Transcript – Episode 41
[Show music begins]
Kat Miller: This is Episode 41 of Alohomora! for July 27, 2013.
[Show music continues]
Kat: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Alohomora! I’m Kat Miller.
Rosie Morris: I’m Rosie Morris.
Laura Reily: And I’m Laura Reilly. And here, our special guest today is a dear friend of all of ours: Alexandra Maher, who is a staff member at MuggleNet.
Alexandra Maher: Hi, everyone.
Laura: Tell everyone where you’re from, Alex.
Alexandra: I am from Sydney, Australia.
Kat: Far, far away it feels like, doesn’t it?
Alexandra: Very much so.
Kat: [laughs] So, welcome. For those of you that don’t know Alex, she is also a transcriber, and she is one of our social media managers as well.
Laura: Got an all-ladies show today.
Kat: It’s kind of nice, isn’t it?
Laura: It’s probably… yeah, this is probably the first time it’s happened. It’s like a book club filled with…
[Kat laughs]
Laura: … gossip about the boys. [laughs]
Kat: If we were all sitting around a fireplace, drinking tea…
Laura: Yeah.
Kat: … it would be perfect.
[Kat and Laura laugh]
Rosie: Probably with our knitting.
Kat: Oh, with our… I don’t know how to knit.
Laura: Neither do I. [laughs]
Kat: Oh. Rosie, you can teach us?
Rosie: I can try. I’m not very good at it. [laughs]
Kat: Oh, okay. [laughs] Fair enough. We will not be knitting jumpers for anybody, then.
[Everyone laughs]
Rosie: We fail as being Mrs. Weasley. Okay, well, let’s jump in straight away into our comments from last week’s episode. As a lot of you have actually pointed out, it was a short episode. There wasn’t a lot going on in that chapter. So the discussion we would expect… we expected to be rather brief. But you guys have actually come up with some really good comments, so thank you for that. Our first one is from Mischief Managed on the forums, and it’s about Vernon remembering Molly Weasley on the train platform, and it says,
“I agree that it speaks to Vernon’s character, but perhaps in a different way. I think Harry has something going when he says that he found it ‘a bit rich of his Uncle Vernon to call anyone “dumpy”.’ It just shows how deluded and judgmental the Dursleys are. Vernon himself is not exactly a small person, and Harry makes the comment that Dudley is now ‘wider than he was tall.’ The Dursleys cannot see anything wrong with themselves, but see everything wrong with those around them… especially wizards, and even when it is a criticism that could itself apply to them.”
So, do you think… so basically the comment is saying that Vernon was looking down on Mrs. Weasley for being rather large, but he himself is rather large, and he can’t apply those criticisms to himself but he will see it in other people. Do you guys agree?
Laura: Yeah, I think there’s a fairly… I mean, taking a kind of sexist approach from Vernon’s eyes, he does make a comment when he’s talking about Dudley’s weight, even himself, and it’s almost like it’s fine. He’s like… I can’t remember if he was talking about it in relation to his grades or his weight, but he was talking about how he doesn’t want a little sissy boy being his son. But I think he’s talking about Mrs. Weasley as a woman, like, “Oh, that dumpy woman.” Especially when you see how bony Petunia is that I think he’s just being really offensive, actually.
Kat: That, actually… I never thought of that. I wonder if he thinks it’s just not okay for women to be large. Because Petunia is obviously incredibly skinny, bony.
Laura: Mhm.
Kat: I wonder if he would still love her if she was larger.
Laura: Well, that’s… [laughs] but think about Aunt Marge and…
Kat: Yeah, but that’s his sister. He doesn’t have to…
Laura: Right. Yeah.
Kat: … kiss her.
Laura: I think… fundamentally, I think he just is going to criticize anything about people that he’s looking to find criticisms with.
Kat: Mhm.
Laura: But I do think that he doesn’t necessarily see anything wrong with himself. Or with his son, for that matter.
Kat: No, I agree.
Rosie: Our next comment is actually connected into this argument as well. It’s by SlytherinPrefect – again, on the forums – and it says,
“I think that it’s definitely true that Vernon remembers Mrs. Weasley because of the negativity that he felt towards her. As well as her being a witch, she is responsible for giving Harry the love and material belongings that he never got from the Dursleys. At the end of ‘Philosopher’s Stone’, Harry thanks Mrs. Weasley for the sweater and the fudge that she gave him, and it is at this point that Vernon interrupts them. Throughout the books, the Weasleys take away a lot of the control that the Dursleys have over Harry, giving him a place to run to being a prime example of this.
So, do you guys think there is a kind of… almost a… not really jealousy but a distrust, I guess, in the fact that she’s going against the way that they’ve treated him, treated Harry, for so long? Is that another element into the dislike?
Kat: I think it could be. The fact that they’re not following his wants and wishes and ways of how to raise Harry in the way they think he should be raised.
Laura: Say that three times fast. What was it? Wants and wishes and ways? [laughs]
Kat: [laughs] Yeah. That’s… oh, wait. What is it, that thing from the movie? It’s like…
Laura: The bumbling band of baboons that you’re talking about?
Kat: Yeah, that’s it. [laughs] Yeah, that’s what I was talking about. A little bit easier. But yeah, I actually agree with this comment a lot.
Rosie: And sticking with the Weasleys, we’ve got a comment from LilyRose, and it says,
“Okay, here’s something I have been wondering for a while, and ‘The Invitation’ chapter is perfect to discuss it. Why is Ron the only Weasley who gets to invite friends over? I would understand if it was a special exception for Harry because he’s an orphan, but then Hermione always comes over too! Mr. Weasley gets extra top box Quidditch World Cup tickets, and do they go to the twins’ friend, the Hogwarts Quidditch Commentator, who obviously loves the game? No, they bring Quidditch-illiterate Hermione. Seems slightly strange. PS I get the narrative value of having Hermione there, but time after time Hermione gets to spend summers with Harry and the Weasleys, and none of the other kids get friends. Sad.”
Laura: I have always said this. It makes me so mad that Hermione is there every summer. And yes, I agree with what the person said at the end that it’s the whole narrative value of it. But I’ve always said that about, “Why not Lee? Why doesn’t Lee get to go to anything?”
[Kat laughs]
Laura: And even… you know what? Not even that. Fred and George, maybe they have each other, but like Ginny. I’m sure she has a friend that we just haven’t seen really, [laughs] but…
Rosie: Well, she has Luna eventually, doesn’t she?
Laura: Right.
Kat: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah. And also for that matter, Hermione doesn’t see her family, which is a… she has perfectly fine parents. It’s not like Harry.
Kat: Right.
Laura: Harry’s guardians. She doesn’t see them for her whole life…
[Kat laughs]
Laura: … and then she doesn’t spend summers with them. And then sometimes, she stays over for Christmas at Hogwarts.
Rosie: Well, she did go to France with them the book before. I think… yeah, Hermione probably does spend at least some time with her family. I don’t think she goes to the Weasleys the whole summers.
Kat: She probably writes letters to them a lot. I feel like she would be the type to stay in touch with her parents while she’s at school.
Laura: Yeah, but even also the Weasleys don’t have a lot of money and stuff.
Rosie: That’s true.
Laura: And even just feeding them. They’ve got to worry about all these kids plus Harry and then plus greedy little Hermione…
[Rosie laughs]
Laura: … who’s just mooching off of the whole Weasley family. [laughs]
Alexandra: At the same time, though, Harry and Hermione don’t have families in the wizarding world.
Rosie: Yeah, that’s actually exactly what one of… our next commenter said, [pronounces as “Chai”] ChiRavenclaw or [pronounces as “Chee”] ChiRavenclaw – I’m not entirely sure, sorry – from our forum said,
“Maybe because the other Weasley kids’ friends are mostly from the wizarding world and are able to get tickets themselves from their parents or otherwise. Hermione is Muggle born and Harry is orphaned, living with Muggles, so they don’t have opportunities to hang out with other wizards and whatnot. Maybe the other friends come by to just hang out for a little while when Harry and Hermione aren’t there.”
So yeah, as you were saying, Alex, it’s like they are detached from the wizarding world, so by the Weasleys inviting them over during the summers, then they get this kind of real life outside of Hogwarts for the magical community that they wouldn’t have had before.
Kat: Yeah, because neither of them would get it without the Weasleys.
Laura: Yeah, I never actually considered the idea of people just hanging out, coming by for an afternoon. That makes a lot of sense, actually.
[Rosie laughs]
Laura: I take back most of my rage.
[Kat laughs]
Rosie: And the Weasleys who go to them as well. Luna lives… what? Just over two hills away – was it something like that? – from the Burrow. So it’s not like Ginny couldn’t jump on a broomstick and go over there if she wanted to. Or probably not because that would be secrecy, but she could go over there easily!
Kat: [laughs] That’s true. Floo powder, perhaps.
Rosie: Yeah. So yeah, I think there are definite reasons why Harry and Hermione are visiting the Weasleys so often other than [laughs] greed or narrative value.
Kat: [laughs] Right.
Rosie: And yeah, it would have been nice to have been able to see others visiting them as well.
Kat: I bet there’s fan fiction about it.
Rosie: There probably, definitely is.
[Kat and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: But things like why isn’t Lee invited to the Quidditch World Cup, he must be there. Do we not see him in the crowd? I mean, we see Seamus and people, don’t we? But I could have sworn we heard about Lee as well.
Kat: I think we do see Lee.
Laura: I was actually thinking. I was trying to remember if Lee was there or not.
Rosie: I guess we’ll find out in a few books time.
Alexandra: Don’t they meet him when they’re walking through the campground?
Kat: Lee Jordan isn’t mentioned until the Mad-Eye Moody chapter, so no.
Rosie: But he’s bound to be there.
Laura: Bummer.
Kat: Probably. In the background, secretly.
Rosie: There are so many people there that you probably wouldn’t be able to meet them all just walking through a campsite.
Kat: Do we think he’s an Ireland fan or Bulgaria fan?
Rosie: It’s probably like the rest of them. Ireland but impressed by Krum. Our next comment is from InfestedwithNargles, and it’s about Dudley’s report card, and it says,
“I just love the line where Petunia says that Dudley is a gifted boy whose teachers just don’t understand him. It makes me think of when I was a teacher and some parents blamed me when the student wasn’t successful in my class. I’m sure there are other teachers out there who have experienced this, too; there can’t POSSIBLY be something wrong with the student and his/her parents. It’s definitely the teachers who aren’t doing their jobs! People like the Dursleys make our lives impossible!”
And this comment just made me think that… Jo had spent a lot of time teaching English as a foreign language, so she probably had at least one of these experiences as a teacher.
Kat: That’s right, I forgot she used to be a teacher.
Rosie: Yeah. So I’m sure she had both sides of the picture. [laughs]
Kat: Yeah. Very likely.
Rosie: In response to that comment, we also had one by IHateSpiders – and I hate spiders too, so it’s a brilliant username.
[Kat laughs]
Rosie: And it says,
“I agree that Dudley was a bad student and both Petunia and Vernon had a huge blind spot when it came to him. But I have to say that not all teachers are good either – I had some excellent teachers and I had some really bad ones. My seventh grade math teacher was the worst teacher that anyone could ask for (he spent most of the class time telling really bad jokes instead of teaching us math). Fortunately, the following year, I had an excellent teacher and math became my best subject. I had another teacher (chemistry) that we spent six weeks on balancing equations and then flew through the actual science part – when I would ask questions, I got, ‘Well, everybody else is getting it, so we’re moving on.’ So sometimes, it is the teacher, but the parents really should spend the time to help their child get it and/or find out if the problem is with the teacher or the student.”
So those comments kind of back each other up but from both sides of the argument.
Laura: Yeah, I have to agree in a general life way about sometimes… I have had bad teacher experiences – my seventh grade math teacher also. [laughs] But I think in Dudley’s case, he’s just awful.
Rosie: Yeah. This time, it’s most likely to be Dudley. And the teacher would probably get punched or something if they tried to talk out. [laughs]
Kat: I wonder if there’s a thing about seventh grade teachers because my seventh grade science teacher used to eat worms.
Rosie: That’s quite strange.
[Kat laughs]
Rosie: I don’t really know what seventh grade is in my kind of structure, so I don’t know if I could compare.
Kat: Oh. So that would be… if we included kindergarten, that would be eighth year.
Laura: I think I was eleven years old or twelve.
Rosie: Oh, okay. So yeah, it’s probably like seventh or eighth year over here as well. Okay.
Kat: Yeah.
Rosie: I don’t know, I think I had quite good teachers in Year 7.
Laura: Okay, well, we’re going to move on to our Podcast Question of the Week responses. Last week, our question was that Harry really starts to stand up for himself with the Dursleys, with the ability to “threaten” them with the idea of Sirius. Would this have been possible without that crux? Would Harry have found that confidence without something with which to push back the Dursleys? Okay, so this first comment disagrees, and it says, from HallowsMaster97,
“I believe that Harry needed help to gain the confidence [that] he shows in this chapter. It was only because of Sirius that Harry was able to bring all his books and other school stuff into his room. The fact that he was allowed to study magic and contact Ron and Hermione helped a lot in building his confidence and raising his self-esteem. Of course, all of that was only possible because Harry threatened the Dursleys with his murder-convicted godfather. I really don’t see any other way that Harry could have gained this confidence without Sirius.”
So that was really our only comment out of all the comments that was outright disagreeing in saying Harry absolutely needed Sirius. Most of the other comments were all saying that Harry would find the confidence, such as this comment from Eriseddream. It said,
“Harry did not need the threat of Sirius in order to stand up to the Dursleys, however I believe that Harry enjoyed using it against them. At 14, Harry has been through so much and been faced with many a menacing presence. I think that the reality of how futile Vernon’s threats are and how little power and influence they have over him have dawned on Harry at this stage. There was really no question of whether the Muggles would ‘allow’ him to go to the World Cup. The Weasleys were coming regardless. Harry just used the ominous threat of a murderous overprotective [godfather] to torment the Dursleys, much like they have tormented him in the past. It’s revenge time!”
[Kat laughs]
Laura: Yeah, personally, I think I agree more along the lines of this, that Harry… it comes down to the fact that he’s just getting older. And even just teenagers under less arduous circumstances become rebellious and they’re like, “No, I’m not going to listen to you.” So I think Harry is just getting older and realizing that it so doesn’t matter what the Dursleys think or do.
[Alexandra laughs]
Kat: Did he really not have his stuff the year before? He did. So it’s not only because of Sirius that Harry was able to have his school stuff in his room because he was studying at the beginning of Prisoner.
Laura: Right, but I think he was doing it fairly… I mean, that was out of books entirely.
Kat: Secretly.
Laura: Yeah, secretly. Right now, he’s doing it out in the open. His stuff is just everywhere.
Rosie: Yeah, previously he had to grab a few books and the rest of it was locked in the cupboard under the stairs, I think. This time he’s actually managed to keep his whole trunk upstairs.
Alexandra: I also think that it’s not necessarily giving Harry more confidence, but it’s just giving him the ability to do what he wants without having so much trouble given to him from the Dursleys.
Laura: Yeah. Definitely agree.
Kat: I do think that Harry would have had the confidence without Sirius, but he’s a smart kid, so he’s going to use the most effective method of getting back at the Dursleys as possible. And that is, as this comment says, his murder-convicted godfather. [laughs]
Rosie: I think he’s also just not afraid of them anymore. I mean, the major thing… the last time we saw him with the Dursleys was when he accidentally blew up Aunt Marge and left the house because he was afraid of getting kicked out of Hogwarts, but he was never afraid of Vernon’s reaction to the problem.
Laura: Right, the last time we kind of see that is when he’s afraid of what’s going to happen with Dobby being there.
Rosie: Yeah.
Laura: In the beginning of Chamber.
Rosie: So he’s had three years now where he knows that there’s a life outside of the horrors he faced in his childhood, and he knows there’s always going to be somewhere to escape to. And even if he does really need to escape, as he did last year, there’s definitely an answer of where he can go and there’s not going to be too bad of a repercussion. So…
Laura: And also, there’s just much more scary things out there that are much more threats.
Rosie: Yeah, yeah.
Laura: Bigger threats.
Rosie: So I think that kind of gives him a reason why he doesn’t need to be afraid of the Dursleys, and yeah, he can talk back to them and there’s nothing they can do.
Laura: All right, this next comment comes from Rebecca Haynes. It says,
“At this point, even though Harry does not talk about his Hogwarts life, it must have become clear to them that Harry had a life in the wizarding world and people he was connected to. The Weasleys had already helped him escape, and Ministry wizards showed up to fix Aunt Marge. Vernon could have just thrown the letter out, but he knew that this, ‘dumpy sort of woman,’ would likely cause issues for the Dursleys if she was unable to contact Harry, and the last thing he wanted was fully-grown wizards showing up on his door and turning them all into pigs. This already gave Harry a crux in his conversation with Vernon, even if Sirius had not been involved.”
Not to mention Hagrid.
Kat: Oh, Hagrid.
Laura: [laughs] He’s the first one. I mean, they do kind of allude to it with the pig thing. But yeah, pretty much every time Vernon has tried to defy Harry, it’s really not worked out in his favor.
Kat: Although I don’t think Vernon would be necessarily afraid of, or even intimidated by, Molly regardless of the fact that she’s a wizard… a witch.
Rosie: Okay, at this moment, we’d like to remind our fans that they can now purchase the Harry Potter ebooks and audiobooks directly from the Alohomora! website, thanks to Pottermore, and they get 10% off if you purchase the entire series. Both of these are available in a variety of languages, so you’ve got German, Italian, British English… British English? I can’t even speak it myself!
[Kat and Rosie laugh]
Rosie: British English, US English for the audiobooks, and then Castellano, German, British English and US English, French, Italian, and Japanese for the ebooks. You can also buy the ebook only of Beedle the Bard and Fantastic Beasts and Quidditch Through the Ages, and of course, the proceeds for these go to the charities of Lumos and Comic Relief. And don’t forget that if you order all of them at the same time, you get 10% off the entire series, which really does help out if you are trying to buy them all at once because it’s quite a hefty amount, and that you can find the exclusive discount links on alohomora.mugglenet.com.
Kat: So let’s jump into our chapter discussion for the week.
[Goblet of Fire Chapter 4 intro begins]
Fred and George Weasley: Chapter 4!
[Sound of the boarded-up fireplace being blasted]
Fred and George: “Back to the Burrow.” [laughs]
[Goblet of Fire Chapter 4 intro ends]
Kat: I’m really excited to start it, actually. Everyone on the forums and stuff, too, have been saying how excited they are for this chapter. There’s a lot of comic hilarity in this chapter.
Laura: Thanks to my boys.
[Everyone laughs]
Rosie: And I think it’s one of the worst scenes that they’ve cut from the movies.
Laura: Totally agreed.
Rosie: It would have been a brilliant scene.
Kat: So sad! I mean, I understand why they did because the way they cut the movie in the end, Harry woke up from the dream and he was already at the Burrow. Fine, whatever. But make it an extra scene!
Rosie: It is such a long book that there was no way they could ever have done it without cutting important bits, but…
Laura: It really kind of… we’ll get to this, but they kind of cut out most of, if not all of, the whole Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes thing up until Order of the Phoenix, right?
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: Yeah. We’ll get there in, like, 40 weeks or whatever…
Laura: Bummer.
Kat: … but this movie is the only one that I walked out of the theater… not midway through, but after the movie was over, I walked out and I was livid. I was so mad. But like I said, we’ll get there. So at the end of the last chapter, we left Harry. He was in bliss, pretty happy knowing that he was going to be leaving the Dursleys about two whole weeks before what was originally planned. At the beginning of this chapter, Chapter 4, the bliss is still there; he’s still really happy but it’s paired with almost crippling anxiety, not just from him but in the whole house. The Dursleys obviously weren’t prepared for a whole gaggle of wizards to appear in their home the very next day. So we start off here, there’s a bit of dialogue, the first bit in this chapter, and it’s Vernon. He says, “I hope you told them to dress properly, these people.” And I just thought it was interesting that once again… we already know at this point from the three previous books, from the previous chapters, that the Dursleys are pretty prejudiced. But here it is immediately right again setting it up, showing Vernon’s quite the bully. The one thing that I thought about was didn’t Petunia grow up around her sister? She should know that wizards do in fact dress normally rather often.
Rosie: But they don’t.
Laura: They don’t really… I think that’s kind of a… well, two things. I think that’s some sort of a movie-ism that we see that the people dress more like Muggles. They do say that the kids do on the holidays but the adults rarely do. Also, Lily was Muggle-born so that’s… I doubt she would change everything about herself.
Rosie: Yeah, and the one time that we do hear of Petunia coming across young wizards when they were young was when she came across Severus and he was wearing wizard robes and she is mentioned saying that he’s dressing funny, I think.
Alexandra: Mhm.
Rosie: Or he’s mentioned saying that she dresses funny – I can’t remember which way around it. Yeah, the normal wizards don’t dress like normal Muggles. They wear wizard robes most of the time.
Kat: Are there normal wizards?
[Kat and Laura laugh]
Rosie: As in normal within that community…
Kat: You just said “normal wizards” and I was just like, I don’t think there are any normal wizards. [laughs]
Rosie: As in those that aren’t interacting with the Muggle community so often.
Kat: Sure, got it. Like Dumbledore.
Rosie: Yeah, people who are within Muggle families.
Kat: Okay. And then surprisingly on the next page – I know Noah will be really proud of this – I actually felt kind of bad for Dudley.
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: His first encounter with wizards was so awful you’d think that instead of walking around the house grasping his bottom the whole time, he might leave instead of be terrified, but of course not, the poor guy. So at the bottom of page 40 in the US edition, Vernon’s comment – he barks across the table while they’re eating a very awkward silent lunch – and he says, “They’ll be driving, of course?” I wondered why hadn’t Harry thought to ask the Weasleys? The wizarding world has so many different ways of…
Laura: Transportation.
Kat: Transportation, thank you. That’s the word.
[Laura laughs]
Kat: And is Harry in this moment acting a little bit like a Muggle and assuming that they would be driving?
Alexandra: See, I just don’t think that Harry would have even considered how he would be getting to the Weasleys. I think his main priority would be just getting away from the Dursleys. I don’t think it would have even occurred to him. Or he just wouldn’t have cared. He would have just been happy that he was going.
Laura: Yeah.
Rosie: Yeah, I think he’s so excited about leaving and about the fact that the Weasleys are coming and the fact that he’s going to go to the Quidditch World Cup, that he just really hasn’t thought about the practicalities of it at all.
Kat: So but… okay, sure.
Laura: But I understand what you’re saying as far as Harry… I agree that it wouldn’t have even come up to his mind, but let’s say it did. I think he kind of does give Mr. Weasley a bit of credit just in the sense that the last time that they were driving in Muggle places that they were in fact driving. And I think that’s what his thought process was. It was like, “Oh well,” you know. They weren’t so brash as to just do wizard transportation the last time they had to go to a Muggle area. But I think he just kind of assumes.
Kat: Didn’t they have a driver?
Rosie: Yeah, they had Ministry drivers.
Kat: Yeah, I thought so.
Rosie: But…
Kat: I would never…
Rosie: I don’t think he’s necessarily thinking like a Muggle. I think he’s just thinking like a kid.
Kat: Yeah.
Rosie: He’s only fourteen. He’s not really bothered about stuff that doesn’t concern him. He hasn’t had to organize it, so…
Kat: That’s true.
Rosie: … he hasn’t thought about it.
Laura: Also for that matter, he doesn’t know necessarily every… he’s not knowledgable in every way of transportation that adult wizards can do. Like, I don’t think he’s expecting them to come on broomsticks, but…
Kat: [laughs] That’s true.
Alexandra: The last time he left the Dursleys was on the Knight Bus, so that’s almost like a car anyway. That’s also why it probably never even crossed his mind.
Laura: Right.
Kat: Could you imagine getting behind a wheel or getting in a car with Arthur driving? Let’s just talk about that for a minute.
[Laura laughs]
Rosie: Well…
Kat: Awful.
Laura: Speaking is not the best driver in the world…
[Alexandra laughs]
Laura: …as Alexandra can attest to.
[Alexandra laughs]
Laura: They’re probably better off with any wizard than some levels.
Kat: I could just see him stopping at everything that’s plugged in…
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Everything they drive by so he can stop and inspect.
Rosie: He’d wait at traffic lights so he can see all three colors and marvel at them.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: That’s probably true, it’s probably true.
Rosie: Okay. [laughs]
Kat: Okay, so right before the Weasleys are due to arrive – I thought this little paragraph was really great. It says that Petunia is straightening the house, Vernon is staring at a newspaper but not reading it, [laughs] and poor Dudley is still walking around the house holding his bottom.
Laura: Drawing attention to it, really.
Kat: That… I mean, it’s so large that no matter what it’s going to draw attention.
Laura: Hard to miss.
Kat: But yeah. We know Petunia is… she likes to impress. I know that cleaning is something that a lot of people do when they’re anxious or nervous or scared or whatever, but do we think at all even one percent of her is trying to impress the Weasleys?
Laura: Definitely.
Rosie: Sure. I think it’s a very English thing to do as well. If you’re having visitors in your home, you make sure everything is fine so that there’s nothing possible that they can judge you about.
Laura: Yeah, I think it also… what they were saying about Vernon being in his best suit, not as a gesture of good will but as a dominant kind of thing. Being like, “I’m better than you.”
Rosie: Yeah.
Laura: But I think it kind of comes out to that – obnoxiously wanting to show off an impressive home, wanting to be like, “I have a better home than you. Look how clean and perfect and normal I am.”
Rosie: Which is kind of hilarious because if anyone knows how bad it’s been, it’s going to be the Weasleys. Harry will have told them.
Laura: Yeah. Also, the Weasleys could care less.
[Rosie laughs]
Rosie: But I think Molly would clean her house as much if anyone was coming to visit her. I think it’s not a particularly [English/British] thing…
Laura: Oh yeah, definitely.
Rosie: It’s just being house proud. And they’re both very house proud women.
Kat: And it’s actually funny because you mentioned that it’s a British thing. The next line that jumped out at me, I was going to ask you if this was a British thing. They say that, “Maybe they think they’ll get invited to dinner if they’re late.”
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: I mean…
Rosie: Okay, I recently went to one of my grandparents’ wedding anniversary, and it was kind of a lunch thing. And my family, we stick around, we have lunch, we chat for hours, and then we expect tea in the afternoon.
[Kat laughs]
Rosie: So yes, it is quite a British thing to… if you’re arriving at a certain time, then there’s probably a meal around then as well, so… [unintelligible]
Laura: I don’t know if it’s a British thing necessarily as it is like… I would never expect anything personally, but I know if people were to come over to my house and they’re coming at a certain time – like my roommate came over the other day but it was around 4:00 – that’s getting towards dinner time. And since she was staying near then I offered her dinner just because the girl’s got to eat, so…
Rosie: Yeah, it’s just a nice host thing, I think. So yeah, I don’t think it’s necessarily expected and I don’t think it’s necessarily just a British thing, but it does happen occasionally. [laughs]
Alexandra: Well, similarly at home whenever someone invites us over, say 2:30 in the afternoon, we kind of always think, “Oh, maybe they don’t want to feed us lunch or dinner, so they’re calling us just so they can give us a lighter snack food instead of preparing an actual meal.”
Rosie: [laughs] Yeah.
Alexandra: That’s generally how we associate because we always offer – as you both have said, if they come over close to lunch or close to dinner, we will offer them, “Oh, do you want to stay for lunch?” or “Do you want to stay and have dinner with us?” And maybe just to avoid doing that, obviously the Dursleys didn’t want that to happen.
Kat: Hilarity would have ensued. I’m just saying.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: That would have been great.
Alexandra: That would be the most awkward dinner you would ever sit through.
Kat: It would be like Dumbledore in a couple of books where the glasses are hitting them on the side of the head, and they’re just ignoring it the whole time.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Whatever. Okay, so the Weasleys are late. I’m beginning to think that wizards are always late to everything but whatever. Anyway, so then all of a sudden all the Dursleys are running across the room screaming because there’s some noise, and Harry goes running in there, and it’s like, “What happened? What’s wrong?” and there'[re] noises coming from behind the fireplace, and Petunia says, “What is it? What is it, Vernon?” and then they can hear voices, and I’m thinking, “Really?”
Rosie: “What is it?”
Kat: “She has no guesses at all about what’s going on?”
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: You’re hearing voices…
Rosie: But I guess they have no experience with Floo powder, so they wouldn’t expect anyone to be coming out of their nonexistent fireplace.
Kat: But did her sister not use it growing up?
Rosie: I doubt it. Not in a Muggle…
Laura: Yeah, I think people tend to give Petunia too much credit as far as her knowledge of the wizarding world. I think she has vague ideas of things, but I don’t think that she was certainly asking any questions about things [or] that Lily was bragging and talking a lot about things. I think she has a rudimentary knowledge of the wizarding world to know big things like Voldemort but not details like Floo Networks and stuff.
Rosie: Yeah, once…
Alexandra: At the same time, too, she majorly lives in the Muggle world. She knows about the magical world, [but] things like that are not going to come to her head immediately. They’re still going to seem very silly and foreign to her.
Rosie: Yeah, I agree.
Laura: I mean, no matter what, it’s still abrasive for it to be happening.
Rosie: Considering the last real contact she had with the wizarding world other than her sister was the letter from Dumbledore saying that she would never be able to go to Hogwarts, she probably, at that point, properly rejected anything that would have been wizarding information, again, up until the point where her sister is in danger, and she finds out about maybe Dementors and Voldemort himself. The day-to-day wizarding stuff she has deliberately blocked from her mind, so if she ever heard about Floo Powder she wouldn’t really care about it that much.
Kat: That’s true.
Laura: Also, they say that the Floo Network isn’t hooked up to Muggle fireplaces or something like that, so I really doubt she would have come in contact with it.
Kat: So then, of course, Harry is trying to explain to the Dursleys what’s going on as Fred and George and Arthur and Ron are all stepping on each other and that has… “How are four people even fitting in that fireplace?” is the first question, but…
Laura: Not comfortably.
Kat: No, definitely not. But I always laugh, and it always makes me smile on page 43 of the US edition where Harry says they’ve tries to get here by Floo Powder, and he’s fighting a mad desire to laugh, which I just love. It always makes me smile because Harry is… the Weasleys… they’re awesome. So Harry explains that the fireplace is all bordered up and that the Dursleys have an electric fireplace, and of course Arthur is suddenly all excited about seeing the fireplace.
[Rosie laughs]
Laura: Can I just ask, “Is the fireplace still boarded up because of the mail from Sorcerer’s Stone?” Why is it boarded up otherwise?
Alexandra: Is that a movie-ism, though?
Laura: Is it? I was…
Kat: No. Um, maybe?
Rosie: That’s true. I think the letters are described as flying out of the fireplace in the first book, so yeah, maybe they decided to stop this “damn peck of owls” by going down the electric fire route at that point.
Laura: I mean, because why would the fireplace be boarded up anyway?
Rosie: Well, a lot of fireplaces are boarded up in England. We generally…
Laura: Oh, really?
Rosie: … avoid open fires.
Kat: Yeah, I’m thinking that what they’re probably talking about is a façade.
Rosie: Yeah.
Laura: Oh, okay. I was picturing – maybe because of the illustration that’s in the book – boarded up.
Kat: Oh. Then…
Rosie: No, it would be filled in, and then there'[d] be an electric fireplace in front of it.
Laura: Oh, okay.
Kat: I see how that’s misleading, though. I just looked at the picture, and I know what you’re talking about now.
Laura: Yeah, see how there'[re] wood and nails coming out?
Rosie: Really?
Laura: It looks like they boarded it up.
Rosie: Okay. Yeah, that’s not what happened. [laughs]
Laura: Okay.
Kat: Anyway, okay. So they’re all fighting with each other. There’s some classic Fred and George and Ron comedy in here. It’s just… again, if this [were] in the movie, brilliant. So then, of course, they’re trying to figure out how to get out. What are they going to do? And then Arthur is like, “Okay, clearly the only option is to completely destroy the fireplace by blasting it to smithereens.”
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: I mean, that’s obviously the only option. So the electric fire shoots across the room as the boarded up fireplace completely explodes, gets dirt and dust everywhere. And as Arthur steps out of the fireplace, he extends his hand to the Dursleys, trying to greet them, but nope. They’re having absolutely none of it. And I was thinking that if I were the Dursleys at this point, regardless of how frightened I [would be], I would be so mad. I’d be pissed if somebody blew up my fireplace from the inside.
Laura: I totally agree. As much as I hate, obviously, the Dursleys and their reaction toward everything, they’re acting very nonchalant about the whole fact that they just destroyed their living room. Like, “Oh yeah, we’re going to repair it in a minute, I guess.”
[Kat laughs]
Laura: But still…
Rosie: I don’t think they’re necessarily nonchalant; they’re just speechless. Your entire living room…
Laura: No, no, no, no, no.
Kat: No, the Weasleys.
Laura: The Weasleys are…
Rosie: Oh, okay.
Laura: Mr. Weasley, instead of being like, “Oh my God, I am so sorry. I just destroyed everything. I promise I’m going to fix it,” he’s just like, “Oh, no bother. I’ll pick it up in a second but not too soon.”
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: Yeah, he’s like, “I can put it right in a jiffy, though. Don’t worry”… is the exact line.
Rosie: Right.
Laura: So yeah, I mean… yeah.
Alexandra: What I was going to add in here was… we’ll talk about it a little bit more as we finish the chapter, but… why are the Dursleys so irrationally afraid of Arthur and the Weasleys? I can understand that Petunia is scared because of what happened to her sister, but where does this extreme fear, particularly from Uncle Vernon, come from? Is it because he’s feeling guilty?
Rosie: No, I think, as we’ve discussed in the last chapter, he’s being threatened by Sirius Black. The only other experience of a wizard that he’s had was Hagrid. I think his limited contact with wizards and what they have actually done to him in that experience is a pretty terrifying thing. It’s not so irrational after all. Even if not Arthur in particular, then there is still some kind of association to these terrible events that keep happening to him, that [they’re] all connected to magic.
Laura: Right, yeah, I agree with what Rosie is saying, and… he’s almost worried. It’s not so much of fear as it is embracing what [they are] going to do next. He was expecting something bad to happen, he was right, they destroyed his living room, and now it’s like, “What’s going to happen next?” Like you said, last time, they had to deal [with] first Hagrid barg[ing] down the doo, and then Dudley got injured. And that’s exactly what happens again: the barging down of stuff, and then Dudley is about to… something’s about to happen to Dudley.
[Kat laughs]
Rosie: I mean, they were able to track him right into the middle of nowhere, this island that no one knew that he was there. So there’s no escape from them. They can give you pig tails, they can blow you up, they can do terrible, terrible things.
[Kat and Laura laugh]
Rosie: And there’s nothing you can do about it.
Laura: Exactly. I forgot about Aunt Marge. Yeah. So they… as much as they’re prejudiced and everything, it’s slightly justified.
[Rosie laughs]
Laura: “Slightly” just because they have not had positive experiences – due to their own fault, but…
Kat: As Arthur is apologizing for basically blowing apart the fireplace, he explains that Muggle fireplaces aren’t supposed to be connected, strictly speaking, to the Floo Network, but he has a useful contact at the Floo Regulation Panel. And I begin to wonder, “Do we think that this applies to wizards with non-wizard parents?” So Muggle-borns. Do we think they would be connected to the Floo Network?
Alexandra: No, I don’t think so.
Rosie: I think you wouldn’t… why would you connect a Floo Network fireplace to a child’s fireplace?, for one thing, and if you have a grownup…
Kat: How are they going to… what if they need to go to St. Mungo’s? An emergency.
Rosie: I assume that there would be some kind of wizarding NHS. [laughs]
Laura: Well, then the thing is is that…
Rosie: There would be an emergency service or something.
Laura: Technically, there shouldn’t be…
Alexandra: But if they’re getting injured at home, they’re not supposed to be doing magic.
Laura: Exactly.
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: But what if they have an emotional reaction?
Rosie: Well, then we know that the Trace can trigger the Department of Regulation or whatever it is, and the people that come out and fix things as they did last year with Aunt Marge… there are backups. They don’t need the Floo Network for any of these things.
Kat: Yeah, they could probably apparate I suppose. Right?
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: If they had to.
Laura: Yeah.
Rosie: So you wouldn’t connect a fireplace to a child’s… a child’s fireplace to a network. And when you are an older wizard, then you are more likely to have moved out of your parents’ house and not be living with Muggles anymore.
Kat: Okay, so let’s pretend that you are older and you haven’t moved out. Can your Muggles… can Hermoine’s parents, for example… can they use the Floo Network?
Alexandra: I still don’t think so.
Laura: No.
Rosie: I mean, we do see them at Platform 9 3/4 and we see them at Diagon Alley. So they do have some access to wizarding things that normal Muggles wouldn’t. But I doubt that they would want to travel by Floo Network anyway. There are other options available.
Laura: I just don’t see a necessity for it.
Rosie: No.
Laura: Because if they are Muggles, they don’t really need to be going in many wizarding places that can’t be gotten to from a different method. Also, the Floo Network comes with a lot of responsibility in that… you can’t really… I would imagine adults have to have courtesy that they are not just going to pop into someone’s home in their fireplace…
Rosie: Yeah, the same…
Laura: … which is what they are doing here. But [laughs] children, if given access to the Floo Network and being able to do it themselves may not think about that, and be like, “Oh yeah, I’m just going to go there because I can.”
Rosie: I guess if there are wizarding children who have parents that are denying their wizarding nature, in the same way that Harry’s guardians are not supportive of him being a wizard, that you might get some kind of possibility for that child to have access to the wizarding world separately from their parents and from other things. I guess that’s why the Floo Regulation Panel exists, so that they can fix problems like this.
Laura: Exciting job.
Kat: Otherwise, kids might start to throw things in there, like their pets, to see what happens. Like their owl, right?
Rosie: We discussed that before. [laughs]
Kat: I know. [laughs] I just think it is funny.
Rosie: Poor owls. [laughs]
Kat: [laughs] I know, it is so funny. Okay, so this part always makes me laugh, too, where Arthur is trying to make conversation with the Dursleys, and he’s like, “Oh yeah, so all these plugs and everything they run off of eckeltricity, right?”
Rosie: Eckeltricity. [laughs]
Kat: And he’s like, “Oh, I see all the plugs. I collect plugs and batteries. I have a huge collection of batteries.”
Rosie: And they are just like, “What?” [laughs]
Kat: And he’s like, “My wife thinks I’m mad.”
[Kat and Rosie laugh]
Kat: And I can only picture a thought bubble coming out of Vernon’s head that’s like, “Yeah, yeah. So do I.”
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: “Obviously, you are very, very insane.” And so, the awkwardness and the hilarity continues where the bottom of page 46 it says, “He…” – referring to Dudley – “… and Ron exchanged glances and then looked quickly away.” Is this only because they’re close in age, because surely Harry doesn’t talk about Ron to Dudley so why would they be awkward? Other than the clearly irrational fear.
Laura: I think it’s more like Ron’s kind of measuring up Dudley based on everything he’s been told, just kind of looking at him and Dudley’s looking at him with that fear, and it’s just a both looking at each other moment for different reasons, but then not wanting to be caught looking at each other because neither respects each other so they just look away.
[Kat laughs]
Rosie: Ron was probably quite embarrassed by his dad as well. He knows that the plug thing’s weird so he wouldn’t want to be judged. And he knows that Dudley is going to be one of the people judging him. And Dudley looks away because he scared of wizards.
Kat: Yeah, and Ron is definitely one to be worried about being judged and what people think of him. So as they’re… Fred and George go up to get Harry’s trunk, and they bring it back down, and they’re getting ready to leave, and Arthur lights the fire in the fireplace, and Fred, of course, “accidentally” drops sweets from his pocket which go rolling all about the room. He manages to snag, seemingly, all of them up and then he, George and Ron leave the scene. And as Harry is leaving, he says “Okay, well, bye.” And Arthur stops him and makes a big deal about the fact that the Dursleys didn’t say bye to him. And I’m wondering why. Why does he make a big deal about this? Because surely by now he’s gathered that the Dursleys basically suck and couldn’t care less.
Rosie: I don’t think he knows. I don’t think that Harry would have told either Arthur or Molly about his home situation.
Laura: I think… yeah…
Rosie: Probably because he doesn’t want to seem weak or he almost doesn’t want them to worry about him as well.
Kat: But they know that he’s been locked in his room with bars on the window.
Rosie: That’s true.
Laura: Well, yeah, I think they have a basic idea maybe that they’re strict and that they’re very Mugglish and everything like that, but I don’t think he really fathoms just how little they could possibly care about Harry.
Rosie: Yeah, because that just doesn’t gel in their minds.
Laura: Just because Arthur – obviously he knows Harry is a good kid, that there’s no reason for Harry to be treated that way. And since, yeah, Arthur doesn’t really know everything about the back story, he knows they’re unpleasant people and that they’ve done unpleasant things and Harry isn’t happy with them, but he’s like “Oh my God, seriously, you’re related, and you take care of him, and you’re not going to see him for an entire year, and that’s all you have to say, which is nothing.” He just can’t fathom it.
Rosie: And the fact that we’ve already seen, that Mrs. Weasley has sent the letter to the Dursleys as well, they still think that there is some way of adult to adult respectfully talking to each other. Which I think that they then… after this point they don’t try that again. So I think maybe Arthur, at this point, he’s trying to make the situation better. He wonders that maybe if he points it out right now, that they might improve in the future and just highlights how bad that they’re treating him.
Kat: He’s such an optimist. [laughs]
Rosie: Yeah, definitely.
Alexandra: Considering also that love is such an important theme in the series, perhaps it’s just an early reinforcement of how much we should value it and how important love is and even if it’s not love, just tolerance and respect maybe?
Laura: Mhm.
Kat: That’s a good point.
Rosie: Yeah. And how much better the Weasleys are than the Dursleys. And also, Mr. Weasley loves Muggles.
Alexandra: And as readers, maybe we’ve become somewhat desensitized to just how badly they do treat Harry and it is still wrong. We know it’s wrong, but consider being Arthur and saying it for the very first time…
Rosie: True.
Alexandra: … it actually happening, this complete and utter disrespect towards their own blood. It must be pretty shocking for him unlike how it is to us.
Kat: Yeah, because to the Weasleys, family is everything.
Rosie: Mhm.
Kat: That’s basically all they have a lot of the time is each other.
Laura: Yeah. I agree with what you said, Alex, about it being about us being desensitized because I think it’s the reason why we don’t get as upset about the way the Dursleys treat Harry so much as frustrated is because Harry almost doesn’t care about the Dursleys and it’s not like he’s sitting there crying in his room, being like, “I wish I had the affection of my aunt and uncle.” He’s just frustrated with the way that they treat him and stuff, but not because he’s yearning really for their love and affection that we see it that way, but Arthur is looking at it and being like, “Oh my God.” There’s no type of – like you were saying – love and respect and affection and family ties and all that. So, Arthur’s seeing it like that, but we are desensitized to it. We’re like, “Yeah, typical Dursley,” and Harry doesn’t actually care. That’s what he’s saying. “Oh, it’s not a big deal.”
Kat: Right as Harry is about to leave – we’re approaching the end of the chapter here – right before he steps into the fireplace of course, Dudley starts gagging in the corner of the room. He’s kneeling beside the coffee table and he is choking on a foot-long purple, slimy thing that is protruding from his mouth and that is disgusting. Why in the world would Fred and George, first off, make a treat, a candy that is like that? And, I mean, why? Just why? What kind of spell is that? That’s disgusting.
[Rosie laughs]
Laura: Well, I mean, I think it’s not supposed to be a treat for yourself. The whole idea is that they’re pranksters. It’s supposed to be exactly for the purpose that they used it for as this ridiculous thing that they’re not going to eat for themselves. They probably had to test it on themselves and stuff, but you’re not supposed to just eat it. And the same thing the way the Puking Pastils are, they have a purpose and it’s not for enjoyment.
Kat: But they could have legitimately killed Dudley.
Laura: No, that’s very true. He could have completely choked I guess. I mean, I guess he could still breathe through his nose, but… wait, no. I don’t know. I don’t know what I was talking…
Rosie: I think the gagging part of it is more him reacting badly to it because doesn’t understand what’s going on and he’s worried. I don’t think it’s actually blocking his airway or anything like that and in my this week’s reading post for this chapter, I described it as looking like the Pokémon Lickitung.
Laura: Mhm.
Kat: Only Noah gets that.
Rosie: Okay.
Laura: I got… no, I get it.
Rosie: Google it. Look it up.
Kat: Oh, you do? Okay.
Laura: Yeah. [laughs]
Rosie: And I think it’s just quite a childish thing to do, isn’t it? Like you stick your tongue out at someone as a mean thing or a practical joke…
Kat: Ah.
Rosie: … and it’s just an exaggerated version of that and it’s relatively unharmful. And again, if there’s a remedy for it and you can just shrink it down again, it’s fine. It is just a practical joke. But yeah, it’s gross. [laughs]
Kat: I had never thought about it like a [makes sound of sticking a tongue out].
Rosie: Yeah.
Kat: Like someone sticking their tongue out at somebody. That’s so funny.
Laura: Yeah, I think maybe he just…
Kat: But why purple? [laughs]
Laura: Well, I don’t… I think it’s just not… like if you were to engorge… I feel like if you were to engorge your tongue, it would be purplish.
Kat: Oh, okay. [laughs]
Rosie: Yeah, it’s pink anyway at the moment, so it’s not that far.
Laura: The underside of your tongue is kind of purpley.
Kat: Okay, kind of purpley.
Laura: And if it’s… I consider it like swelling, like if you have swelling on your skin…
Kat: Oh, okay.
Laura: … it’s… that’s how I see this whole thing, basically, is swelling.
Alexandra: That’s what I thought as well.
Kat: And I thought too that this was clearly the early stages of the Weasleys’ Wizarding Wheezes.
Rosie: Mhm. See, I’m quite impressed that they’ve actually managed to create something that does this considering what we know about Fred and George and their academic prowess. The fact that they’re actually able to manufacture these sweets and make them look normal until you eat them and then this happens, and to add the charm into them is a really impressive thing to do, and as we see through later chapters and later books, they get more and more impressive.
Kat: How Hermione-ish of you. I mean that’s true.
Rosie: Mhm.
Kat: I think that’s exactly what she says, that it’s impressive magic.
Rosie: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah. I mean, this is… obviously, I’ve always said they’re my favorites, but one of the many reasons that I love them is just because of how talented…
Kat: [coughs loudly] Oliver!
[Rosie laughs]
Laura: Yes, that’s number one reason. I said one of many reasons.
[Everyone laughs]
Laura: But the… now I’ve lost my train of thought. Now I’m thinking about Oliver.
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: I’m sorry!
Laura: No, that they are really talented, truly, and they are smart. They’re not just losers who just because academics don’t suit them and stuff like that, it’s not to say that they aren’t talented and I think that is a lot of people’s cases where they’re not book driven or school driven, but they certainly are talented in something and they certainly have something to bring to the world.
Kat: So, I mean, that pretty much wraps up the chapter. The only thing that happens is Arthur finally tells Harry to, “Just leave. Just go. I’ll handle it,” and so Harry rushes away in his green flames as Petunia continues to tug on Dudley’s purple tongue. [laughs] And Vernon…
Rosie: See, that’s the worst bit, to me. Why would you do that?
Kat: Oh, yeah. Tugging on it? That’s not going to help. But she’s crazy. What does she know?
[Rosie laughs]
Kat: And Vernon and Arthur are having a fight with ornaments that he’s chucking at his head. So, crazy.
Laura: How gross that would be. If you think… if you were to grab your tongue right now, it’s weird, but if you imagine it being five feet long, holding that…
Kat: Ah!
Laura: That’s disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
Kat: It’s like when Harry loses all the bones in his arm.
Rosie: Mhm.
Kat: Ugh. That grosses me out.
Rosie: Yeah. [laughs]
Kat: Disgusting. But yeah, so, my vote is, if they ever redo the movies, I want this scene.
Rosie: Mhm.
Kat: Not that my vote counts at all.
[Kat and Rosie laugh]
Laura: Well, they were thinking about it, but now it’s off the table.
Kat: Damn.
[Rosie laughs]
Laura: Okay, so, this, for the Podcast Question of the Week, is my first time doing a Podcast Question of the Week.
Kat: No pressure.
Laura: Yeah, so, I want to know, how would this whole situation potentially have gone differently if Molly had been the one to pick up Harry instead of Arthur? Would they have been less afraid or less offended by Molly instead of the way Arthur handles things? Would the twins have even tried the gag in front of their mother? Would the Dursleys have reacted as rudely no matter who it was, just for them being a wizard? So, we’re going to post this question on our main site, alohomora.mugglenet.com. So, if you want your answers to that read, comment on that post.
Kat: Okay, and we just want to thank you, Alex, again, for being on this episode with us. It’s been a lot of fun.
Alexandra: I’ve had a wonderful time. Thank you for having me.
Kat: Sure, absolutely.
Laura: Thank you very much.
Rosie: And if you guys would like to be on the show like Alex was today, you can go over to our website, which is alohomora.mugglenet.com, or you can email us at alohomorapodcast at gmail dot com. And in the meantime, remember to subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes.
Kat: And in the meantime, if you just want to keep in contact with us, you can find us on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN, facebook.com/openthedumbledore, or you can leave us a voicemail at 206-GO-ALBUS. That’s 206-462-5287.
Laura: And be sure to check out our store, which you can find the link on our main site. There you can get T-shirts, host shirts, different… we’re coming…
Kat: Tote bags.
Laura: Tote bags. Yeah, we’re coming out with new designs that you guys have been waiting for for a very long time, but we already have some new designs up there anyway. So go check that out.
Rosie: And don’t forget our app as well, which is available in the US and UK for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Kindle. And now in the US only, it is also available on the Windows 8 phone. And that is for $1.99 or a pound, 29 pence. And there are transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and much more on there, so it’s worth checking out.
Kat: So that’s it.
[Show music begins]
Kat: Thank you, guys, all again for joining us. I’m Kat Miller.
Laura: I’m Laura Reilly.
Rosie: And I’m Rosie Morris. Thank you for listening to Episode 41 of Alohomora!
Kat: Open the Dumbledore!
[Show music continues]
Laura: I’ve always been sad that Lee was never in future movies.
Kat: I know!
Laura: Especially since… for anyone [who is] a Community fan, the guy has a supporting role in Community and he’s hilarious.
Kat: Pop, pop!
Rosie: He was actually a contestant in Project Runway here. We had our own version…
Kat: Really?
Laura: Oh my God!
Rosie: … which was actually called Project Catwalk and he was one of the designers on it.
Kat: I didn’t know that! That’s amazing!
Rosie: It’s a brilliant, brilliant series, and he’s a really good stylist.
Laura: I didn’t even know there was a UK version.
Rosie: So yeah, try [to] find it if you can. [laughs]
Laura: I’m totally doing that.
Rosie: [laughs] But he doesn’t mention Harry Potter once while he’s on there. It’s really hilarious.
Kat: Well, people would be like, “You were in that movie? What? You’re lying.”
[Everyone laughs]
Kat: Awesome.
Rosie: But anyway, to get back on topic.
[Kat and Rosie laugh]
