estate.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Alison: Seriously.

Michael: Yeah, so get on that, Potter. But I don’t know. Because the thing, too, is, do you think Harry would want to be more solitary in the immediate aftermath, or do you think he’d want to be in the company of others? I think that determines Grimmauld Place versus the Burrow.

Jon: See, I think he’d want to be, but I don’t think the others would let him.

Alison: Yeah, I think it might’ve been a mix.

Beth: I agree with that.

Alison: Because he thinks about that in Deathly Hallows. He thinks that sometimes he wants to be alone, sometimes he wants to be with other people, and sometimes he’s not sure, and…

Beth: I see Hermione as being really good at helping him through that because she was with him basically all the way through Deathly Hallows, even when Ron wasn’t there.

Michael: Yeah, Ron. [laughs]

Alison: Hey!

Beth: And she’s good at tapping into how he’s feeling, even when he isn’t really sure. And so I can imagine that she is a really important part of helping him through the time right after the battle.

Alison: My personal headcanon is that they eventually moved back to Godric’s Hollow, but that’s my personal headcanon.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: That’s an interesting take on it too.

Alison: That he decided to go back to a nice little village and feel…

Michael: If you do take Cursed Child as canon, that doesn’t work because Albus doesn’t seem to be familiar with Godric’s Hollow.

Alison: Yeah, I know. Well, it doesn’t really say he’s not. And what was it? 30 years before, 40 years before him?

Michael: True.

Alison: It could’ve changed.

Michael: I would’ve assumed if he knew where the house… Because he knows where the house is and stuff. But I…

Shauna: Yeah, English villages don’t really change in 40 years.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: I guess that’s true.

Jon: It’s true.

Alison: I guess it’s true. Okay, okay, okay.

Michael: But I like that idea too. I think that’s a really pleasant, quaint idea. I like the idea that Harry goes somewhere that has some kind of sentimental connection of some sort for him.

Alison: He’s a sentimental guy.

Beth: There’s quite a bit of time between the period that we’re talking about and when Harry’s kids start being born. And so those things aren’t mutually exclusive. He could’ve gone to Godric’s Hollow and spent some time there and then moved away before he started having kids.

Michael: Yeah, moved somewhere else. Absolutely.

Alison: That’s true.

Michael: Well, and I think what you guys brought up, too, about the loneliness versus wanting to be with others, I think a really interesting, difficult piece for that is that Harry shoulders a lot of the burden of the people who… And he tries to come to an understanding of that for the other characters throughout Deathly Hallows, but I’m sure, despite what they have said and that they’re not dying for him, they’re dying for this cause. Harry still – I’m sure – based on his personality, would take to heart that people died and that he would feel involved or at fault. And I think that might be hard, considering that the Weasleys lost a family member. I’m very curious what the dynamic with that was for that immediate aftermath, because I think that would’ve been really difficult for their… But the Weasleys are just so embracing in that way. I don’t think they would’ve blamed Harry.

Alison: No, but I think Harry blames himself, and so I think he would’ve had a hard time going to the Burrow because I think he might’ve felt like, “Well, if I move in, it feels like I’m trying to be a replacement for Fred or something.”

Shauna: And I’m not saying there would have been any blame on their part. I’m sure every time Molly would look at Harry, there would be something. Whether Harry imagined it or there was just some little… Do you know what I mean? I’m being super vague, but…

Michael: No, no, no, I think I get it. Well, it’s an almost indescribable sensation. It wouldn’t be anything that she would even be associating purposefully. It would just be because. And I just feel like that would be more of a struggle to work through, because I was thinking, too, about… I think the last time we see Ginny before the epilogue, she’s sitting with Molly with her head on her shoulder, and Ginny needs that time, too, to process the fact that they lost a family member. And [she] and Harry aren’t rushing together to discuss what happened right off the bat. It’s Harry, Ron, and Hermione [who] take a moment with each other.

Beth: Well, and Ginny was…

Alison: That’s one of my favorite lines, actually, is the “There would be hours and days and maybe even years to discuss it all.” And I’m just like, “Oh, gosh! I can’t handle this!” [laughs] Sorry.

Beth: Ginny was really close to the twins too, and so losing Fred was probably extra hard on her.

Michael: But of course we know, too… Now, this may not have happened within 19 days, but it did probably happen very soon after. As Rowling confirmed, Harry did become an Auror, and as she said, just because Voldemort was gone, it didn’t mean that there would not be other Dark witches and wizards in the coming years. So I believe, Beth, you had a question about that.

Beth: Yeah, I want to know how long it took him to join the Ministry and if he took a break first.

Michael: Well, can you read this quote that you found from Rowling from PotterCast? Because I think that’s somewhat informative on that.

Beth: “Kingsley would want them to help clean up. I mean, anyone who’s old enough to do it, who’s overage. But Kingsley would’ve wanted Ron, Nevile, Harry, and they would’ve all gone, and they all would’ve all done the job. And I think it would’ve been a good for thing for them too. Because to go through that battle and then be relegated to the sidelines, I think they would’ve felt a need to keep going and finish the job. So that would’ve been rounding up, really, the corrupt people who were doing a Lucius Malfoy and trying to pretend that they really weren’t involved.” So clearly, they did go back to the Ministry and help.

Alison: I hope Harry slept for, like, three days before he had to, though.

[Michael laughs]

Beth: Me too!

Alison: And I guess they probably would have, right? Because Kingsley would have had to be instated as Minister of Magic before all of that could happen. So maybe he got a week off.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: He could just sleep and eat sandwiches and be content for a little bit.

Michael: Well, we’ll get to Kingsley a little farther down when we get to the politics of what happened with the wizarding world. But yeah, no, this quote implies that it was not that far after. And we know that Harry, I think, joins pretty much right off the bat, as far as we know, and then he becomes Head of the Auror Department. Isn’t it in 2007, somewhere around there? He becomes Head of the Auror Department, which would make [sense]. That’s about ten years.

Shauna: Well, and Hermione’s name is missing from this list of people [whom] Kingsley called to come help out. So maybe it’s when the new school year starts and she returns to Hogwarts.

Michael: That’s right.

Alison: Oh yeah, that’s a good idea.

Michael: Because she went back to school, that’s right. So maybe they had a whole summer to recover. That would be helpful. Well, and as Beth mentioned, too, it’s worth noting that Neville was mentioned in…

Alison: Yay!

[Alison and Beth laugh]

Michael: … that little bit there, which is important.

Alison: How long do you think Neville stayed?

Michael: At Hogwarts?

Alison: No, at the Auror Office.

Michael: Oh, at the Auror Office.

Alison: Before going to Hogwarts.

Shauna: Five minutes?

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Jon: It’s not really in his personality.

Alison: He’s like, “Bye!”

Beth: He’s out.

Michael: No, yeah. I think you’re right, Jon. That’s not really him. The implication, too, of cleanup, while Rowling defines it as rounding up people, Neville, I think, would be a little more fitting for perhaps that counselor/caretaker that’s needed during this time.

Alison: I don’t know. He proved himself a pretty good underground spy in Deathly Hallows while everyone was gone.

Michael: That’s true. That’s true. He has those leader qualities. He just needed to find them.

Shauna: That’s true. Maybe he’s got an ear to the ground and he’s listening for any names of people to pop up to alert Harry and Ron.

Alison: I feel like that would be his job. He’s infiltrating places and [unintelligible].

Michael: Neville is actually James Bond.

[Alison, Michael, Shauna laugh]

Shauna: Longbottom. Neville Longbottom. Anyway…

[Alison and Shauna laugh]

Michael: Now we have a few more points about Harry, though, and one of the big ones is his relationship to another character. And this is, of course, addressed in its own way in Cursed Child, but Rowling was asked about Harry and Malfoy, and the question was, “Did [D]raco and [H]arry lose their animosity towards eachother [sic] when [V]oldemort died?” And she said, “Not really. There would be a kind of rapprochement, in that Harry knows Draco hated being a Death Eater and would not have killed Dumbledore; similarly, Draco would feel a grudging gratitude towards Harry for saving his life. Real friendship would be out of the question, though. Too much had happened prior to the final battle.” So all those fan fics out there where Harry and Malfoy sit down and have a nice talk after the Battle of Hogwarts probably didn’t happen. [laughs] No new friendships there, unfortunately, immediately.

Jon: I’m sure it would’ve been years before they would’ve even…

Alison: Seen each other.

Jon: … spoken a word to each other. Yeah, they probably wouldn’t even have the opportunity to see each other until [they] probably meet on the street one day.

Alison: That’s awkward.

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: There’s a fan fiction [unintelligible].

Alison: They just stop, and everyone’s like, “What?”

Michael: [laughs] “What are they going to do?” And then somebody in the audience would probably yell, “Kiss!”

[Alison, Jon, and Shauna laugh]

Michael: Just because. [laughs]

Beth: Before Cursed Child happened, I was pretty convinced that Rose and Scorpius were going to be a thing and that that was when Harry and Draco started to interact in a slightly more friendly manner.

Shauna: They never see each other until the wedding.

Alison: It is what they bring up in Cursed Child: They don’t like each other. But I think for the sake of their children and for the sake of not repeating their parents’ mistakes, maybe – well, mostly on Draco’s side, not repeating their parents’ mistakes – they look past their differences and just deal with each other.

Michael: [It] presents pretty much the only reason they would ever probably want to interact substantially afterward anyway.

Alison: Exactly. This is so dumb. I picture them at little league Quidditch matches…

[Michael laughs]

Beth: Aww!

Alison: … and sitting next to each other but not talking. They’re not talking, but they’re both just sitting there occasionally side-eyeing each other and then just watching the match and then just looking at each other and then looking away.

Shauna: Oh, it’s like when you run into that person you went to high school with at the restaurant in town. You’re like, “Oh my God, I don’t want to see them right now.” And then you all pretend you’re not seeing each other. Anyway…

[Michael laughs]

Alison: You pretend you do see each other because you can’t avoid it anymore.

Shauna: Awkward wave across Applebee’s. “Hi!”

[Alison and Beth laugh]

Michael: Now, we talked a little bit about Harry’s guilt over Fred, but Beth, you had a few more people [whom] Harry might be thinking about.

Beth: Yeah, I think Fred is probably a big one just because he is probably very involved in the Weasleys and sees everything, how it affects them, but Lupin and Tonks is another big one, especially because he’s Teddy’s godfather. He probably feels really awful about that one. And then Colin Creevey is one that I was thinking about too, because Colin was underage if I’m remembering correctly. And obviously, it’s not Harry’s fault that Colin came back to fight. Harry did his best to make sure that all of the underage students were out of the castle and safe. But Colin’s death, I’m sure, probably hit Harry really hard.

Alison: I 100% believe Harry went to Colin’s funeral. I’m sure that happened. Did you guys hear that part of the panel at MuggleNet Live!, actually, where someone was talking about the moment where they shot a moment of someone carrying Colin’s body? And in the book, too, Harry particularly notes Colin and how small he is in death, and that’s a hard-hitting moment. I 100% believe he feels guilty for that because Colin always hero-worshipped him.

Jon: Oh God, that was actually the moment in the book that I cried. I didn’t even cry when Dobby died, but when they mentioned Colin, I started bawling my eyes out because of that. For me, the hero-worship, that’s what got me. And so yeah, I don’t know. [Out of] everything that happened that should’ve made me cry, that was the one thing. So I think that’s something he is going to carry, even though Colin barely appears between Chamber and this. I feel like because he was underage and he came back for Harry. At least the other adults were able to make those calls for themselves. And Lupin and Tonks would’ve been there regardless; Colin did it because of Harry.

Alison: And Colin wasn’t really involved in anything. Like you said, he hardly shows up. He was in the DA. But he really didn’t know what was going on in the big picture. And so to have him be one of the ones that die, that’s… oof. Oof.

Shauna: Harry is going to have some nightmares about that one.

Michael: He’s going to have lots of nightmares.

[Michael and Shauna laugh]

Shauna: Regardless of what Cursed Child says, nightmares.

Michael: So with talking about how we had already discussed Fred with that and how guys said that, I was thinking about… It’s so funny that I’m surprising myself with a few moments where I’m going to use Cursed Child positively here, but I think the portion in Cursed Child where Mr. Diggory is directly confronting Harry about the loss of his son. I think the issue there that could potentially crop up, too, is that while I think most people would generally understand in the wizarding world that Harry wasn’t at fault, there probably would be some people who would be like, “My child died because of you.” So I feel like there would have to be those confrontations, a lot, on Harry’s part with that issue. Actually, I had it farther down, but one of our Twitter followers, Scott Butler, I think it was @carlscottbutler, who asked on Twitter, “Do you think Harry attended the funerals of everyone who died?”

Alison: I wrote fan fic about that a few years ago.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: I thought about this a lot.

Michael: And what did your fan fic say?

Alison: I wrote a thing where, obviously, he went to Fred’s. He went to Colin’s, he went to Tonks’s, and he went to Lupin’s. And I think that’s all I got to. But there was a lot of guilt happening there.

Michael: I feel like, in addition to the individual funerals, I’m assuming that Hogwarts probably did some kind of memorial service. At least for all of the individual students whose funerals he couldn’t make it to, I’m assuming that’s probably how he covered his bases was to maybe present himself there, maybe talk a little bit, possibly. I don’t know. Maybe Ginny wrote his speech for him.

Shauna: I was going to say, I see him stumbling through. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. Sorry, sorry.”

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: That would be at Colin’s.

Michael: Not the most eloquent speech, perhaps, if it had been him. But yeah, no, and I think Rowling has mentioned that this is something that is, of course, going to haunt Harry for his entire life. But of course, as we see in the “Nineteen Years Later” epilogue and as Rowling has discussed before about what she intended for Harry, he does have a very large support group around him; he has a large family; he has that family he always wanted but never had as a child. And I like to think that that was what helped him through that process, eventually. But I imagine in the immediate aftermath, that took time to work through, especially having had an encounter with his deceased Headmaster in limbo and also talking to a lot of his dead comrades with the Resurrection Stone and having that opportunity, I guess, that other people would not have had, that also must have been pretty surreal. Do you think anybody was asking him to go get the Resurrection Stone out of the forest?

Alison: I don’t think he told anyone about it.

Beth: Yeah, I don’t think so either.

Michael: It’s probably for the best. But we had a few, of course, other characters in this trio. We’ve mostly been focusing on Harry. But of course, Ron was busy too. Rowling was a little ambiguous about what exactly happened to Ron in the immediate aftermath. Because in 2007 during her web chat, she said that Ron joined George at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, “which became an enormous money-spinner.” But then she also mentioned in some other interviews that Ron actually went to work with the Ministry, and people were asking, “Hey, what was the timeline on that?” But she answered that through Rita Skeeter in the piece “Dumbledore’s Army Reunites at Quidditch [World] Cup [Final],” which was posted on Pottermore in 2014. And in that, Rita Skeeter wrote, “In the immediate aftermath of the battle, Weasley […] entered into employment with the Ministry of Magic alongside Potter, but left only two years later to co-manage the highly successful wizarding joke emporium Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.” So he did go to the Ministry first. So we know that now.

Shauna: I’m curious to know what Ron did at Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes. Because he wasn’t really an inventor nor do they teach math at Hogwarts.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Jon: Not exactly a salesman.

Shauna: No, not a salesman.

Alison: I bet he did some marketing or something. I bet he was in charge of that. He gets how that works. I bet he was…

Beth: He was a cashier.

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: That’s it. “I’m your brother.” “Ten Galleons.”

Michael: Because Ron has a great sense of humor and charisma, I feel like Ron would be great to have around the shop demonstrating products, and I think in that way, he would be a salesman without trying to be, in a way. We’ve seen in many of the books, especially when they go to Hogsmeade, Ron loves to talk up products. I think there’s that whole bit in Prisoner when they’re on the train on the way to Hogwarts, and they’re talking about Hogsmeade, and Hermione is going on about all the factual stuff and Ron is ignoring her because he’s trying to sell the candy to himself. He’s just like, [as Ron] “Oh, the big fat chocoballs that’ll melt in your mouth and sugar quills you can suck on and pretend you’re actually working.” I think Ron would probably be pretty good at that element of it. But we do know from this that he actually went to the Ministry pretty much right after. And as Rita also noted in that same piece, she had a few questions of her own, including, “Was the work of the Auror Department too much for a man who has admitted that the destruction of He-Who-Could-Not-Be-Named’s Horcruxes ‘took its toll’ on him?” She does claim that she’s quoting Ron in that section. Because we’ve also heard mention in the books that Ron also had aspirations to become an Auror. In some ways, depending on how you choose to interpret it, it was a bit of a tagalong to Harry. What do you guys think as far as why Ron would join and why he left? Do you think Ron would be a good Auror? Do you think he would be fit for that kind of work?

Alison: I actually love that bit. I love that bit about he’s admitted that destroying the Horcruxes took its toll because I think that shows some real maturity on Ron’s part, which I definitely think he came to in Deathly Hallows. And I think he finally understood something about himself and he understood that it takes too much of a toll on him as a person. And while he’s willing to aid in the fight, it might be too much to be right there for him. And I think that’s good on Ron for understanding that about himself and making that decision from that. Because it did.

Shauna: Maybe that shows the most growth from any character post Potter that we could see. Because he probably became an Auror. As we were saying, Ron loves fame; Ron loves being admired. So you could just see him taking pictures with Harry immediately afterward and being interviewed and being [like], “Oh, yeah, I did a lot. I’m awesome” and becoming an Auror on that. But then realizing that it wasn’t really his career path that he was set out to be on and realizing that he did need something a little more quiet.

Jon: We were talking earlier about Harry, Neville, [and] Ron help[ing] Kingsley clean up. It was probably part[ly because] he was asked to clean up. It turned from a quick cleanup into a two-year job, but he realized at the end of it, “This isn’t for me.”

Michael: Yeah, well, it was funny because I actually – in my head – thought it would’ve been the opposite way that George might’ve needed that support sooner and that Ron would’ve gone to Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes first and then gone to be an Auror. So it was a little surprising to me when she revealed that it was the other way around.

Alison: I wonder if Ginny helped at the shop for a little bit.

Michael: I like that.

Alison: Before she went to go play Quidditch.

Beth: She went back to school, though, didn’t she?

Shauna: She would’ve had another year.

Alison: She did, but it wouldn’t surprise me if, in that last year, maybe part time or during the summer, she helped, and then she took a year before she went to play Quidditch.

Michael: Do you think maybe that’s how George and Angelina’s relationship happened, is that maybe she came forward and offered to help?

Alison: I like that!

Michael: Because we don’t know what Angelina was doing up until they got married and then post the Quidditch World Cup section. We don’t have news on that. And she was out of Hogwarts by that time too.

Alison: I like that.

Shauna: Oh, now I have a whole new… So I was thinking that possibly George didn’t want help initially, that he was in a bit of a denial and thinking, “Oh, I can do this.” And now I have this beautiful picture of Angelina coming in and being [like], “No, George. You need help. We need to talk about it. I need to talk about it.” And romance. Yay.

Michael: Aww.

Alison: I like that a lot. Ooh! Ooh!

[Michael laughs]

Beth: Well, and on that note, do we think that the shop reopened right away or do you think that George took a bit of a breather before going back?

Michael: Well, that goes along…

Shauna: I think it would stay open.

Michael: That has to go along, too, with the recovery of Diagon Alley as a whole because we know that Diagon Alley is pretty much in shambles by this point. Because almost all the stores have closed. We know at least one of the owners is dead. Poor Florean Fortescue.

[Alison and Beth laugh]

Shauna: The ice cream was not even that bad. I don’t understand.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Shauna: Delicious.

Michael: And that whole piece is really interesting because even though Florean didn’t end up serving the role that he was meant to in the story as far as having that information as a historian, he still ended up dying offscreen for the reason that he was knowledgeable in history. So poor Florean. What a shame. She didn’t spare him even though she didn’t use his death on the page. But of course, we have Harry; we have Ron. And then there’s the fabulous Hermione, who just has it all together, it would seem. As Rowling mentioned again [in] the web chat in 2007, Hermione brought her parents home and undid the memory damage straight away.

“She has not wiped her parents’ memories (as she later does to Dolohov and Rowle); she has bewitched them to make them believe that they are different people.”

So I think that was probably the immediate, immediate thing because she was like, [as Hermione] “Oh my God, my parents! They’re in Australia! I have to go.” So I’m assuming she probably did that pretty quickly.

Shauna: I would think so.

Alison: I think she would wait to make sure everything actually was over because she’s cautious enough. But then as soon as she was sure, she was hopping [on] the first plane to Australia. She was gone.

Michael: Beth, you had a question about this too.

Beth: Yeah, I really want to know if she went by herself or if Ron and Harry went with her. Because we know that she set all that up in secret from them until it was done. And so I think it would be really lovely if they went with her. And the other thing I want to know is if she tells them the truth about how she spent that time and what she did to them and if they understand.

Jon: First off, I want to believe that Ron went with her because in my head I want to visualize Ron’s first time on a plane.

[Alison, Michael, and Shauna laugh]

Alison: That’s fantastic.

Shauna: I want to visualize Ron telling Arthur about his first time on a plane.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: I think, in my head, the way I see it is that Ron genuinely, from the bottom of his heart, offered to go with her and she said, “No, but thank you.” Because I think…

Alison: And then he showed up anyway.

Shauna: Yeah, I want that.

Michael: I just personally feel because of the question you addressed, Beth, of explaining everything to her parents, I almost feel like Hermione would’ve felt she needed to do that by herself.

Shauna: Ron could’ve run around the streets of Australia on his own, just marveling in the Muggle world for a couple of hours.

Jon: Where the animals are actually more terrifying than they are in the magical world.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: Do you think Ron would’ve wanted to have separated from his family that soon? Or do you think that might’ve been a good thing? I don’t know. Do you think Ron might’ve even seen it as a benefit to maybe give them some space and give himself some space?

Alison: I like both options, is the thing. I like her going by herself, and I like Ron going with her. I think she would’ve insisted Harry stay home, even if Harry had offered. She’d be like, “No, go back to bed. Right now.”

Michael: I feel like if Harry had offered, he would’ve offered it half asleep, just like, [as Harry] “Ugh, no Hermione, wait, wait. Did you book the tickets yet? Just give me a minute.” And she’s like, [as Hermione] “No, no, it’s taken care of. Go have a sandwich.”

[Alison, Michael, and Shauna laugh]

Alison: I like both options, and I can’t really decide which makes sense. But I definitely think she explained everything to them. Because I think she felt some guilt over it, even though…

Michael: Well, that’s why I thought Beth’s question was so great because we’ve talked a lot about Hermione’s weird relationship [with] her parents throughout the books and whether there [are] any contentions there if it’s smoother than maybe we were reading into it. Because we get all these summers where she comes to the Burrow or wherever and she’s just like, [as Hermione] “Oh, yes, I just abandoned my parents on vacation. It’s fine.” And constantly leaving her parents or telling them, “Yes, I have wizard business.” And to come back and explain this to them, I think, would be pretty… I like to also think that her parents, after being like, “Oh my God! Why did you do that?” would also just be like, “We’re very proud of you, hon.” I don’t know. I don’t even know if they could even fully understand the gravitas of the situation.

Alison: I’ve always pictured that Hermione has a very good relationship with her parents and they allow her to do that, fly into this new world you’ve discovered where you belong, but that they still have a very strong relationship. And I think she would’ve explained it to them. I’m sure they know everything that had happened before that. I’m sure she’d gone through all of that with them. But I think she’d be seeking their forgiveness and so she’d tell them everything.

Michael: Well, and in the end, it was [for] very good reasons, and I think they’d understand that. Of course, the other big thing about Hermione is that out of the trio, she is the only one to go back to Hogwarts. As Rowling said on PotterCast, “Of course she’d go back. She has to get her NEWTs.” But Beth also had a question about that too.

Beth: Yeah. So I just wonder how this decision came about and if she tried to convince Harry and Ron to come back as well, or if either of them tried to convince her to change her mind to not go back. I just imagine Harry and Ron being like, “Are you crazy? You want to go back to school?”

[Beth and Michael laugh]

Alison: I feel like she didn’t even discuss it with them. She just assumed it was going to happen, and on August 29, she was like, [as Hermione] “So have you bought your books yet?” And they’re like, “What are you talking about?” And she’s like, [as Hermione] “Well, we’re going back to school in a couple of days.” And they’re like, “Hermione, we’re not going back. To school?” And she’s like, [as Hermione] “Yes, we’re going…” And they’re just like, “Okay.” And then they just tease her about it for the next year. [laughs]

Shauna: Yeah, talking about when she made this decision, I don’t think there was a decision to be made.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: She probably spent that whole time in the forest just being like, [as Hermione] “Got to get back to school!”

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: “I have my whole itinerary for next year set up. I have my whole schedule planned out.” Because the thing, too, is, I don’t think Harry and Ron would have been completely blindsided because I feel like part of that discussion probably had to come up with the reality that they were both offered positions at the Ministry so quickly. If that’s what happened. Again, then that’s a great question: How soon was Kingsley instated? But I think probably what happened is – because we don’t have any information to the contrary – even if Kingsley wasn’t immediately instated as permanent Minister of Magic, he was probably instated as interim Minister until he was permanent.

Alison: He was. I think they say that in Deathly Hallows.

Michael: Yeah. So if that’s the case, he probably offered Harry and Ron positions pretty quickly, or at least probably over the summer. I was quite fond of this thing as my personal headcanon, and I did this for AudioFictions, actually. I think it was one of the last episodes that was prerecorded (Episode 198 or 199), and I had a whole scenario… because I recorded interstitials that related to the stories, and the interstitial was that it was the day that they were on the platform, sending Ginny and Hermione back to school. And I had Harry hand Hermione a note from Kingsley that she was welcome to a position at the Ministry whenever she decided to take it, but she was freaking out because she had rejected his offer.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: And she was like, [as Hermione] “Oh my God! Why did I reject an offer from the Ministry? Why would I go back to school?” But at the same time, she wasn’t regretting that decision either. So I feel like Kingsley probably opened up positions for all of them and said, “Join when you’re ready.”

Beth: I think that’s probably true as well. And from the quote that we get from Jo about Harry, Ron, and Neville being part of the cleanup efforts, it makes it sound like Hermione decided early on that she wanted to go back to school, and so he didn’t even offer her a position in that sort of task force because he already knew that she had a different plan.

Michael: She probably had set up a meeting with him to tell him her plans.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: Yeah. I’m personally more inclined to think that that might have been the case. We have a minor point, too, from [laughs] a comment from, actually, our last episode, 227, from Soc.forRescueofVanishedAnimals. I thought this sparked this whole idea, along with Matthew’s suggestion. But VanishedAnimals said, “I’ve wondered about Crookshanks and Pig[widgeon] during the Deathly Hallows period.” Because, of course, we don’t know.

“Hermione and Ron may have left them at the Burrow for safety initially, because it was being protected, but what happened once the Weasleys had to relocate to Auntie Muriel’s? I hope they took the animals with them. And what about the chickens??? War is just as traumatic for the animals, sadly. Could you imagine Muriel’s reaction, though, to having a bunch of chickens clucking around her yard, and little Pigwidgeon fluttering about all day long?”

[Alison laughs]

Michael: And I loved that because that’s just one of those fun, little unanswered questions. Because we don’t see Crookshanks [again], do we?

Alison: No. I personally believe that Hermione sent Crookshanks with her parents to watch over them.

Shauna: Aww. Aww!

Michael: Oh, I like that. [laughs]

Alison: When she rearranged their whole lives, she included that they have a cat, and she sent Crookshanks with them because he’s part Kneazle, right? So he’s aware [and] can look after them. And I think she knew that when it was time for her to go find them again, Crookshanks would help her find them. Because he would come looking for her.

Beth: Okay. Headcanon accepted.

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: I don’t remember where I got that idea, but I read that somewhere and I was like, “Yes! That’s what happened.”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: And what heroic act is Pigwidgeon up to?

Alison: I think Pig is just hanging out with the Weasleys.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: He might be flying some secret missions. Maybe Ginny took him to school.

Michael: Oh! I like that. Yeah.

Alison: Maybe Molly was like, “Take the baby owl! Your brother is not here. Take him so you can communicate with him.”

Michael: I bet Ron was probably thrilled to hand Pigwidgeon off to Ginny.

Alison: [laughs] I bet Ginny was excited to have Pig.

Shauna: Oh yeah, she thought he was the cutest thing ever.

Alison: [laughs] Well, she named him.

Michael: And we touched a little bit on this, but this bleeds into the next topic about characters outside of the trio. Again, we touched a little bit on the relationships. I think we touched a lot on Ron and Hermione and how they would have functioned afterward and a little bit [on] Harry and Ginny. And of course, we’ve gotten so much news from Rowling about how she feels that would have gone afterward. How do you all feel those relationships would have gone, either counting or discounting Cursed Child, as you so wish, I guess at this point is all we can do. What are you guys’ thoughts on their relationships in the immediate aftermath?

Jon: Well, it’s interesting because they really only got that summer to cement that – in Ron and Hermione’s case – new romantic relationship in Harry and Ginny’s reconnection because Ginny and Hermione go back to school. Ron and Harry go back to work for the Ministry, and you don’t really see people going home every weekend from Hogwarts…

Alison: No, they’re sneaking in through Hogsmeade.

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: They’re sneaking in through Honeydukes every week. McGonagall knows it; she just lets it happen.

Michael: Well, of course, there is the benefit that some of these characters now know how to Apparate.

Jon: Yeah, that’s true.

Shauna: But you can’t Apparate at Hogwarts.

Michael: Well, you can at least Apparate to Hogsmeade and take a walk.

[Jon and Michael laugh]

Michael: Okay, and that also pairs up, too, with the discussion about that summer because there was a question actually further down [on] Hogwarts from Aurelia, one of our MuggleNet staff and one of our frequent commenters for Alohomora! But she asked, “How long does it take to repair the damage to Hogwarts, and what sort of magic do you need for that?” And I was thinking… because we did maybe say that the students, including the trio, participated in helping with that. So maybe…

Shauna: I am so curious about that.

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: How much could you do magically, and how many people would it take to do those things? And would they be able to open in September, or would they have to have classes somewhere else until [Hogwarts was] rebuilt?

Beth: And we don’t even know how destroyed Hogwarts really is.

Shauna: That’s true.

Alison: We don’t even know how Hogwarts was built in the first place.

Michael: Well, we do know that the Room of Requirement is now permanently on fire.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: So that’s at least one big piece of damage.

Beth: Guys, it’s just [the Mending Charm].

[Everyone laughs]

Beth: It’s just [the Mending Charm]; that’s all.

Shauna: Okay, it’s that easy. Fix Hogwarts with [the Mending Charm].

Michael: Well, it’s funny you say that because @nearintelligence on Twitter, who[m] I believe is They’ve Taken My Wheezy! on our main site, actually pointed out, “Has Fantastic Beasts shown us that all the damage will be easily and effortlessly repaired, just as New York was at the end of the film?” [laughs]

Alison: See, the difference, though, is, New York was Muggle-made, so I think that’s easier, whereas Hogwarts has got some pretty intense magic within it. So I don’t know. How could it ever be repaired all the way?

Michael: Well, yeah, because we know that some of the magic that’s within Hogwarts was developed by the founders themselves. The staircases were Ravenclaw, so if any staircases are damaged, I don’t know if they know how to fix those.

Alison: They might not move. [gasps] What if they had some moving staircases and some that weren’t moving because they got broken?

Michael: Now they’re boring staircases.

Alison: But you don’t know which one is which.

Michael: [laughs] Maybe this got rid of the trick step problem. Maybe that trick step staircase blew up.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: And we know, too, that magical damage can be catastrophic in the wizarding world and can sometimes be irreparable, depending on what spells were cast. So there might be sections that have bigger problems at Hogwarts, if that’s the case. But yeah, I was wondering if maybe that summer might have allowed for some bonding time. But again, we have this little gap where we’re not really sure what the characters are up to and who’s helping with what.

Alison: I definitely think it was a slow process of everyone just trying to figure out who they were and who the other person was outside of this war zone. Ron and Hermione really came together in a war, and so…

Shauna: That was a slow burn anyway, though.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: No, it was a slow burn, but they actually connected in the middle of a war. And then Harry and Ginny, having them separated for a year, to have to try [to] figure out… I guess their breakup wasn’t horrible, but it was strange. [laughs] How do you come back from that?

Michael: Well, and with mentioning Ginny, I don’t think this happened in the immediate aftermath, but it’s worth mentioning that she did go on to the Holyhead Harpies first [and] then as a Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet, as Rowling defined it. But I’m imagining that Ginny probably had… We know she went back to school, right? I don’t know if it’s confirmed, but I think it’s assumed. I don’t think she would’ve been…

Alison: I think it is confirmed because I think she said somewhere that Hermione and Ginny went to their last year together.

Michael: Oh, okay. Well, good. She didn’t jump right into a burgeoning Quidditch career. That’s probably a good thing. No, Matthew had another interesting question when he brought up this topic. He asked, “Did any of the characters who die become ghosts?”

Jon: I would love to think that Fred’s ghost is there giving Peeves a run for his money, but at the same time, that would never happen.

[Michael laughs]

Jon: I just feel it would almost remove the trauma of losing him a little bit. So I think that’s what needs to be there.

Alison: Ghosts, in the Harry Potter universe, too, can’t let go of something. And I feel like at least the characters we know of that were fighting willingly, knowing they could die and that this could be the end, I don’t know if they were holding on to anything enough to make them ghosts.

Michael: Do you think any of the bad guys became ghosts?

Beth: Ooh!

Alison: Oh my gosh, I hope not. That sounds horrible.

Shauna: Bellatrix Lestrange just running around Hogwarts. That would be awful!

Michael: I like that that to all of us is a way more terrifying concept than Voldemort becoming a ghost.

Beth: I don’t think it’s possible for Voldemort to become a ghost.

Alison: No, his soul’s too damaged.

Michael: It is not, according to Rowling. Officially, she said on the web chat, “[Voldemort] is not a ghost. He is forced to exist in the stunted form we witnessed in King’s Cross” because he broke his soul so much that he was not given that option. But yeah, and that partially brings up a whole other discussion about the people that Harry did and did not see when he used the Resurrection Stone. But Alison, I think you’re on the right track that the feel that Rowling seems to give of the battle is that everybody who’s charging in is charging in knowing it could be their last moment. And that seems to carry with it the general acceptance that becoming a ghost does not entail in Rowling’s world. So yeah, this is sad because we were just talking about this, but the only person who I would even remotely think might’ve done that was Colin because of his family and his brother.

Alison: Aww!

Michael: I hate saying it as I’m saying it! But it’s awful. Because I think as brave as Colin’s decision was to go back into the battle, it was slightly immature and ill-informed on his part.

Alison: Gosh, can you imagine the kind…? Do you think he said goodbye to Dennis?

Michael: Ugh!

Beth: No.

Alison: Do you think he told Dennis what was happening?

Michael: No. Dennis would’ve followed him.

Shauna: Could you see the look on Dennis’s face if Colin popped up in the middle of the Great Hall like, “Hey, Dennis. What’s up?” as a ghost? Ugh, that would be horrible.

Alison: Geez. Oh my gosh! Well, what if Colin made Dennis go but then turned around?

Shauna: Ah!

Alison: Oh, geez, I can’t handle this.

Michael: [laughs] Oh, God. Colin, why?

Beth: Imagine, though, Colin running around school annoying all the other students. That would just be so great.

Alison: That would actually be funny.

Beth: We don’t know if Lavender Brown died, but if she came back as a ghost and went around annoying people, that would be fun too.

Alison: Listen, though. If Bellatrix came back, though, that would be a problem because Teddy Lupin would probably spend his whole life just… There’d be some animosity there, and Teddy Lupin would not be a happy person.

Michael: Do you think after all of the…? Of course, the consequence of being a ghost is the tendency to not move on from things. Do you think Moaning Myrtle moans a little less?

[Shauna laughs]

Alison: No.

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: Not if she has ghost-Colin Creevey to keep her company.

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: I think they would be adorable together.

Michael: [laughs] Perfect couple. There we go. We’ve just made an excellent new ship.

[Beth laughs]

Shauna: This is a new cosplay.

Jon: If anything else, they could talk about their mutual crush on Harry.

[Michael and Shauna laugh]

Michael: Well, it’s perfect, too, that Beth, you mentioned, too, Lavender Brown because Rachel, another one of our MuggleNet staff [members], whose Twitter handle is @moosetresofevil on Twitter, she didn’t ask anything. She just put, “Lavender Brown.” And I think that is excellent because the issue we have with Lavender Brown – and you guys can see it in the Doc here – is that some information is a bit conflicting about her. On Pottermore currently, it does not say anything about if she is dead or not. But previously for a few weeks, about a month or so, it did have on her profile originally that she was presumed dead at the Battle of Hogwarts. And of course, I believe this was being pulled from the movie information because from what we know in the book, she is left ambiguous. She is stirring after she is attacked by Greyback. It is not made clear either whether Greyback even managed to physically harm her after she fell because Hermione blasts him out of the way. So we don’t even know if she was actually bitten or mauled, but she did take quite a fall, as we know. But she was moving the last time we saw her.

Beth: I am very upset.

Michael: [laughs] Everybody’s upset.

Beth: I’m very upset at Pottermore for this.

[Michael laughs]

Beth: I just feel like…

Alison: Confusion.

Beth: … they should have their stuff together. Come on, Pottermore. How can they be so confused about what happened here?

Michael: I’m surprised that Rowling hasn’t definitively answered this one…

Alison: Seriously though.

Michael: … because she’s been asked about this a lot.

Shauna: She’s having too much fun watching us argue it out.

[Beth and Michael laugh]

Alison: It’s one that I’m just like, “Come on, Jo. Just tell me. Just tell me.” I am just so…

Michael: Well, I do remember… I was with a group of friends when we went to see the movie. I’m sure I think all of our jaws dropped when Lavender Brown died on-screen because none of us were expecting that. And…

Alison: I still don’t know if she even died on-screen. Every time I watch that movie I’m like, “Is she actually dead?”

Michael: According to Yates and Cave, she is dead in the movie version. I guess it could be left up to interpretation, but [I’m] pretty sure she’s not breathing in that last shot. And she has a huge chunk of her neck missing, so yeah. I think she’s out for the count in the movie. Well, it’s funny because when you think about Lavender Brown, you realize that there’s actually a whole crew of people from Harry’s year who were never accounted for afterward. And the only even hints we know about them is from Rowling through, again, that Rita Skeeter piece, “Dumbledore’s Army Reunites at Quidditch [World] Cup [Final]” from Pottermore. And Rita did not see the value in mentioning them because she called them “sundry other members of [Dumbledore’s] Army.” And she said they were present at the Quidditch World Cup, but she didn’t want to talk about them because she was obsessed with talking about Harry. So do we think Seamus Finnigan, Dean Thomas, the Patil twins…?

Michael and Shauna: Anthony Goldstein.

Alison: Doesn’t Dean live? Don’t we see he does something?

Beth: Well, we know that Rowling had a bunch of stuff on Dean from his backstory and stuff, but I don’t think we know anything about him from after the battle, which makes me really sad because she clearly cared about him a lot as a character.

Shauna: That’s going to be the thing if that encyclopedia ever comes out. Everyone’s going to skip right to the Dean Thomas page.

Beth: Oh. My. God.

Michael: [laughs] T for “Thomas,” yes. Yeah, aside from all the characters we mentioned already and a few of the teachers and staff, I think the only other person who’s flat-out mentioned, of course – and we know later on from lots of things – in that moment is Luna, because she distracts everybody so that Harry can get away. I don’t remember. I can’t remember if Dean is mentioned. I thought the last time we saw some of that group was when they save Harry, Ron, and Hermione from the Dementors with their Patronuses. So I’m not really sure what happened to everybody. We know that some of them are around and that they get treated really well at the Quidditch World Cup. So thumbs up for that.

Alison: I hope they’re alive. I can’t deal with any more death. Ugh.

Michael: We do also know that a few of the Hogwarts house-elves that we’ve encountered are alive. Winky is alive and sobered up a bit, according to Rowling. Kreacher might be. It’s hard to say. I discovered this very strange little business going on where somebody asked her if Kreacher was still alive after the battle, and she said, “No, he died.” But the thing was, she was being snarky on Twitter, and this is where it gets a little hard with canon on Twitter. Because this was right on the tail of somebody accusing her books again of witchcraft and that apparently they thought that Nicolas Flamel died in the books and that he was 666 when he died in the book. And Rowling threw a fit on Twitter and was just like, “No. Maybe read the book before you throw around accusations.” But then immediately after that somebody said, “Did Kreacher die? Did Kreacher survive?” And she went, “No. He died, and he was 666 years old!”

[Alison, Beth, and Shauna laugh]

Michael: So I don’t think we can take that one seriously, and I couldn’t find it, but I think we got information from her. Harry implies that he’s alive at the end of that section. But also…

Alison: He’s going to bring him a sandwich.

Michael: Yes, exactly. I think Kreacher is alive and at this point working at Hogwarts. He might also have gone back to Harry. I don’t know. But Harry has a track record for setting house-elves free anyway.

Beth: Yeah, it would be interesting if Kreacher left Hogwarts, at least for a short period, to take care of Harry and make sure he was okay, eating, functioning.

Shauna: It’s adorable.

Alison and Michael: Aww.

Michael: That’s so sweet.

Alison: And then what if Harry sent him back to Hogwarts to take care of his kids?

Michael and Shauna: Aww.

Michael: [laughs] Just adorable.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: Now, before we move on to the wider wizarding world, I think there’s one other set of characters [that]’s very important to address. And Beth, you wanted to talk a little bit about Andromeda and Teddy.

Beth: Yes, because we know that Teddy lived with Andromeda and that she raised him and that Harry was a part of Teddy’s life. But we don’t really know what it was like for Andromeda, those first couple of weeks after the battle, and having lost her husband and her daughter and her son-in-law and now having her grandson completely in her care. And also, she lost a sister. Even though her sister was the worst, she did still lose a sister.

[Michael laughs]

Beth: And so war took a really big toll on her. And then, of course, Teddy doesn’t have any parents or a grandfather. So that’s really interesting to me.

Alison: Geez, that’s depressing.

Beth: I know! [laughs]

Michael: Andromeda has incurred quite a lot of losses out of everybody.

Alison: Yeah!

Michael: And then on top of that, as much as I’m sure she loves little Teddy, she has been saddled with a baby, which that’s a lot of responsibility at that age. Wizards live a lot longer too, so that’s a lot to take in, I imagine. [laughs]

Alison: What do you think her first interaction with Harry was after all of it?

Michael: Ooh. That’s interesting because I feel like her first interaction with Harry is not good because he freaks out and thinks that she’s Bellatrix.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: And they get so little screen time together, but the screen time they do share is not positive. There’s definitely a coldness from Andromeda to Harry. And I think the saddest thing about that is that her worst fear was realized because she was already concerned about the marriage and Tonks and obviously seem[s] to be a very anxious parent. And lo and behold, all of her fears came true. Yeah, I don’t… ugh! Oof! God, you guys, this topic. [laughs]

Beth: I think it’s interesting if we compare Harry and Sirius for a second. The first thing that Sirius did as the “guardian” of Harry was to abandon Harry and go do something super reckless.

[Michael laughs]

Beth: And so I can see it being really important to Harry to go and see Teddy pretty much right away. As soon as he had figured himself out a little bit, to go and visit Andromeda and Teddy and apologize to Andromeda for what he feels he’d done to her and Teddy and to attempt to prove to her and Teddy that he was going to be there for them.

Michael: And remember, too, Harry has words directly from Lupin to take back. So that’s something as well that I suppose…

Alison: Oh, geez! Oh my gosh! I’m picturing…

[Michael laughs]

Alison: I’m picturing when Teddy is old enough to understand and Harry is trying to have that conversation with him and just, holy [heck]!

Michael: But I bet that would at least maybe help bridge that gap between him and Andromeda, to have those words to bring back, perhaps. I don’t know. Shauna and Jon, you were dressed as Lupin and Tonks. What do you think?

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Jon: It’s such a tough call. I mean, it’s interesting that I kind of forgot about Andromeda until we started having this discussion. I’m like, “Oh yeah! That’s what happened.”

Michael: [laughs] Well, yeah. Unfortunately, I think she gets forgotten a lot because the movies had to eliminate her and she [doesn’t] really get… It’s funny because she’s quite a bit of a background character. She’s mentioned a lot in Deathly Hallows, but…

Alison: She’s in one scene.

Michael: Yes, she only gets one scene, but the effects fall back on her a lot. So yeah, I don’t know. That’s a tough one. Listeners, we look to you to contribute on that point. The other one that we should also mention before we move on to the greater wizarding world is the Malfoys. Because we touched on them a little bit with Draco, but we wanted to get a little more into them because Rowling mentions in the web chat that “the Malfoys weaseled their way out of trouble (again) due to the fact that they colluded (albeit out of self-interest) with Harry at the end of the battle.” Now, I thought that was interesting too because as we were talking about Andromeda – and on top of this, it sounds like her other sister may have gone to court or something of the like – I think the Malfoys might’ve been in a little spot of trouble.

Alison: I feel like they were, but Harry was just like, “You know what, guys? Just give them a pass. I don’t want to deal with them right now.” [laughs] He’s just like, “It’s fine. Whatever.”

Michael: And we know that Umbridge was put on trial. So I wonder if… Because we were talking about, did Harry and Malfoy ever bump into each other before, f[u]rther down the line? Do you think Harry had to encounter them at the Ministry in his attempts to say, “Leave them be,” or did he testify?

Alison: That’s awkward.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: That’s really awkward. [laughs]

Michael: As it’s mentioned, it’s because they helped Harry. Or at least one of them did.

Shauna: Did they, though? Yeah, no, duh. Of course.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Shauna: I take that back.

Michael: Narcissa did.

Shauna: Kind of a big deal. Yeah, no. Brain fart.

Michael: Yeah. Malfoy was a bit of a hang-on, and Lucius was no help at all.

[Shauna laughs]

Alison: I’m just glad Ron punched Draco Malfoy.

Michael: [laughs] It was terribly satisfying, wasn’t it?

Alison: So great.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: Such a great moment.

Michael: But yeah, I don’t think it would be of much effect for the Malfoys to defend themselves. I think Harry would’ve had to step in and say, like you said, Alison, [as Harry] “Give them a pass. Narcissa did help me out with a pretty major plot point.”

Shauna: And then that gives Draco even more of a reason to dislike Harry a bit.

Michael: [laughs] Absolutely. Saving his neck twice in that instance. Absolutely. And so that’s actually perfect because all this talk of trials and the Malfoys, who are very much embroiled in politics, leads into some of the business with the Ministry of Magic in politics. Matthew Ousley asked, “Were there power struggles at the Ministry of Magic?” To which Rowling replied ever so sunshiny and rainbow-ish, “The Ministry of Magic was de-corrupted, and with Kingsley at the helm the discrimination that was always latent there was eradicated. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, et al. would of course play a significant part in the re-building of wizarding society through their future careers.” She also mentioned that “Kingsley became permanent Minister for Magic, and naturally he wanted Harry to head up his new Auror department.”

Shauna: That is very much putting a bow on top of the box, isn’t it?

[Michael laughs]

Alison: Yeah, pretty much.

Michael: Well, and this is another bone that I feel I can throw to Cursed Child, which is just that yeah, politics are a little messy and things don’t get fixed that easily. This feels a little too nice. I don’t know.

Jon: “Oh yeah, discrimination was eradicated. Oh yeah, and we’re just going to say, ‘Racism is not allowed anymore,’ and everyone’s going to stop being racist.”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Shauna: Oh my God, racism is over. Yay!

Alison: I don’t know. I think it’s a nice sentiment. More than it’s like, “This is what happened,” Jo was like, “This is what Kingsley’s aim was, and maybe he did a pretty good job at it.” I mean, I don’t know; it’s nice. The Ministry of Magic is interesting. I was watching Prisoner of Azkaban last night and I was just like, “It’s kind of nice to know that Cornelius Fudge was completely incompetent, but the wizarding world didn’t completely implode when he was in charge.” So things are going to be okay, maybe? [laughs]

Michael: Maybe. [laughs] I think the thing with Cornelius Fudge was that he wasn’t making quite as many sweeping changes on the daily as we’re getting right now in the real world. But yeah, no, because there was an excellent question on Beth’s part. And listeners, Beth will be back in just a moment – Internet problems – but she did point out who appointed Kingsley. And there’s a Ministers of Magic piece on Pottermore that pretty much says that the magic world is really loosey-goosey with that. They’re just like, “They elect somebody, and they run, and they get to be Minister for pretty much as long as they want.”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: And that… I don’t know. It’s funny because Rowling is so intricate and thoughtful with her politics, but this is one of those moments where Harry Potter does end up surrendering to the fact that it’s a novel for young adults and children and doesn’t really go deeper into that. And I’m a little surprised at that, I guess.

Alison: Maybe Jon can help us with this, because I struggle to understand British politics. [laughs] But does that mirror British politics at all? Because sometimes I feel like it does, but I don’t understand.

Jon: I mean, they use all the right words like “Ministry” and stuff, but really, Britain is a parliamentary thing. So there'[re] multiple parties and the party that gets the most seats in Parliament, their leader becomes the Prime Minister. But there’s no sense in the magical world that there are different political parties. So is the Minister just chosen by the people who work for the Ministry? Do they choose among themselves? Is the wizarding world even a democracy? So I think it’s really more of a case of people working at the Ministry choose somebody from among themselves. Because there’s definitely no sense of wizards voting.

Michael: Well, according to the Pottermore piece, it says, “The Minister for Magic is democratically elected, although there have been times of crisis in which the post has simply been offered to an individual without a public vote.”

Jon: I guess none of these elections occurred during the books.

Alison: Because in the US, we have pretty set elections. We have an election every two years. But maybe I misunderstood British politics, that they can call for an election.

Jon: I mean, I don’t know if it’s more [of] a recent thing, but basically, an election has to take place by the fifth year after the previous one. But a Prime Minister can call an election [at] any time, usually, because obviously, a Prime Minister can become Prime Minister without being elected. Because if the party says, “We don’t want this person; we want this person instead,” that person in the party automatically relieves the whole country. So somebody might want to have an election after that to consolidate their power to make sure that they deserve it.

Alison: Okay, that makes sense.

Jon: Or they can just hold out for those until the next election comes up. So it has to be every five years, but it can be [fewer].

Alison: So could that kind of thing have happened? They appointed Kingsley and then he was like, “All right, we’re going to have an election to make this official,” and it just happened that he got voted in?

Jon: It’s very possible, I think. That looks like probably how it worked, where obviously, Scrimgeour was just thrown in because “Oh my God, Fudge has been kicked out.”

Alison: But then he died pretty quick[ly].

Jon: Yeah, you’re right. And obviously, oh my God, what’s-his-face takes over.

Alison: Thicknesse.

Jon: Yeah. And again, same thing; that person’s appointed. I guess the lack of parties within it makes it very interesting that what you get is the people who want to be Minister compete partyless and the people vote for whichever individual they want, which is…

Alison: Do you think it has to do with heads of different offices at the Ministry? Because I feel like all the ones we’ve seen, they’ve been the head of some office before.

Jon: Yeah, but it’s interesting because obviously, those aren’t elected positions. So they’re people who put in an application and get picked. So you’re basically having a Minister being picked by an elected people. Oh, I’m telling you, as a social studies teacher – and I love government – I really want to know more about this.

[Alison laughs]

Michael: Well, there’s a little bit of an answer as far as regularity. According to Pottermore, “There is no fixed limit to a Minister’s term of office, but he or she is obliged to hold regular elections at a maximum interval of seven years. Ministers for Magic tend to last much longer than Muggle ministers. Generally speaking, and despite many a moan and grumble, their community is behind them in a way that is rarely seen in the Muggle world. This is perhaps due to a feeling, on the part of wizards, that unless they are seen to manage themselves competently, the Muggles might try to interfere.”

Jon: That is interesting, actually. So again, the seven-year thing definitely gives them a way out of why there [weren’t] any elections happening during the course of the books.

[Alison laughs]

Jon: Very clever.

Michael: And if you go to that piece on Pottermore too, you’ll see that a lot of the Ministers [of] Magic had some pretty bad terms, and a lot of them didn’t even make it out alive. So the…

Shauna: I’m really enjoying reading this, all the Ministers. It’s a good read.

Michael: It’s pretty insane. And the only piece we get from Kingsley is that his dates are listed as 1998 to the present. It says he “oversaw the capture of Death Eaters and Voldemort supporters following the death of Lord Voldemort. Initially named as a ‘caretaker Minister’, Shacklebolt was subsequently elected to the office.” So he was an interim Minister before he got the position permanently. So that answers that question.

Alison: Aww. And now it’s Hermione.

Michael: [laughs] But not yet.

Shauna: Or is it?

Alison: It is.

Michael: Not yet.

Alison: Not yet.

Michael: Because we’re not there yet, if that was the case. Let’s see, what else did we have under the politics? Oh, minor mention with all of this: Percy is involved in this. According to Rowling, “the new and improved Percy ended up as a high-ranking official under Kingsley.” I like that too because I think with all the trauma we were talking about with the Weasley family and that idea that everybody needed something to do, I bet you Percy was probably very, very enthusiastic to probably get back into Ministry work. Probably reuniting with his family but also excited at the prospect of being in a Ministry that wasn’t corrupt probably was a positive thing for him. He also, we know, later would become Head of Magical Transportation, so that’s where he…

Jon: That’s very Percy. Not very exciting, but important.

Alison: I love it.

Michael: Still talking about cauldron bottoms for some reason, apparently.

Alison: [laughs] No, he’s talking about broomsticks.

Michael: Oh, he’s talking about broomsticks. So he is talking about transportation. Okay, perfect. So he made it into the right career. And we know, too…

Alison: Speaking of careers – sorry – can we talk about Beth’s question above?

Michael: Which one?

Alison: About Potterwatch.

Michael: Yes!

Beth: Yeah!

[Michael laughs]

Alison: I just have a really funny thing that I found on Tumblr the other day that applies.

Michael: What was your question about that, Beth?

Beth: I just want to know if it disbands right away, or if they keep doing it for a while to help the transition back to normalcy. And maybe they continue it for a long time, just for fun. I don’t know. Sounds fun to me.

Michael: Ooh. I really like the idea that they would be some kind of lifeline/reunion/first-aid line to connect people, get people back together.

Alison: Yeah. Wizard Facebook, to connect people.

Michael: Yeah. What were you going to say, Jon?

Jon: I was thinking, the idea of keeping up on Harry, what his doings [are] and whatnot, by the time he’s working for the Ministry, “Today, Harry Potter went to work wearing a brown pinstripe suit.”

[Alison laughs]

Shauna: So wait, is that just like Alohomora! or MuggleCast but in the wizarding world?

[Alison laughs]

Michael: I don’t know. To me that sounds a little more like Rita Skeeter bottomed out.

[Michael and Shauna laugh]

Alison: I got to read you guys this post. It’s so funny. So it starts from Tumblr user accio-[shit]post. And it says, “What’s the betting that [P]otterwatch was just a radio project [L]ee [J]ordan was doing in his spare time and never actually stopped after the war[?]” And then user sugar-dollie added on, “Harry Potter was spotted at the local farmers market today, good choices in produce, Harry! Gotta love the organics.”

[Michael laughs]

Alison: And then user pocketplant added, “He’s the only reporter Harry will talk to other than giving official statements when he has to as an [A]uror. ‘I’m speaking to Harry Potter today after the long-awaited conclusion of the trial of quadruple murderer Waldorfus Grenoble. Harry, may I ask you a question regarding the trial?’ ‘Sure, Lee. I have to be back at work in ten but give it a go.’ ‘What is in the curry you had for lunch yesterday during the recess? It smelled fantastic and I have to know.’ ‘Thanks for asking, Lee. I’ve recently come across a book of my great-grandmother Priyanka’s notes on Punjabi cooking and I’ve been trying to recreate her food. I liked that one but Ginny said it was too sweet so I’m making adjustments.’ ‘Fantastic. Great stuff. Next up we have an update on You-Know-Who’s whereabouts. Not Voldemort obviously – he’s six feet under. It’s been 2,500 days now and he’s still going strong, no sign of him being not dead any time soon.’ ‘You’re correct, Lee. He’s dead as a doornail and he’s going to stay that way. You do realize you don’t need to refer to your infant daughter as ‘You-Know-Who,’ right?’ ‘Sophie starts screaming if either of her dads talks about her and we don’t know why. Any suggestions, and any idea where she is now?’ ‘Oliver was walking her up and down the hallway outside the World Cup Regulatory Office last I saw her. As for the screaming, with James we gave him the miniature dragon from the Triwizard [Tournament] in ’94 and that entertained him pretty well.’ ‘You heard it here first, folks. Harry Potter thinks dragons are an appropriate substitute for pacifiers. Thanks for your time, Harry.’ ‘Any time, Lee.’ ‘Next week’s password is anything that will make our six-month-old go to sleep for longer than four hours. Signing off, this has been Potterwatch with River and the man himself, Harry Potter.'”

[Shauna laughs]

Michael: That’s good.

Shauna: Amazing.

Michael: See, that was such a clever little thing that Rowling turned Lee Jordan from a Quidditch commentator to a radio show personality. My personal headcanon is that he actually went on to work for the Wizarding Wireless Network and that possibly Potterwatch got absorbed into some other show for that. But I really liked the idea because people use – like you were saying, Alison – Facebook, people use the radio, people use television as a means to connect after a disaster. And I feel like the wizarding world would’ve needed something like that, like a central hub, to be able to get everybody back in touch, make sure everybody was okay, offer up a solution, self-care solutions, things like that. I think that would’ve been a great way to use Potterwatch if it was still going afterward. I like that idea.

Beth: Also to spreading correct information, making sure that the truth is widely understood, especially because there’s probably going to be a lot of fear and uncertainty right after the battle, and making sure everybody understands that Voldemort has been defeated and that his followers are being dealt with accordingly and there isn’t anything to fear anymore.

Michael: Well, that goes along with another question that was asked by Matthew, which was, “How long did it take for the Daily Prophet to reform? Did Harry utilize them to tell his story? Did Harry even attempt to spread the truth in the immediate aftermath?” And Beth, you had some follow-up questions with that as well.

Beth: Well, I wasn’t sure if we knew if Harry tells the public that Horcruxes were a thing, or even if he tells anybody about Horcruxes. But we know from the Rita Skeeter quote that we read earlier in the episode, she references Horcruxes. So I guess we can assume that he did tell everyone that Voldemort had Horcruxes, but I don’t know how far in-depth he went into that for the public.

Jon: It’s interesting because probably a lot of it was “Look, people are afraid. He came back before. Is he going to come back again?” And Harry has to go out there and say, “He’s not coming back and here’s why.” But at the same time, do you really want to put the idea of Horcruxes out there? Because maybe people might start looking at how to do that again.

Michael: Yeah, I think Rowling has mentioned that too, that they attempt to not put too much Horcrux… I mean, she won’t even do it in the real world; she won’t tell us things about Horcruxes. So I imagine Harry probably kept that information to a minimum as much as he could. I’m interested because I’m guessing that the Daily Prophet probably had to cease production for a small amount of time. Because how could they keep going with such major regime changes?

Beth: Nobody trusts them anyway.

Michael: [laughs] That’s a problem.

Alison: This addition, all of the rescinding information we have to take back from the past year…

Michael: [laughs] Oops. Yeah. Well, because I was curious. I had wondered if maybe Harry ended up telling his story to the Quibbler instead because the Quibbler treated him well. Of course…

Beth: For a while.

Michael: Yes, I was going to say, there is that problem that, of course, Xenophilius and the Quibbler did turn against him in the end, briefly. But I feel like Harry might understand that a little better than the Daily Prophet because Luna was involved. But I don’t know.

Alison: Well, and obviously, we all know that Harry sat down and told his whole story to a witch named Jo Rowling and she wrote seven books about it…

[Michael laughs]

Alison: And here we are.

Michael: That is the funny thing. In a weird way, depending on how you want to take it, she did canonize that Harry’s books are known to the wizarding world as his biographies. Because that’s mentioned, I think, in Tales of Beedle of the Bard or one of the extra schoolbooks. So that is a thing. But yeah, no, she did mention that the Quibbler is doing fine. And as she said, “It has returned to its usual condition of advanced lunacy, and is appreciated for its unintentional humour.” So the Quibbler is doing fine. It got back on its feet, I guess. I’m assuming from that, the Daily Prophet would’ve eventually gone back to its usual self too.

Alison: Well, yeah, because Ginny works for them.

Michael: Oh yeah, that’s right. Yeah, so we know it definitely happened by the time she was out of her Quidditch career, but it probably happened much sooner than that.

Beth: So does Barnabas Cuffe get fired, or was he being influenced and he gets forgiven? What happens to him?

Alison: Was he under the Imperius Curse?

Beth: I don’t know.

Michael: Who do you think did and didn’t go to [Azkaban]? Because that was actually another question from Matthew: “Were any of the trio charged with criminal activity? Who may have attempted to persecute them?” But I imagine there were issues with a lot of people who did things that they didn’t necessarily want to do and were they pardoned or weren’t they?

Alison: Man, what a mess to sort through.

Michael: [laughs] Yes, and you have to do fair trial because we know how that goes otherwise with poor Sirius.

Alison: Yeah!

Michael: I’m sure they didn’t want to repeat that again, because Harry probably publicized that.

Alison: Yeah. Just the fact that they literally have to go through almost everyone and check, “Were you Imperiused? Were you actually acting under your own free will? Were you being threatened [in] some way?” What a mess. That’s a lot of people.

Shauna: Lots of Veritaserum?

Michael: Well, okay. So we have from Rowling from Pottermore that Veritaserum doesn’t always work because some wizards can just apparently close their throats up with magic. Which I would think would be a giveaway because they’re not breathing.

[Jon and Shauna laugh]

Michael: Apparently, you can close your throat off to… Veritaserum is not, I guess, 100%…

Alison: Foolproof proof.

Michael: So I would think that the thing that would be foolproof would be [a] Pensieve, the use of Pensieve memories. But…

Jon: Although obviously, even Slughorn was able to slightly alter his with regard to Tom Riddle.

Michael: That’s true. But it was so obviously altered in a way that they recognized that something was altered. So I wonder if there’s an omission of information, that that would at least raise red flags for people.

Jon: But legally, you couldn’t do much about it.

Michael: That’s true.

Beth: I thought that was just because he did it hastily in order to protect himself.

Michael: That’s true, so maybe a more trained wizard could actually do it in a way that’s convincing. Ooh, this is a mess, y’all.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Beth: Well, we know that Voldemort planted false memories into Morfin’s head, right?

Michael: Yes. Yeah, he did successfully manage to alter his memories, didn’t he? To get him to say what, ostensibly? Did they use a Pensieve to actually track that? I don’t know. I don’t know if the Ministry uses Pensieves because we’ve also had mentioned that Pensieves are pretty ancient magic and that the Hogwarts one is actually pretty unique. Of course, then, if you look at Fantastic Beasts, they have a death room with a giant kind of Pensieve. So I don’t know. We don’t have confirmation that the Ministry has one or uses one in that way, right?

Beth: No, but we know that Harry knows about it and has access to it, and so he might float that as an idea.

Michael: That would be interesting because I think we know from Pottermore, from Rowling, that that is specifically a Hogwarts Pensieve and that it is meant for the Headmasters only. So I don’t know if they would be able to do that or not. There might even be Hogwarts magic that bars other people from using it.

Shauna: There’s just a weird thing too. It feels kind of thought police-y to be like, “Oh, I’m going to stick my wand on your head and take out your thoughts.”

Beth: Oh, it’s definitely terrifying.

[Beth, Michael, and Shauna laugh]

Michael: Maybe not a good idea. Yeah, I don’t know how these trials would’ve gone down. Of course, we know one person who did go to trial was, in fact, Dolores Umbridge, who “was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned for crimes against Muggle[-]borns.” So she was taken care of, but to note, Beth had a few questions about her as well.

Beth: Yeah. We know that she went to prison, but we don’t know if they arrested her after a fight or if she had tried to hide or if she just gave up and gave into them.

Michael: Oh man, do you think Harry got to arrest her personally?

[Beth and Michael laugh]

Michael: That would’ve been [sweet].

Beth: Maybe she thought that she could talk her way out of it and be fine, and…

Shauna: Wait, do you think [when] Harry went to arrest her, she tried to talk her way out of it, and he was like, “Come on, professor, you must not tell lies”?

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: Mic drop.

[Alison and Shauna laugh]

Alison: I hope Hermione went and just roasted Umbridge.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: I want that moment.

Michael: I feel like Hermione might not have been involved because she was probably already doing her own personal business by the time Umbridge was arrested.

Alison: I hope she made a special case.

Michael: [laughs] Just for her. Yeah. And Beth, you pointed out that there were some other people [who] might’ve been in trouble as well.

Beth: Yeah. Well, because Umbridge is the only one called out for being punished in any way for what they did during the war, other than Death Eaters. And we know that there were people who weren’t Death Eaters who were also pretty bad people. And Runcorn is the first person [who] comes to my mind of someone who did unsavor[y] things but was not a Death Eater.

Michael: People who took advantage of the climate and weren’t necessarily Death Eaters but used it to their own personal leverage or gain. I mean, I would assume those people would be in deep doo-doo.

Shauna: Either that or they probably got overlooked, possibly.

Michael: Well, I suppose in Runcorn’s case, specifically, Harry would have some things to say, along with quite a few other people. I feel like Mr. Weasley was keeping pretty good tabs on that as well. He’d probably be able to name some names.

Beth: I mean, probably Kingsley as well.

Michael: That’s true. Kingsley is pretty much the go-to guy for that. Interestingly, regardless of who got thrown in jail, it’s not what it used to be. The Ministry, as Rowling confirmed, does not continue to use Dementors at Azkaban. As she said, “Kingsley would see to that. The use of Dementors was always a mark of the underlying corruption of the Ministry, as Dumbledore constantly maintained. […] You cannot destroy Dementors, though you can limit their numbers if you eradicate the conditions in which they multiply, ie, despair and degradation. […] The Ministry no longer used them to torment its opponents.” So the issue there, I suppose, is “Hey…”

Shauna: What happened to all the Dementors?

Michael: [laughs] Dementors just running rampant around the world. Because we know there were a lot them by the time the Battle of Hogwarts rolled around.

Alison: Do you think they just rounded them up and put them on another island or something?

Michael: Maybe they put them on that same island where the Quintaped is supposed to be.

Beth: Oh!

[Michael laughs]

Alison: Ooh! That’s a scary island.

Shauna: With all the Hairy MacBoons.

Michael: [laughs] An island full of Quintapeds and Dementors. Nobody wants to go there.

[Michael and Shauna laugh]

Michael: I don’t know. Because she implies that, with more positivity in the world, the way I always gathered it, from what she’s saying, is that Dementors just…

Shauna: Cease to be?

Michael: Yes, they just evaporate. So I don’t know. She’s also confirmed that Dementors don’t have souls, so they don’t really have anything attaching them to anything. They just float around in existence. So I don’t know. But I feel like that doesn’t work as far as a conscious decision by the Ministry to be like, “No more Dementors,” and then they just disappear.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: That is not how that works. [laughs] So that does seem very problematic.

Shauna: Expecto Patronum Maxima!

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: Problem solved. Well, and on a larger scale – and we’ve touched a bit on it here and there, and I think some of this stuff goes hand in hand – Beth, you had a question [about] the general public’s reaction about how they reacted to this war. But I think that also goes excellently in tandem with your other question, which quite a few of our listeners were asking about too, which is, how does this affect Hogwarts as well? In terms of if Hogwarts was the safest place, oops, a million students died there.

[Michael and Shauna laugh]

Michael: And of course, not only do we have parents of magical children, [but] we [also] have non-magical parents of magical children who have to process what happened. [laughs]

Jon: Especially considering their kids were some of the ones who were being targeted.

Alison: Yeah. And it depends on how much their kids told them about the wizarding world and about what was going on and… Geez, that’s horrible.

Beth: Well, and as I understand it, Voldemort was a little bit more out in the open the second time around than he was the first time. And so he wasn’t targeting small children the first time around. And so this is the first time that we’ve seen an impact on literal kids, and that’s a scary prospect. And I’m sure it would’ve taken some time to process. And we know in the First Wizarding War that everybody was celebrating when Voldemort was “defeated” and basically, the tone was just happiness and celebration. But I imagine it may not be quite the same the second time around.

Michael: Well, there was definitely a somber tone at the end of the battle.

Alison: Except for Peeves.

[Shauna laughs]

Michael: That’s a grandiose exception we’re talking about.

Alison: Though it does make me wonder. Peeves wrote a song. Do you think the Weird Sisters wrote a memorial song? Is the wizarding “American Pie” based on what happened here?

Michael: That’s perfect, because Courtney O’Keefe, one of our listeners on Twitter, @kitchycourtney, asked if they erected some kind of memorial in memory of the fallen, what it would be, do, or look like. And maybe perhaps when they did that, the Weird Sisters came and performed this excellent song that I’m sure they wrote for that. So that also goes along, too, in tandem with that perhaps there was a memorial service of some [kind] for all these fallen wizards. I realize when you factor in Muggle parents who may not know the full gravitas… I think, Beth, you mentioned that Voldemort was a little more out in the open because as we know from the books, his actions are seeping into the Muggle world a lot more. And I imagine the students from Hogwarts would probably explain to their parents that that’s what was going on. But still, that said, how do you…? I just can’t even process…

Shauna: How do you send your kids back to a school where you know a bunch of other kids died?

Alison: But they can’t. They can’t. How many Muggle-borns were actually there, though, in the final battle? Because they couldn’t go back to school.

Michael: We don’t know for sure. It’s implied that a lot of the Muggle-borns stayed home or fled, at least if they had sense.

Alison: Because they weren’t allowed to go back.

Michael: I don’t know. A lot of them were rounded up and sent straight to Azkaban too, which is also a problem. And as we know thanks to Rowling’s mention about Umbridge, some of the Muggle-borns [who] went to Azkaban didn’t survive, so… ugh. Yeah, I don’t…

Alison: This is a mess, man. This is a disaster. No wonder she skipped this part.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: She’s like, “Let’s get to when everything’s better.”

Beth: Yeah. All was well, okay?

[Michael laughs]

Shauna: 19 years. 19 years sounds like a good amount of time for everything to happen.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: They’ll have sorted it by then. It’s good. It’s good.

Michael: Well, with that said, I think an excellent section to end on, because, listeners, I have to say, our document is crammed and we can’t possibly get to all these points. We’ve been talking for two and [a] half hours. I think this might actually be an excellent topic to revisit next May, when we come upon the anniversary of the battle, because there’s clearly still plenty more conversations here. But I think one last one to tack on because this was asked a lot – and I’ll let Shauna and Jon go for it with this one as far as Slytherin – what’s going on there? You guys had some thoughts about that.

Shauna: Yeah. So in the immediate aftermath of the battle, how does the school handle the students in Slytherin who exhibited either pro-Voldemort or at least anti-anti-Voldemort sentiments, particularly if they were coming back to school the next year? I can’t even imagine Minerva McGonagall having to go look into the face of a kid who was going like, “Yay, Voldemort! Woo!”

Alison: There’s got to be something.

Michael: Well, doesn’t that get into an interesting discussion about [how] people have a right to hold their beliefs? It’s how they act on them that’s important. But like you pointed out, we are dealing with individuals who are underage and are assumed by society to not know any better.

Jon: Because how many of them had been acting on those beliefs the previous year when the Carrows were basically running things? We don’t know what’s happening in the school during that year. So obviously, we know what Neville, etc. were doing, but what were some of these Slytherin kids doing now that Voldemort was in power, especially if their families had been followers or at least admirers? They were probably quite happy sharing their views out and about in class during that year.

Alison: We do know from Neville that they practiced Unforgivable Curses on other kids. So in that case, especially, I’m like, “Something’s got to happen.” But for everyone else, I wonder if there’s wizard sensitivity training.

Shauna: I was going to say, do they need some intensive therapy too? Slytherin therapy time.

Jon: Put them in a room with some Hufflepuffs and let them talk it out.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Alison: There you go.

Michael: So the other interesting thing that Rowling pointed out in her Leaky Cauldron/MuggleNet interview on July 16, 2005, before the series was over, she said, when asked about Death Eaters and Slytherin, “You are seeing Slytherin House always from the perspective of Death Eaters’ children. They are a small fraction of the total Slytherin population. I’m not saying all the other Slytherins are adorable, but they’re certainly not Draco; they’re certainly not Crabbe and Goyle. They’re not all like that; that would be too brutal for words, wouldn’t it? You will have people connected with Death Eaters in the Houses, yeah, absolutely.” Of course, we also know a few major Death Eaters. We have Peter Pettigrew, Gryffindor. We have Quirrell, Ravenclaw. Not everybody was from Slytherin. So there’s that.

Beth: We don’t know of a single student, though, who is the child of a Death Eater who is not a Slytherin.

Michael: We don’t know; that’s true. On the page, I don’t think we’ve got that, do we?

Alison and Beth: No.

Michael: The worst students we get who aren’t in Slytherin are I think – or at least the ones who are most off to the side – Zacharias Smith from Hufflepuff and…

Beth: [laughs] He’s not evil; he’s just annoying.

Alison: What a jerk.

Michael: And Cormac McLaggen from Gryffindor.

[Shauna laughs]

Beth: Again, not evil, just a butt.

Alison: Also a jerk.

Michael: But she’s saying in that quote that there are other students from other Houses. I think it does come down to, though, that the majority of them are in Slytherin. She has mentioned in the web chat in 2007 that “Slytherin has become diluted. It is no longer the pure[-]blood bastion it once was. Nevertheless, its dark reputation lingers, hence Albus Potter’s fears.” So I guess… This is an interesting one. Because of course, we know from the previous time that Voldemort rose, the Slytherins who held these beliefs just went, “Oh, no, no, I was being Imperiused. These weren’t my views. I was just doing what somebody told me to do.” Of course, that said, this is the second go-around and maybe people can’t get away with that as easily anymore.

Jon: Especially if it’s the same people.

Michael: [laughs] Fool me once.

Shauna: I was also thinking for teachers who were at Hogwarts who witnessed things that some students may have done or overheard things that they may have said, how difficult that must be for them the following year. Or even among students, what do you do if somebody used the Cruciatus Curse on you last year and you’ve got Herbology together?

Alison: Man, this is a mess and this is why it took 20 years, right? There’s a lot of resentment there. I think that it’s going to be on an individual basis that people are going to have to deal with it, however they have to deal with it. Man, do you think a lot of fights broke out that next year?

Beth: We know that Malfoy, for example, did a lot of horrible things in his sixth year, and he clearly felt remorse for them and realized that that wasn’t the life that he wanted to lead and he didn’t agree with behaving that way. And I’m sure there are lots of other students who felt a similar sort of change of heart, and it would be a shame to not give them the benefit of the doubt that they might feel that way.

Shauna: Yeah, that’s true, but it’s really hard for 13- and 14-year-olds to give somebody that benefit.

Beth: Totally. Totally, yes.

Alison: That’s true. Man, the wizarding world just needs counseling.

[Michael and Shauna laugh]

Alison: Everyone.

Michael: Came full circle on that one. All of this could be solved if the wizarding world just had counselors. I wonder because it’s implied – not explicitly stated from what we know – that Malfoy, for example, does not go back to school proper, probably. It seems that there’s quite a bit of shame hanging over his family’s head. I’m wondering if some of those Slytherin families just didn’t send their children back to school. Rowling has said that you don’t have to go to Hogwarts; you can be home-schooled. I’m wondering if some of these children were either home-schooled or transferred to other schools because maybe there was just the idea of getting them somewhere else. I don’t think Durmstrang was really an option anymore, at least for these kinds of families, because Karkaroff is gone by that point, and as we know, that helps Durmstrang’s reputation climb back up. I don’t know, though, if we’re just transferring or if we’re just home-schooling at this point.

Beth: Well, and for students who have one or two parents in jail after this is over, that adds a whole other level of interesting, weird pain, because we know from many studies that have been done that children whose parents are incarcerated struggle a lot.

Michael: And like we said, though, again, we’re talking about underage wizards here. The thing is that a lot of individuals, especially at this age, are still forming their own personal opinions but are balancing somewhere between their own personal opinions and things that their parents have taught them. And I wonder if some of these Slytherins would be so humble as to return to Hogwarts and be aware of mistakes they’ve made and would be willing to learn how to be better people. And on the flip side of that, the other students have to learn how to forgive. I think there’s something to be said that a lot of people complain that Rowling didn’t really show properly how the four Houses come together. I think people were expecting more from the four-House unity moment. We don’t really get it on the page. Of course, we know a lot of the Slytherins come back at the end of the battle for the second half. But maybe that union of the four Houses comes more in that interim time of the 19 years and starts with that next school year.

Alison: Aww, I just thought of a really lovely memorial.

Michael: What would it be?

Alison: What if they had a student from each House and they’re all joined together? Like a statue out on the grounds.

Michael: Oh, I love that idea. Aww, that’s beautiful.

Alison: There’s a kid from each House [who]’s obviously representing…

Michael: And they’re all holding one wand, together.

Alison: Yes!

[Michael laughs]

Alison: Or they’re all pointing their wands together.

Michael: Yes, like this. Like this. There we go. See, Rowling, we’re helping you out.

Alison: Someone draw me that. Someone draw me that.

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Michael: I know! SpeakBeasty gets all these pretty drawings. Somebody send us drawings on Twitter. We would love that. Oh, that’s a nice way to end it. So they just need counselors and nice statues.

[Michael and Shauna laugh]

Shauna: Problem solved.

Alison: And 19 years to heal.

Michael: [laughs] And 19 years to heal.

Shauna: Before they get to open up new wounds.

Michael: [laughs] That’s true. All may not be well, depending on where you look at it.

Beth: No, all was well. All was well.

Shauna: All was well.

[Jon and Michael laugh]

Alison: All was well in that moment on the platform.

[Michael laughs]

Alison: It’s okay.

Michael: Well, before we get too deep into Cursed Child…

[Alison, Jon, and Shauna laugh]

Michael: … I think this…

Alison: You mean we’re not going to have another discussion about that? What?

Michael: Oh, I’m sure we will somewhere, but maybe not here. We’ve already been talking for almost three hours. So I think with that said, again, I think this is an excellent topic that we should probably revisit again in May, because, listeners, I still had tweets coming through as we were recording this with your questions. And I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to get to all of them. Thank you so much for contributing your questions to this discussion; [it] definitely helped boost the content. But speaking of boosting the content, thank you so much, Shauna and Jon, for joining us on this episode.

Jon: Thank you!

Michael: Oh my God, I just can’t even say how wonderful it was being able to talk to you guys again so soon after seeing you guys.

Shauna: I know! I’m still floating from the whole MuggleNet Live! experience of the day we spent with you in the park and it was just so great.

Michael: You were one of the people who said to me… You were just like, “It’s so weird because your voice is coming out of your face.”

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: “And you’re talking back to me. Usually I’m just yelling at you.”

Shauna: Usually I’m just yelling at my iPad and it’s not responding to me at all, but…

Michael: [laughs] Have you ever had a moment where you say something to us, but we actually respond in a way that’s correct?

Alison: That works?

Shauna: I don’t think exactly, but I feel like I have said things and then somebody had said exactly what I was [saying]. I’m like, “Thank you!”

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Shauna: “That’s what I was saying!”

Michael: Well, thank you, both of you, for joining us on the show. We’re really glad you were able to hop on pretty last minute [for] this episode, and for being such loyal, longtime listeners and continuing to contribute to the show, we thank you guys so much for joining us again.

Shauna: Thank you for having us.

Jon: Yeah, thank you.

Michael: And again, you guys, you two are definitely on the “come back anytime” list.

Shauna: Yay!

Jon: Thank you.

Michael: [laughs] And speaking of future times, Alison, what are we up to next?

Alison: Next time is a chapter episode; we’re going back and forth. And we’re going to do Chapter 11 of Half-Blood Prince: “Hermione’s Helping Hand,” which is a great chapter.

Michael: I’m so happy because that chapter was voted on by you, the listeners, over on Twitter as our next chapter. I was surprised because I voted for “Hermione’s Helping Hand.”

Alison: Yeah, I think I did too.

Michael: Tee-hee. But when I voted, actually, two other chapters were ahead of “Hermione’s Helping Hand.” So I was totally floored that this one actually won the vote. But how exciting! This one will be a great one to talk about. We haven’t gotten a chance yet to revisit Half-Blood Prince, so this should be fun.

Beth: My favorite! Yay!

Michael: [laughs] You’ll have to worm your way onto that episode, Beth.

[Beth laughs]

Michael: But Beth, tell our listeners how they can be on the show.

Beth: Yes, so we have a topic submit page on the main site, so feel free to go over there and suggest topics. And let us know if you’re interested in being a guest host for that topic. We would love to have you on to discuss the thing that you’re most interested in talking about. And if you have a set of Apple headphones, you’re all set. You don’t need any fancy equipment; it’s super easy to be on the show, and we would love to hear your thoughts.

Michael: I believe Shauna and Jon are actually using Apple headphones.

Shauna: We are splitting a pair of Apple earbuds, one in each ear. [unintelligible]

[Alison and Michael laugh]

Jon: It was either that or be in totally separate rooms.

[Alison, Beth, and Michael laugh]

Michael: I don’t know, Apple. You’re missing out on a great deal here. We don’t have a partnership with you; it’s just so easy to reference your headphones. But listeners, that is a great point by Beth to please make sure [to] specify that you want to be on an episode if you suggest a topic. For this particular episode, Matthew Ousley actually said that he wanted to hear other people’s thoughts, and you are welcome to do that. But if you do want to be on the show, not only should you let us know that, but [you should] also make sure [to] go to the “Be on the Show!” part of the website as well and submit an audio clip. Because that way, we know what you guys sound like and if your mic setup is all ready to actually participate in the show.

Alison: And if you just want to chat with us about anything else, you can contact us on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN, on Facebook at facebook.com/openthedumbledore, and of course [on] our website at alohomora.mugglenet.com.

Michael: And we want to thank you one more time, Brian Levine, for helping us out with this particular episode on Patreon. Thank you so much again, Brian, for sponsoring us on Patreon. We really appreciate it. You listeners can become a sponsor [at] patreon.com/Alohomora for as little as $1 a month. As a second reminder, those of you who have submitted I believe at the $15 level and you are still waiting for your perk for me to read to you, email us at alohomorapodcast@gmail.com so we can set up that time where I get to read a chapter of Harry Potter to you. And again, listeners, it is coming down the pipeline. The Harry Potter Let’s Play has officially been recorded, and it will be up on Patreon first for our Patreon sponsors because they have been waiting especially for that. So you will be getting releases of that first [at] patreon.com/Alohomora, so make sure [to] check that out. But for now, I’d say we’re going to follow in Harry’s footsteps and maybe go get a sandwich.

[Alison, Beth, and Michael laugh]

[Show music begins]

Michael: So I’m Michael.

Beth: I’m Beth.

Alison: And I’m Alison. Thank you for listening to Episode 228 of Alohomora!

Beth: Open the Dumbledore.

[Show music continues]

Michael: I don’t remember. Shauna and Jon, have I told you how much I enjoy the Transformers ride at Universal?

Shauna: Well, we went on it together.

Michael: Did we go on that one together?

Jon: Yes, we did.

[Alison laughs]

Shauna: My sunglasses went flying right into your lap.

Michael: Yes! Yes!

[Shauna laughs]

Michael: Yes! So I think that was… Did I buy him when I was with you guys, or did I buy him…? I bought Evac, the…

Shauna: Oh, no, you didn’t buy him when you were with us. But you talked about how in love with him you are. [laughs]

Michael: [laughs] I have never owned a Transformer in my life and it’s great because I can’t figure out how to turn him into a car.

[Everyone laughs]

Michael: The little box said he has 17 steps to turn him into a car, but it doesn’t show you how.

Shauna: That’s too many steps.

Alison: That’s funny.

Michael: He’s in an awesome pose on my shelf.

Shauna: [laughs] That is fantastic.