Transcript – Episode 13

[Show music begins]

Noah Fried: This is Episode 13 of Alohomora!, for October 7th, 2012.

[Show music continues]

Kat Miller: Hey guys! Welcome to Episode 13, the unluckiest episode. I’m Kat Miller.

Laura Reilly: I’m Laura Reilly.

Noah: I’m Noah Fried. And I’m joined by Amanda Brennan, who goes to Muhlenberg College with me. She is our special guest.

Amanda Brennan: Hi guys!

Kat: Hey Amanda. Thanks for being on the show.

Amanda: Thank you.

Noah: Tell us a little bit about yourself. What’s your house, your wand, your favorite thing about Harry Potter?

Amanda: Well, I was actually sorted into two different houses on Pottermore, but I consider myself a Slytherin. I believe cypress and dragon heartstring is my wand.

Noah: Mhm.

Amanda: But I love all the houses. It’s fun. I’m not a typical Slytherin, I guess you would call it.

[Noah laughs]

Kat: Yeah, well we have all four houses represented today, I just realized.

Laura: Oh, wow!

Noah: Oh, we do!

Laura: That’s true.

Kat: That’s rare, yeah.

Laura: Wait, Noah, you’re a Hufflepuff?

Noah: Yeah, yeah, I am. At first I struggled just with the fact…

Laura: Right.

Noah: …that they get such a bad name, but I’ve come to terms with it and I do believe I am a true ‘Puff. Yeah.

[Amanda laughs]

Kat: Yeah, I love the ‘Puffs even though I’m an Eagle. You know, whatever. Anyway…

[Kat and Noah laugh]

Noah: But I’m sorry that I haven’t been on the last two episodes, guys, everyone. I’ve just been really, really busy. But I’m back to stay. I should be on a whole bunch in the future.

Kat: Yay! I’m sure the fans will be very happy.

Laura: Our first comment on our discussion, Hippogriff is saying:

“I miss Noah and his repetitive ‘Is it alive?’ comments. Come back soon!”

[Kat laughs]

Laura: So, I think that’s solid evidence the fans missed you as much as we did.

Noah: Well, you know what? As I was listening to the episodes all I could think about was, “Are these objects alive?” But did we talk enough about the fact that the car, the Ford Anglia, actually does have a sort of consciousness when it crashes into…

Amanda: The Whomping Willow?

Noah: …the Whomping Willow?

Kat: Well, you and I didn’t talk about it at all because we weren’t on the last episode.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: But I know you think it’s alive. I don’t so much.

Laura: We did talk about it having a personality and kind of whether that was because it was magically enchanted or something Mr. Weasley just decided to feature on the car or if it was a side effect.

Noah: It does, sort of. I mean, it seems like any object that’s imbued with magic to some degree gains a personality. I mean, it could still be controlled like any automobile…

Laura: Mhm.

Noah: …but then it’s able to shoot Ron and Harry out of the car, and it can go off on its own, and then it will save them later. It seems to have some sort of thought process.

Kat: Yeah, I mean I think the longer that it’s at Hogwarts, the more it gains a personality, but I think at the point we are in the book, not so much. I think it’s just kind of come alive because of the magic around Hogwarts.

Noah: Oh, right. Okay. Didn’t Jo confirm that? Or I feel like she said stuff to that degree before.

Kat: She did. There’s a whole discussion about it on the forums right now, actually, as well. So…

Noah: Wow. Oh okay, so that’s really cool.

Kat: Yeah.

Noah: That’s great.

Laura: Well, that brings us to our discussion on the comments from the previous week, from our Chapters 5 and 6. So, getting right into that, this was in reply to the Lockhart admiration from students. On the main site, from PatronusThestral, they said:

“Do you think it was possible for Lockhart to put a spell on himself or drink a potion that would make girls love him, somewhat like the love potion Slughorn talks about in ‘HBP’ but not love more like a deep obsession? Obviously it does not work on boys because none of the boys like Lockhart.”

So, what do you guys think of that?

Kat: I thought that was really interesting. I mean, we do know that Justin Finch-Fletchley kind of admires him, but I always saw him as kind of a feminine boy anyway. So, maybe he just has some sort of personality attributes. I don’t know, but I thought this was a really interesting comment. Is it in his hair gel or something? [laughs] You know?

Laura: Yeah, I really don’t think that Lockhart was necessarily using any outside means to make…

[Noah laughs]

Laura: …the females like him, because I think it’s all that circumstantial attraction where it’s just because he’s an attractive teacher and stuff, and who else do they… there’s no other attractive teachers, I guess. So, I think especially everything that he’s done and how charming he is, I can’t… of course twelve-year-old girls would be falling in love with him.

Kat: Yeah, I guess Dumbledore just doesn’t do it for him, does he?

Laura: No.

[Kat and Laura laugh]

Noah: I mean I wouldn’t be surprised, but you’ve got to remember he’s also an exceptional writer. He’s able to falsify all these things he’s done and make the wizarding world believe that he’s banished the banshee and whatnot. But I would believe that his books are probably picked up a lot by middle-aged women in the wizarding community. Almost like a Fifty Shades of Grey thing, except he has a probably… it’s definitely different stories. I’m just saying that it creates a craze and he probably just bought into that, and then everyone else follows…

Kat: Yeah, a lot less vulgar I would hope. [laughs]

Laura: I think he just has a face that sells, like how we saw… especially in the films when you see the stack of books and they’re all just him smiling. I think that he’s definitely just a face that sells and they’d probably just buy anything that he said.

Noah: Yeah.

Laura: Which is evidenced as happening. [laughs]

Kat: Yeah, it’s the nice teeth. I happen to like nice teeth, so that makes sense. Maybe he had braces. Or do wizards fix their own teeth? No, they don’t because they have no idea what a dentist is, right?

Noah: Right. [laughs] How would you sort Lockhart? Into which house?

Kat: He’s a Hufflepuff.

Amanda: He’s a Hufflepuff.

Noah: Is he really?

Amanda: Yeah. Oh no, wait. No, isn’t he a Ravenclaw?

Kat: No, he’s a Ravenclaw. He’s a Ravenclaw. That’s what I meant. He’s a Ravenclaw.

Amanda: Yeah.

Noah: Yeah, he is definitely not a Hufflepuff.

[Amanda and Kat laugh]

Laura: And I think that makes sense that he’s a Ravenclaw and that even as he’s clever, [laughs] he certainly is that.

Noah: Oh, yeah.

Laura: He managed to…

Kat: Creative.

Laura: …come up with this whole scheme and everything.

Kat: Mhm.

Laura: Whether or not that’s a good idea. [laughs]

Kat: Yeah.

Noah: I haven’t been able to weigh in because I haven’t been on the episodes, but his character is just so very ridiculous. I mean, it’s incredible to imagine that Dumbledore would have just let him into the castle and everyone is taking him seriously. I feel like…

Kat: Well, what choice did he have?

Noah: Right.

Kat: I mean, there was no one else for the job.

Laura: Yeah, I think it has to come down to that because that’s my biggest issue with this, is that Dumbledore is a very smart person and the fact that… I don’t know, I feel like this is something Dumbledore would have seen right through. So…

Kat: We would hope.

Laura: Yeah. I think it’s, I guess, maybe more of a testament to Lockhart and his whole scheme if he’s able to pull one over on Dumbledore as well.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: Well, and if the love potion thing, if it really is in his hair gel… I mean, we know Dumbledore is gay so maybe it worked on him.

[Everyone laughs]

Noah: That is not why he hired Lockhart, because he’s beautiful.

Kat: I’m only mostly kidding.

[Everyone laughs]

Noah: Do we even know that you can put a spell on yourself to make yourself more attractive to others versus… don’t you have to have everyone else ingest it to then love you? Like with a piece of your essence in it, kind of like the love potion in Half-Blood Prince?

Laura: Maybe the pumpkin juice at the opening feast.

Kat: It’s magic. Anything is possible, I suppose.

Amanda: There’s definitely glamour charms that he could use. But…

Kat: Yeah, a glamour charm.

Amanda: …that wouldn’t cause love or lust.

Noah: I wouldn’t put it past him.

Kat: Yeah.

[Noah laughs]

Laura: Okay, and our next comment was in reply to our discussion on the pink earmuffs and how everyone was avoiding them. So this is on our forums from Cassandra1447:

“Why the scramble not to have the pink earmuffs? Does everyone just not like pink? I would have thought Lavender would have gone for the pink earmuffs at least. In our world today, we associate pink with girls (and often with the stereotypical, old-fashioned notions of femininity). Do you think the wizarding world has this association too and that’s why no one wanted the pink ones? The idea doesn’t quite work for me, but I’m not sure I understand the dislike of the pink by everyone unless there is some reason why pink would be undesirable.”

Kat: Hmm.

Noah: I have no idea.

Amanda: I would think the girls would want it.

Kat: I mean, we later see Umbridge who is head to toe pink and I don’t see her as an old-fashioned notion of femininity at all. I don’t know. That’s hard.

Noah: Can I see the scene that this is referring to exactly? Is there a line?

Laura: Well, I don’t have it directly, but basically when in their Herbology class they all scrambled for the earmuffs and they said they were avoiding the pink ones that Sprout had a liking to. I think this was more detailed just for the guys and…

Noah: Yeah.

Laura: Yeah.

Kat: I was going to say, I was just thinking about that, how this is from Harry’s point of view…

Laura: Mhm.

Kat: …so he’s the one scrambling to not get the pink.

Laura: Right.

Noah: Exactly.

Laura: And I mentioned this last week, that I think it’s just something that goes on with that age group; just here, of boys avoiding the pink scissors because they’re pink, and I think that’s just the same case here.

Kat: Right, yeah.

Noah: I’m sure the girls had no problem.

Laura: Right. [laughs] Okay, so our next comment is in reply to our discussion about wizards and social media, on the main site, from SpiritAuror2. They say:

“You have to remember that ‘Chamber of Secrets’ is set in 1992-1993. Text messaging wasn’t invented until late ’92 and the World Wide Web was still in its infancy. Neither technology would be widespread and in popular use for several more years at least, so it would be impossible for the wizarding community to utilize these modes of communication at the time this book is taking place.”

And I think Rosie brought this up last week. She kind of brought that to our attention of saying that… keeping in mind the time period. And I think we agreed with that, we just said… our main thing was that not necessarily using technology, but just using the whole idea of instant messaging across some kind of enchanted paper or something. Just some easier method, but…

Kat: Right. No, I agree.

Laura: Yeah.

Kat: Good. Thanks for putting us in our place…

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: …SpiritAuror2.

Laura: Okay, so this next comment is in reply to Colin’s camera, on our forums, from GoldSnitch:

“Colin told Harry that someone told him that he had to use a special potion while developing the pictures to get them moving, which makes me think: since he really did use a potion (we know that he shows Harry the picture with Harry and Lockhart), how did he achieve this as a first year? Was this potion so simple that anyone could do it, or did he ask another student to help him? Or, even better, did he actually ask Professor Snape to help him with it? I would love to have such a magical camera.”

Kat: I feel like that would be a pretty common potion. Think about all the places that use cameras like that. The Ministry… it couldn’t be that difficult to make if everybody is using it.

Noah: I wonder how it works.

Kat: Well, I mean do you know anything about how to develop a photo? There’s different solutions that it goes in. So, I imagine that the specific developing solution has some sort of magical, I don’t know…

Laura: Right, yeah.

Kat: …potion in it. I don’t know.

Laura: Yeah, I develop a lot of film and I think… especially just because Colin has such a passion for it. Even though it might be a complicated process and it might be a complicated potion, it might be something that he really… rather than it just being homework or anything, he knew that’s what he wanted to do and he has a passion for it, that he also probably had experience with Muggle developing. And it’s probably around the same process, but just with the magic potion to make it move instead. So, I think he probably just spent a lot of time figuring it out because it meant a lot to him.

Kat: Do we think it’s the film that gets the special development? Or when he actually does the prints on the paper?

Laura: I think it’s… because he says special potion when developing the picture, which makes me think it might be ordinary film and it’s kind of transformed with the magical developer.

Noah: That really gives us insight into wizard photography. I used to think it was a special camera, but this means that even Muggle pictures can be transformed into this.

Kat: Right.

Noah: As if all those characteristics of the characters are embedded in the still frame, and this potion just kind of brings it out.

Kat: Right.

Laura: Yeah, because you see with the cameras, they kind of… the way they are described and the way they seem even in the films, they seem like ordinary film cameras.

Kat: Right, and they don’t run on electricity at all. I mean, even some of the older ones only have little batteries in them…

Laura: Mhm.

Kat: …and most of them didn’t. So, they’re completely manual so they would work at Hogwarts. So, that makes sense.

Noah: Right.

Laura: Yeah.

Noah: But what I want to know is: does this potion put in artificial attributes to these characters in the pictures? Or does it bring out stuff that’s truly there? Because it seemed that Harry and Lockhart were acting pretty much like they would in that situation, except maybe a little bit more cartoony. So, is the potion just kind of going off of how their faces are skewed, like what the image looks like? Or are we getting essences of what these characters truly are in the photograph?

Kat: It’s funny, I actually bring this up later in my chapter because it talks about it briefly, and I was wondering the same thing. Because in the picture that this comment is referring to, Lockhart is trying to pull Harry into the photo…

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: …and he eventually gives up and leans against the side, huffing and puffing out of breath. That obviously didn’t really happen, so there must be some sort… some part of his personality in the photo, somehow.

Noah: Right.

Kat: Kind of like the pictures on the Hogwarts walls.

Laura: Mhm.

Noah: Except I think we agreed that the portraits seem to be much more detailed, and those seem to be like original people in a way.

Kat: Right, yeah.

Noah: They can act independently. The photographs have maybe a formula and they can’t act much differently beyond that.

Kat: Well, they can’t learn information and talk back to you like the portraits can. Yeah.

Noah: Right. Yeah, they’re not interactive.

Kat: Right. It’s very cool, though. I’d love to take photography at Hogwarts. That would be amazing.

[Noah laughs]

Laura: I think Hogwarts would be a good place for a lot of electives. A lot of what they take… at high school there’s always electives that are more hobby based like photography or whatnot, and I think it would be… obviously with all of the magical possibilities, Hogwarts would be cool if there were electives.

Kat: Yeah, they’re very limited in what they teach, for sure.

Noah: They are, aren’t they?

Kat: Yeah.

Laura: Mhm.

Kat: Imagine if there was a culinary class. That’d be so crazy.

[Kat and Laura laugh]

Laura: Home ec.

Noah: [as Snape] “With Professor Snape.”

Kat: Yeah.

[Kat and Laura laugh]

Noah: [as Snape] “Here’s your spaghetti!”

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: Spaghetti? I don’t know, I can’t see Severus eating spaghetti. But anyway…

[Noah laughs]

Laura: So, this next comment is in reply to our discussion on how the Hogwarts Express was visible, and it comes from the main site from Killey2011:

“Rosie said that it was a flaw that the train was out in the open and noticeable. I started thinking, and in one of the podcasts for Book 1, the idea that 9 3/4 is under the Fidelius Charm was discussed. If we follow that logic, then only Secret-Keepers would be able to see it, i.e. people who have been to 9 3/4 and not Muggles near it.”

Noah: That seems to be two different questions though, or two different points, because it’s… we know that the barrier is protected by the Fidelius Charm – potentially, based on our discussion – but that doesn’t go for the Hogwarts train.

Kat: I know, but I think the train is part of the 9 3/4 since it’s concealed by that barrier.

Laura: Mhm.

Kat: I would assume that everything behind it… like with Grimmauld Place, it’s really the front door that you’re seeing but you still see the rest of the building, right?

Noah: But isn’t Killey talking about when the train is driving up to Scotland…

Laura: In motion.

Noah: …and they can see it in the clouds? Yeah, in motion.

Laura: Right, but I think it’s not too farfetched to say that it’s also under some sort of charm…

Kat: Yeah.

Noah: True.

Laura: …that would make Muggles not see it.

Kat: Right, regardless of whether it’s in or out of the station.

Laura: Mhm.

Amanda: It’s even possible that they have a concealment charm on it. I know with Hogwarts they said it just looks basically like a junkyard to Muggles, so it’s possible there could be something like that on the train all the way up.

Kat: Like a scrap train or something?

Amanda: Yeah. I don’t know, some kind of enchantment to kind of hide it from Muggles, if not a Fidelius Charm.

Noah: Yeah. And if we’re definitely getting consciousness of the narrator from Harry and Ron, they of course can see the train in all its beauty and follow it because they are magic. So, I don’t think it goes against the rules, necessarily.

Laura: Yeah. Okay, so our final comment is in response to our discussion about wand allegiances, and this is an email from Shayan:

“Your discussion last episode about wand allegiances got me thinking: what do you guys think happens when wizards/witches disarm each other during duelling practice? In ‘Order of the Phoenix’, the DA practice ‘Expelliarmus’ on each other. Do you think the wands change allegiances when this happens? Or do you think that the wand somehow knows that the two users aren’t actually duelling?”

I always thought about this.

Kat: Yeah, that had actually never even once occurred to me. I feel like somehow they realize that maybe the wands… because we know that they are so smart and they can feel things that they probably know that the users are just practicing and not really dueling. I don’t know, that’s a tough question.

Amanda: I’m almost wondering if the professors themselves put a charm in the room while the students are practicing, or if there are certain rooms in Hogwarts that would know. I mean, if they’re in the Room of Requirement for the DA, it’s possible that the room itself knows to keep the wands loyal to their owners.

Kat: Right, because didn’t they specifically ask for a place to practice?

Amanda: Right. And it would just carry over.

Laura: What about the Dueling Club that Lockhart starts?

Noah: That’s a bit tricky, but I think wands are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. And they’re so deeply tied to the user, I’m sure they have a sense when a spell is meant to disarm and it’s serious, versus when it is purely for combat and practice. Maybe in rare cases, a wand just doesn’t go with its user at all and maybe it’s a certain wood and core that it will kind of deviate. But I think for the most part they can tell when it’s an act of combat, and when a spell is seriously done to attack and it fails then the allegiance might change, or be in a state where it can. But when tensions aren’t as high and it’s not sensing that, it won’t even register as that. It will just go along with its user.

Kat: True, because don’t they practice… they must practice things like that in class, I would imagine.

Noah: And out of class.

Kat: Yeah.

Noah: They’re just messing around.

Kat: So, maybe it’s something… I was going to say maybe it’s something set up at Hogwarts, but then we have the battles in the later books that take place at Hogwarts, so that can’t be possible.

Laura: Right.

Noah: I think in any battle scene it’s definitely possible, still probably pretty rare because it’s not happening all the time, is it? Anyway, since we’re talking about wands, I might as well plug the Wands section on MuggleNet.com.

[Everyone laughs]

Noah: If you have any comments about wands, how they work, the magic behind it, just go to mugglenet dot com slash level 9 dot shtml. We have a whole section about wands and you can discover the mysteries behind the magic.

Kat: You wrote pretty much that whole section, right?

Noah: I did.

Kat: Yeah. Awesome.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: Okay, so let’s move on to our discussion of last week’s special feature which was the Artifact Inspector, and we discussed the Ford Anglia. This first comment is from Winkyshakemyhead or SMH on the forums – great username, by the way.

Noah: Wait, how do you know “shake my head”?

Kat: Well, SMH stands for “shake my head”.

Noah: It does? Is that a regular use of it?

Kat: Yeah.

Laura: It took me approximately two years to figure that out.

Kat: [laughs] I asked Keith and he was the one that told me, actually.

[Laura laughs]

Noah: Wow. I did not even know that.

Kat: Yeah.

Noah: Wow.

Kat: Thank you for educating Noah! Anyway…

[Noah laughs]

Kat: …the comment says:

“I believe that when Mr. Weasley altered the car with magic, it was somehow capable of remembering people that it had been exposed to. Whether this was intentional I do not know, but it is obvious that the Weasley kiddos had been around the car enough for them to be able to use it when rescuing Harry from the Dursleys. However, I do not believe that the car has ‘a mind of its own.’ Similarly, you see this with the paintings within Hogwarts. The paintings are bewitched to simulate intelligence, which of course is limited. The Ford Anglia has been enchanted to this point and also has its limits. The car could not do anything that surpasses the magic within it. This connection between the car and Ron is similar to the portraits of Hogwarts remembering students and the passwords that are ever changing.”

Noah: Winky, I shake my head at you. That car is alive.

[Everyone laughs]

Noah: There is a soul inside that car and it’s being hurt. It’s being hurt by the tree, by Ron and Harry…

Kat: Is that why it goes off into the forest, because it’s sulking?

Noah: Yeah, I think… well, its spirit and soul is reawakened when it touches the magic of Hogwarts. And it was still there in some form before it reached Hogwarts, but it wasn’t able to communicate. And after being used so much for all those hours, flying then being battered… that car has feelings. It wants to get out of there.

Kat: So, did Mr. Weasley give it life then?

Noah: It gave it dormant life, in a way.

Kat: Much like the desk pig?

Noah: Perhaps. Oh, we better not go there. We better not bring that up again.

Kat: [laughs] Yeah, I don’t want to talk about starting to eat a car. Okay, our next comment is again from Cassandra1447 on the forums. She says:

“I was also thinking about the fuel problem: the Ford Anglia never seems to run out of gas. Maybe there’s a way to power Muggle devices with magic? Perhaps it could also explain the wizarding radios.”

I know you guys discussed this at length on last week’s episode…

Laura: Selfish wizards.

Kat: Yeah.

Laura: Killing the planet.

Kat: Yeah, I would agree. I would like them to share this technology with everyone else.

Noah: Well, I think we’ve talked about how magic is kind of like energy in a way because it’s a combination of the user – the wizard – producing magic and reacting with the energy around them. So, maybe that energy is transfigured into a form of gas or something that makes devices go. So, that makes sense. It’s all about… they’re really good at energy conversion, wizards and witches.

Laura: How nice for them.

[Kat and Noah laugh]

Noah: They don’t have iPhones, though.

Kat: They don’t, that’s true. Well, maybe they do now. How do we know?

Noah: Right, because it’s 1992 back when we were talking about… but that’s neither here nor there.

Kat: Right, twenty years later, they may be using cell phones, who knows.

Noah: Wizard apps.

Kat: That’s right. Okay, so our last comment on the Ford Anglia is from GillyweedFan. It says:

“It’s not humanoid or organic, it’s just an item that the magic has bewitched to make it act of its own accord. I don’t believe it truly has a ‘personality.'”

I think he or she disagrees with you, Noah.

Noah: Well, well, well. I’ll just have to take everybody on, then. Well, remember when Arthur enchants multiple different pieces of the car to do various different things? I think when the car gets to Hogwarts, it all comes together and some kind of personality is born, some pseudo personality. Not a full being of some kind, but the pieces are all in place for it to happen. And because Hogwarts is so magical, it puts it all together into a conscious car.

Kat: That’s right, because he does take it apart and charm the individual… certain pieces, right?

Noah: Yeah, kind of like a Frankenstein-esque thing, and then instead of a lightning bolt you get Hogwarts castle and boom, the car is like one kind of object.

Kat: Huh. Like Frankenstein’s monster, you mean.

Noah: Right, right. Because Frankenstein was not the monster, he was the doctor.

Kat: Right.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: Cool. Okay, I see what you’re saying. I get it.

Noah: Moving on to our other comments, there was a posed question of the week two weeks ago, and that was… Rosie actually did it, I wasn’t around, but here’s the question:

“Given everything we know about the wizarding world’s postal service, how do we think Howlers work? Do they possess a level of intelligence, such that if they were addressed to a witch or wizard in a Muggle community they wouldn’t necessarily go off, breaking the Statute of Secrecy? Are there any other restrictions on Howlers, given their… explosive messages?”

I thought this was a really great question because as always I’m really interested in objects that seem to have consciousnesses of their own. And here are some comments, one is from WitBeyondMeasure:

“Howlers are probably just bewitched to look as if they are exploding. I don’t think Molly Weasley, for instance, would send her son an exploding object that could actually harm him. As for sending a Howler to a Muggle, wizards/witches probably know better than to address a Howler to a person that is unaware of the wizarding world. The Ministry of Magic probably takes it for granted that they’ll only send it to a fellow witch/wizard, or a Muggle who knows about the wizarding world like Petunia Dursley.”

I don’t know if I agree. I think Molly would probably send something that would explode. I don’t think it’s going to harm Ron, but it seems to me that everyone in the wizarding world they… magic does go to semi-dangerous levels, but that’s all part of the magic. I don’t think anyone is going to get hurt from a Howler though, either.

Laura: Right. And I have to agree with you because I think… especially the adult wizards show a general lack of caring when it comes to…

Kat: Right. [laughs]

Laura: …putting children in danger, as seen by the Whomping Willow, detention in the Forbidden Forest, a million other things. [laughs] So, I don’t think they necessarily care. Obviously they don’t want real harm to come to their children, but I also think they’re certainly not as protective as, let’s say, Muggle parents of today are.

Kat: Yeah, it’s definitely… it’s not like there’s C-4 in the envelope, [laughs] so it’s not going to explode…

[Laura and Noah laugh]

Kat: …and blow up the Great Hall. It’s just going to kind of self-implode, basically.

Noah: I guess the level of the explosion is based on how angry the sender is, so it could be C-4 if you’re really…

Kat That would be cool, but I don’t see it that way. I think it’s kind of something that they purchase at the store, and the level of explosion is the same no matter what.

Noah: Do we think Howlers are purchased? As opposed to created…

Kat: I do.

Noah: …by magic?

Kat: I mean there’s a comment about this later, but yeah, they come in the same envelope and they always look the same, so why not?

Noah: Let me jump right into that comment.

Kat: Sure.

Noah: ZeoRegrediens again. Very nice to hear from you so much.

“It doesn’t seem like you just pick up any old envelope and charm it to be a Howler. I think you might probably buy them in Diagon or something, tap it with your wand, record your message, and then tap it again to seal it or something along those lines. If Howlers are sold, then the Ministry could have a variation of the Trace placed on them, right? They could then be alerted if a Howler is delivered to a wizard who happens to be in a Muggle environment at the moment it arrives and can dispatch people to deal with the situation, right? Or, Howlers seem to be able to detect when they have been delivered. They don’t explode mid flight and scare the owl half to death. So, maybe if a Howler can detect when it has been delivered, it can also detect if it is in Muggle company and hold off on the message for a while.”

I don’t know. Knowing how messy the Ministry is, I don’t think they’re really keeping track of Howlers and… I really don’t know if you can go to an envelope store and buy them specifically. It just seems like more work than the magical community needs to do, in my opinion.

Laura: I don’t know, I think I agree with this person. Just because of the way they’re packaged and the way they’re sold, I think it’s a special occasion type message… it’s not a happy occasion but definitely…

Kat: Right. [laughs]

Laura: …something that… even though I think you should casually send a friendly Howler… I talked about this last week and you could talk to each other, but I think it’s something that is special that they would have to go out of their way to buy.

Kat: Yeah.

Laura: Which is why there’s not hundreds of Howlers being sent around.

Kat: Right, I agree. Completely, actually. They must be controlled someway, because otherwise they’d be going off in front of Muggles. Well, more often then not.

Noah: I don’t know if they’re necessarily controlled. They seem to be self-aware when the recipient is there, or when they’ve been fully delivered.

Amanda: I feel it’s possible there is a type of charm or enchantment that possibly they’re only seen by people with magic and the Muggles can’t see them. I don’t know, I’m big on Concealment Charms [laughs] with this type of stuff.

Noah: That’s a good point, though.

Kat: That’s possible.

Noah: I was thinking that Howlers could be sent as pranks and maybe the Ministry is really worried about those because they just explode in public and there’s nothing you can do.

Kat: Right, which would be maybe why you have to buy them and you can’t just make them out of thin air.

Amanda: Yeah, like a regulation on them, possibly.

Noah: What if it’s just a normal letter and it becomes a Howler at a certain point magically, based on the anger of the message?

Kat: Yeah, but there’s no writing.

Noah: No, but I think a Howler is essentially still a letter. It’s just also speaking and screaming.

Kat: Well, right, but I think a Howler specifically you wouldn’t write the message. You talk into it and then send it.

Amanda: That’s interesting because in the movie, the way it’s portrayed, it is a letter I believe, isn’t it? And it unfolds and it’s speaking.

Noah: Yeah.

Amanda: The letter that’s written.

Noah: So, maybe I’m speaking from movie canon, but I feel like that wouldn’t be a weird process for it to be made as well. It’s possible that they just write it out and then they magic it and then it speaks. It could be either way.

Amanda: Although, I feel that would be problematic with some of the Slytherin letters being sent. Because I can imagine Lucius Malfoy or one of the Death Eater parents being very angry with their children and they wouldn’t want that getting out. So, I think it would have to be specially purchased or made.

Kat: So, how is it in the book then? Is it… it’s just like it is in the later movies, right? Like in Movie 5? Where it just speaks out, it’s not a letter, right? That’s how it is in the book, correct?

Noah: No, well… right, but in the movie, it’s like an actual letter and you can see the words.

Kat: Well, only in Chamber of Secrets because in Book 5 – or in Movie 5 – it’s just like a floating pair of lips…

Noah: Hmm.

Kat: …on an envelope, right?

Noah: Who gets the Howler in Order of the Phoenix?

Amanda: Yeah, who gets that?

Kat: Harry does. Or he gets a talking letter from the Ministry.

Laura: But Petunia gets a Howler. That was Order of the Phoenix, right?

Kat: Yeah, but not in the movie. They don’t show that in the movie.

Laura: Oh, not in the movie, yeah.

Noah: Oh, I totally forgot about that.

Amanda: Oh, yeah.

Noah: Interesting. We’ll have to go more in-depth about Howlers when we get to that point, too.

Kat: Yeah.

Noah: And we have another comment from Cissy Flower:

“The Ministry of Magic seems to lag pretty much when it comes to control of the Statute of Secrecy. Just like wizarding parents need to watch their own magical child not to do magic, I think Howlers are someone’s own responsibility. The senders have to make sure they are careful and don’t send Howlers to Muggles who are unaware of magic.”

Yeah, I’d agree with that. I don’t think the Ministry can track all the mail going back and forth. Especially when it’s just so fast.

Kat: I’m wondering why someone would send a Howler to a Muggle. I mean, with the exception of somebody like Petunia who is aware of the wizarding world.

Noah: Just as a joke, I think. [laughs]

Amanda: Or even sending it to Muggle-borns. You don’t want to be in this… if they’re in the community.

Kat: Oh, right. No, that’s true.

Noah: And we have one more comment from Killey2011:

“I think a Howler is about as dependable as the Trace. It has holes in it, but they still rely on it. I think Jo left these holes purposely to show that magic, while helpful, doesn’t solve every problem.”

Yes.

Kat: I mean, that can be said about everything. So yeah, that’s true. Very true.

Noah: Yeah, we’re never going to get the full message about Howlers probably out. But again, when it comes up again in Order of the Phoenix, I think we can probably take a deeper look.

Kat: Yeah.

Laura: Okay, so now we’re going to move into our chapter discussion of this week. We are discussing Chapters 7 and 8, “Mudbloods and Murmurs” and “The Deathday Party.”

[Noah laughs eerily]

Kat: Excellent. I actually really love these chapters. I’m not sure why they’re some of my favorites. Anyway, okay, so Chapter 7: “Mudbloods and Murmurs.” We start off still kind of in the beginning of Harry’s school year, probably mid-September, kind of about where we are right now, actually. And this first comment I love here. It says that Colin Creevey is becoming harder and harder to avoid, and it seems to me that Colin has memorized Harry’s schedule. And Noah, this reminded me of the comment you made about Dumbledore, so is Colin a stalker or is he generally a good kid? What do you guys think?

Laura: I think those two things aren’t necessarily separate. I think he’s a good kid who happens to be stalking Harry.

[Amanda laughs]

Noah: I’m just surprised that he’s so interested in finding Harry because wasn’t he Muggle-born? He only learned about Harry when he got to Hogwarts?

Kat: Maybe he’s like Hermione and read all the books before he got there.

Amanda: And Justin Finch-Fletchley knew all about Harry, too. Obviously, he had him first year, but I feel like the celebrity status gets mentioned a lot: first with Gilderoy Lockhart and then again with Colin Creevey idolizing Harry, and I feel like it’s just a huge celebrity crush, so…

Kat: Yeah, and I feel like, too, no matter whether it’s a crush on somebody or someone you admire, you tend to notice their movement, that they may have English… well, not at Hogwarts, but Charms second period and Potions fourth period. I feel like that’s the kind of thing you tend to notice when you admire somebody or have a crush on them.

Laura: Yeah, definitely.

Noah: Sure, and Colin is not nearly skilled enough to stalk Harry like Dumbledore does.

Kat: [laughs] Right, he can’t transfigure into an owl, right?

Noah: And follow him, so that’s not possible. Colin is just… I think he has very quickly learned to love everything about magic, and Harry is right there in his dorm, as it were, so it’s just natural that this should happen.

Kat: That’s true because he is a Gryffindor. Okay. All right, so on page 104, there’s a scene happening in a Charms class, and I thought this was great. It says that Ron was doing a charm, and his wand shot out of his hand and hit Professor Flitwick squarely between the eyes. And I’m curious, did Ron just do nonverbal magic? Because he certainly didn’t say a spell, and if he did we aren’t told about it, yet Professor Flitwick still gets a boil on his head.

Noah: I was thinking he was just probably in the midst of doing some spell for Charms class, and because the wand backfires, it created this boil effect, so it did that boil spell.

Laura: I think I agree with Noah.

Kat: Okay, great. [laughs]

Noah: Maybe those two spells are close in their language to some degree, and it just so happens that the wand’s issue made that happen or come across, and then…

Kat: Because of his sorely broken wand. [laughs]

Noah: Right.

Kat: So, on the next page, 105, Wood wakes Harry up to go down to Quidditch practice, and, of course, on his way down, who does he run into but, oh, his little stalker, Colin Creevey. [laughs] And Colin says that he hasn’t flown yet, but I was wondering, don’t first years get flying lessons? Is this maybe an oops by Jo, or has he maybe just not had his lesson yet?

Noah: Maybe since what happened with Neville they changed lessons.

Laura: That’s possible. But then again, that would have to mean that the wizards care about the children’s safety, which is a nothing. [laughs]

Noah: That’s true.

Kat: Yeah, which they obviously don’t. [laughs]

Noah: It’s still early in the month. It’s possible that they haven’t gotten out yet.

Kat: Yeah, I mean it’s probably only three weeks into term, so it’s probably true.

Laura: Or maybe he just happened to… he hasn’t achieved flight yet. Even when we see Harry’s first lesson, Harry is really the only one that gets the hang of it, so maybe by saying he hasn’t flown yet, he hasn’t successfully flown. [laughs]

Kat: Oh, okay. So he’s had a lesson, just hasn’t flown yet.

Laura: Possibly.

Kat: I guess.

Amanda: Yeah, I was thinking that because he is Muggle-born, so he’s probably just not very good at it yet.

Kat: Yeah. And this next part when they’re down in the Quidditch room, and Wood is telling them all about their strategies, I thought it was hilarious that kind of like Professor Binns, he’s just talking and talking and talking, and has no idea that people [laughs] are not listening to him at all because it’s so early in the morning it’s just crazy. And then at the end of their discussion here, it talks about how they didn’t win the year before because of circumstances beyond their control, and I feel like Wood is still kind of blaming Harry in a way. But surely he can’t really be holding that against him, that Harry was down and trying to get the Sorcerer’s Stone and all that. So, what’s the deal here?

Amanda: Yeah, I think, as evidenced by his exuberant early morning practice and the fact that he doesn’t seem to care that they’re not listening to him, he’s obviously very obsessed with the sport, and I think his love for Quidditch and his love for being competitive kind of colors that scenario of Harry being in the hospital. So, while I don’t think he blames him per se, I think he’s still just upset about the fact that they weren’t able to win because they were missing a player.

Laura: Right, and especially because he doesn’t outright say… because if he truly did hold it against him, he would say, “Well, Harry screwed things up.” But because he is kind of being subtle about it, I think that’s his way of saying he does hold it against him, but he’s not… he understands the situation enough to not outright say it.

Amanda: Right.

Noah: Absolutely.

Kat: Good comment, Noah. That was good.

[Kat and Noah laugh]

Kat: So then, of course, they go out and they start their practice, and Wood makes a comment about the little person sitting in the Quidditch stands, and of course, again, it’s Colin Creevey, Harry’s innocuous shadow. And Oliver makes a comment about how he’s a spy, and I’m wondering: Do we think Wood is really that paranoid and desperate? Has spying happened before, do we think, at Quididtch matches?

Laura: I think probably it has just because I think Wood is not necessarily the only one that takes this as seriously. I’m sure there’s someone maybe on the Slytherin team, because they’re such a rivalry, that… and especially because of how underhanded Slytherin is as a house, I think Wood, yes, he’s being paranoid, but I think it might have some ground to it.

Amanda: Yeah, I wouldn’t put it past the Slytherins. As a Slytherin, I would have no qualms spying on a rival team [laughs] if it would play to our advantage.

Noah: But it’s interesting that you bring up spies, because don’t Fred and George spy on Slytherin later?

Kat: They do.

Amanda: They do.

Noah: So I wouldn’t put it past a Gryffindor either.

Kat: So it’s just a sports thing, I guess. Kind of like those videotapes that were made. Was that the NFL, or was that college football?

Noah: What are we talking about?

Laura: Asking the wrong group of people here. [laughs]

Kat: I don’t know. I don’t watch football either. I thought maybe someone would know. [laughs]

Amanda: I don’t follow college football. [laughs]

Kat: Okay.

Laura: Caleb is not here, so…

Noah: I just follow Quidditch.

Kat: Yeah.

[Amanda and Noah laugh]

Noah: Sorry.

Kat: [laughs] And the other thing I was wondering in this section was that it just says, “Several people in green robes,” and this kind of… I’m not sure why, but it made me think of the fact that there are no backup players. They don’t train anybody if someone gets hurt. So, when Harry was out in his first year, who played Seeker? Did they forfeit the match? Did someone else play? They don’t ever train backup players. I just thought it seemed pretty careless considering how violent Quididtch is.

Laura: Well, in The Half-Blood Prince doesn’t… or no, that was Order of the Phoenix, sorry… when Fred and George and Harry all get removed from the team. They have to go into training other people to take their spot.

Kat: Yeah.

Noah: Yeah. And Ginny plays Seeker in Half-Blood Prince, right?

Laura: I believe so.

Noah: But it’s true. There aren’t any extra players.

Kat: No, in Order of the Phoenix.

Noah: Oh, that’s in Order of the Phoenix?

Kat: Yeah. I mean, she’s on the team in Half-Blood Prince, but…

Laura: Oh yeah, that was…

Amanda: She just changes the positions around.

Noah: Right.

Amanda: Yeah, I have questioned that because it is so violent, and, obviously, they learned from first year that Harry was missing and they didn’t have all seven players, that they would change that. But…

Kat: Yeah. It just seems silly, but… and then, here at the bottom of page 110, when the Slytherins are coming out on the field, and it says that they need to practice, and it says that they read this note that they got from Professor Snape, saying that he’s kind of overruling, giving them permission to train because they have to train the new Seeker. So, I was wondering: Why is Snape able to overrule the schedule, and who books that schedule? I mean, how does that happen? Why is Snape able to kick Gryffindor off the pitch?

Amanda: Well, I kind of imagine that they’re booking it with Madam Hooch. I don’t know if this is… I don’t think this is ever confirmed, but I kind of see her as being in charge of the Quidditch pitch as the Flying Instructor. But Snape is a Head of House, and I feel like he… any of the Head of Houses, really, I feel would override anything that Madam Hooch would set up…

Noah: Yeah.

Amanda: …in organizing.

Noah: I mean, if you think about it, they are, besides Dumbledore, the four main leaders of all of Hogwarts, so they probably have huge sway, and they really can just sign a form and make it happen. And it sounds like if Slytherin did need to train the new Seeker, that’s a legitimate concern. I thought it was okay. I actually thought… what’s his name?

Amanda: Flint?

Noah: Yeah, yeah. Even though Flint, obviously, is kind of weird, and he’s kind of weird-looking and nasty because we’re getting all the consciousness from Harry, I thought he had a fair reasoning that they need to train Draco. Of course, they’re loving it and showing their brooms in their faces, but it made sense.

Amanda: I think they could have found a different time to train them, though. It definitely was a bit of Slytherin deviousness, taking the Gryffindor’s pitch from them, but…

Noah: I mean, you’re a Slytherin. You know better than me.

[Amanda and Kat laugh]

Amanda: But yeah, it seems legitimate that they do need to train him, but they could have done it at a better time.

[Noah laughs]

Kat: And, speaking of Draco, I noticed that this is the second time in the book that the Weasley twins refer to him as Lucius Malfoy’s son, and so I was wondering… I mean, it seems kind of like they’re foreshadowing that he has a much larger part than we realize… Lucius, not Draco. Or are they just really dense, that the Weasley twins have no idea who he is? Because surely they’ve met Draco before now.

Noah: Well, I don’t know that they have. I think Lucius Malfoy has his own reputation, and especially the twins know because Arthur talks about him constantly. But Draco, we’ve got to remember, he’s just a second year, and, while he’s maybe a big evil character in Harry’s life, fourth years, which are George and Fred, aren’t going to care about a little second year, kind of a freshman. They’re not paying attention to him. They have their own enemies and stuff. And Draco is not yet a big name at the school, probably.

Kat: Yeah, but I mean they’re friends with Harry, so wouldn’t they have heard about him or at least seen him before now?

Amanda: They didn’t, though, because when they rescue Harry from the Dursleys in the flying car, they say, “Is there anyone who could have been playing a prank on you with Dobby?” and he goes, “Oh yeah, Draco Malfoy,” and they didn’t know about him then, so I feel like they just didn’t recognize the animosity.

Noah: They’re asking about it again. That’s… they’re kind of asking the same question they did. I wonder if that’s an oversight from Jo or if they’re just confused. [laughs]

Kat: Well, that’s what I was saying. I think it’s kind of foreshadowing that Lucius Malfoy is a much bigger and more important character than they’re kind of letting on, because this is the second time he’s been mentioned.

Noah: Yeah, Jo has a good way of doing that, especially if something big is going to happen later in the chapter. She’ll bring up small characters just so that we get some kind of exposition, and then we launch into the story that involves them.

Kat: Right. Also on this page, they mention the new broomsticks that Draco’s father bought for the team, and it made me think that even in the first book, Draco boasts about how good he is at flying. I mean, Harry even agrees with him. So, why did Draco feel the need to buy his way onto the team if he’s that good of a flyer? Or is this just him being showboat-y? “Hey, look what I can do!”

Noah: Well, we know he’s really not that great, right? He’s good. He’s definitely good, because he’s had all this intense practice because he could with the best materials, but he’s really not that great. He clearly bought himself onto the team, so Hermione is totally right.

Laura: It could be that he’s a good flyer and not necessarily a good Seeker.

Kat: Good Quidditch player, right.

Laura: Yeah.

Kat: On the next page, on 112, we see “Mudblood” spoken for the first time. They’re having an argument, and Hermione speaks to Malfoy about the fact that he had to buy his way onto the team, and Draco calls her a Mudblood. Do you guys remember what you thought it meant the first time that you read it?

Laura: God, I was so young.

[Kat laughs]

Amanda: I was, like, nine.

Laura: Yeah, same.

Amanda: I think just the connotation with “mud”, I kind of knew something was a little off. And then, obviously, the huge reaction. I was like, “Oh, well this must be a bad word,” but I didn’t really correlate it with other curse words, I guess, or derogatory terms.

Laura: Yeah, I think maybe because I was so young, and I didn’t necessarily… wasn’t familiar with, I guess, derogatory terms… it’s kind of hard to go back and think how I had thought then…

Kat: Right.

Noah: I didn’t really register. I wasn’t really bothered by it. [laughs]

Laura: Yeah, I think… I don’t think I was either just because I wasn’t, I guess, aware of the power derogatory terms have because…

Noah: Yeah.

Laura: …I’ve never really heard them used probably until I read To Kill a Mockingbird. [laughs] This is probably the first time.

Amanda: Right.

Laura: So…

Kat: But I feel like the word is pretty obvious as to what it means. Mud. Blood.

Laura: It kind of sounds silly, though.

Kat: Yeah.

Laura: It’s not…

Noah: Yeah, that’s what I felt, too. I mean, I loved playing in mud when I read these books the first time.

[Kat laughs]

Noah: So, I just thought it was Draco being Draco, saying childish terms, but this is actually a pretty serious one. And if you want to talk about Jo’s books teaching lessons, this certainly teaches lessons that children reading for the first time about derogatory terms.

Kat: Especially in the next paragraph here when Ron tries to defend Hermione’s honor.

Noah: “Eat slugs!”

Kat: That’s just so cute.

[Amanda laughs]

Kat: But he doesn’t actually say, “Eat slugs!” in the book.

Amanda: No. He says, “You’ll pay for that,” right?

Noah: He says it earlier in the…

Kat: He says, “You’ll pay for that one, Malfoy!” Yeah.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: He does say it earlier…

Noah: But that’s not the spell.

Kat: Right, not the spell. So, what is the spell? Is this another nonverbal spell? Just saying. Because we…

Noah: Is Ron truly great at nonverbal spells and we have no idea?

Kat: Right. Well, like we said, we know that he says, “Eat slugs!” in the movies even though we know spells like that don’t work, like “Turn this stupid fat rat yellow” and “Peskipiksi” whatever.

Laura: Pesternomi.

Noah: Pesternomi!

Kat: Right. [laughs] So, I mean, what was Ron doing here? Maybe he’s just very talented. I don’t know, because Hermione says later on that it’s a difficult curse to work at the best of times, so…

Noah: I’m sure it’s a legitimate spell, though.

Kat: Yeah, but… I don’t know.

Amanda: I know, he didn’t say anything. I was actually wondering that, too. He seems to just come out with these spells and not say anything at all.

Noah: I mean, we know a lot of spell language is Latin, right?

Kat: Mhm.

Noah: So, is it possible that by saying the English equivalent you can kind of do the spell but not quite? So, maybe why something like “Eat slugs” could work, even though it’s a bad translation.

Kat: Right, but that’s only in the movie. He doesn’t say that in the book.

Noah: No, I’m just saying… I’m just thinking about…

Kat: In general.

Noah: …magic in general. Like the “Turn this stupid fat rat yellow” thing that you brought up.

Laura: What’s the Latin translation of that? [laughs]

Kat: I don’t know. If Rosie were here, she could tell us. She’s taking a very immersive Latin class.

Noah: Yeah, I’m just saying it seems like Latin is the language of magic and all other languages can kind of translate. And as long as you release the energy, you can kind of do the spell, but Latin is the closest language that embodies the magic. I think it’s really interesting.

Kat: But I don’t know if that’s possible because earlier in the first book when they were learning Wingardium Leviosa, Ron was saying it incorrectly and it wasn’t working.

Noah: That’s true. But maybe by saying it, you kind of figure out what the spell does because it seems like all the language embodies what the spell actually does so without knowledge of… now I’m getting too complex. I have to write an essay about that. I think that’d be really cool. If any readers or fans are listening, and want to try to think about that and put that together, that’d be really cool. But I guess being that we really don’t know what he says, we can’t tell there if he’s doing… he’s definitely not doing wordless magic, right?

Kat: I don’t know, that was my question.

Noah: It just sounds like his wand backfired.

Kat: Which is another case of the broken wand, I suppose.

Noah: Absolutely.

Kat: Okay, so then it goes on. Of course, they’re all worried because Ron falls over and he starts burping slugs up, which I just have to say I think is disgusting. Is there really no way to stop that kind of spell? I would hope someone would invent that. [laughs]

Laura: The scene in the movie is… obviously the movie came out when I was also young, and I was so bothered by it. [laughs] I hated the whole slug thing more than anything else.

Amanda: It was hilarious.

Kat: Yeah, I think it’s gross, especially on Pottermore. All it does is make slug burping sounds.

Laura: Yeah, I did not enjoy that.

Kat: It’s so gross. I muted that scene when I was doing it.

[Amanda laughs]

Kat: Did not need to hear that. Anyway, so of course, they decide to take him to Hagrid because who knows better about burping slugs than Hagrid? I mean, I guess nobody.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: And of course, Lockhart is coming out of his cabin, and we see, uncharacteristically for Hagrid… he makes a comment about Lockhart and he says, “If one word of it was true, I’ll eat my kettle,” because Lockhart was talking about his own experiences. But I was saying that… I was thinking that, again, we are brought up that Dumbledore’s judgment is kind of being examined here, this time by Hagrid who… it’s usually pretty unexpected. And Hermione actually defends Lockhart, so does she not see how much of a fraud Lockhart is? I mean, she seems to be wearing her rose-colored glasses a lot when it comes to Lockhart. She’s a smart girl, so it’s just surprising.

Amanda: I just think she’s kind of an enamored twelve-year-old girl with… again, the whole celebrity thing is so prevalent in this book with Lockhart. I just feel like she’s fallen under his spell…

[Noah laughs]

Amanda: …for lack of a better term. [laughs] I don’t know.

Kat: Under his hair potion.

Amanda: Yeah. His gel.

[Kat laughs]

Noah: And you’ve got to remember… I think we’ve talked about it, the fact that Hermione just takes books word for word as fact, so you can imagine what would happen if she took Lockhart’s books for fact because the reason why a lot of people said she’s not a Ravenclaw is because she can’t see past the books and the facts. She gets too caught up in them. So, I bet she just applied the same logic to these books, and therefore, she believes not only everything that Lockhart has done, but she’s probably just so into his writing voice and his personality, probably more so than many others.

Kat: So, she would be the type to believe everything that is written on the Internet, so to say.

Noah: Oh yeah, but she can’t think past it, she can’t think of ulterior arguments and stuff. I mean, maybe if she reads more articles on the Internet she could figure out… but anyway, just in terms of books, she can’t see past them necessarily to… like in potion-making. She couldn’t see Harry’s use of the Half-Blood Prince’s book better than the original copy of how to brew the potion, because those were fast and crossing out stuff, and she wanted to follow the rules strictly and that’s why she’ll never be a Ravenclaw.

Kat: Right. She’s a fact-based person, not an opinion-based person.

Noah: True.

Kat: So, then of course they tell Hagrid what Malfoy called Hermione, and he is outraged, which is not surprising considering how Hagrid feels about being judged himself. They talk about it for a little bit and give the background of what Mudblood means, which we all know, so I’m not going to go into that. And I love the joke here, [laughs] at the bottom of page 116 where Hagrid says, “Hey, wait. I hear you’ve been giving out signed photos. Why haven’t I gotten one?” [laughs] And I thought it was brilliant because we don’t see Hagrid joke that much. I mean, he’s a pretty funny character, but we don’t see him actually kind of outright make jokes, so I thought that that was just really great. And then it mentions a little further down on page 117 – wait nope, sorry, page 118 – where Hagrid mentions that he saw Ron’s sister kind of looking around the grounds. And I’m curious, what do we think Ginny was doing? Obviously at this point we don’t know that it’s her that opened the Chamber of Secrets, but what was she doing?

Laura: Wasn’t she killing roosters or something?

Amanda: She was finding the… yeah, the roosters and the chickens are on the grounds. Because later in the chapter is when Harry hears the Basilisk for the first time, and she used either chicken blood or rooster blood to lure the Basilisk out.

Noah: And to write on the wall.

Amanda: Yeah.

Kat: Okay. Hmm.

Laura: That’s morbid.

Noah: But what I wonder is was she conscious when this was happening, or had she already been slightly possessed?

Laura: Oh, possessed. I don’t think she would consciously slaughter roosters and use its blood to write messages on the wall. [laughs]

Amanda: Right, she says later that she doesn’t remember. She would end up waking up with the blood on her, and she had no idea.

Kat: So, I mean at this point she’s just scouting because the writing and all that doesn’t happen until the end… near Halloween.

Amanda: Right. Yeah, next chapter.

Kat: Okay.

Noah: But it’s possible that Tom Riddle just convinced her to get him some chickens when he was writing to her.

Amanda: Because the Basilisk is… does come out at the end of Chapter 7, when he is in Lockhart’s office, I believe.

Kat: Right. So, does the Basilisk eat the chickens?

Noah: Does it?

Kat: I’m just curious why she would need them a month ahead of time.

Laura: I don’t know, isn’t it the rooster’s cry kills them, so she wanted them dead?

Kat: Right, but there’s no mention of them being killed.

Noah: I mean, she needs to kill them to get the blood to write on the wall. She wrings their necks.

Laura: Yeah, also just to eliminate the roosters so the Basilisk doesn’t die from it, right? Isn’t that a thing?

Kat: It is, yeah. But I’m saying that that doesn’t happen until a month later, so what is she doing now?

Noah: I think Tom just asked her to get some chickens. [as Tom Riddle] “Fetch me some chickens!”

Laura: Yeah, I don’t think she’s actually doing anything. I think I agree with Noah that Tom said to go scout out maybe where the roosters are and…

Noah: [as Tom Riddle] “I’m really lonely in this book, but this is very important. Please.”

Laura: Yeah, right. He could have said it was important. So, I don’t think she’s actually taking action yet, but when she does, I think she’s going to do it kind of unconsciously.

Kat: And speaking of that Lockhart detention, Harry goes and he’s forced to address envelopes for seemingly four hours. But right towards the end of it, it says… there’s a great line that says, “Harry hears a voice, a voice to chill the bone marrow, a voice of breathtaking, ice-cold venom.” And I just thought it was great because, hello, she’s giving us a clue as to what it is. She says “venom.”

Noah: Yeah, I didn’t even notice, even for my re-read. That was just great.

Kat: It’s the obligatory genius moment. She’s incredibly smart. Love that woman.

Noah: But I wonder why that’s even there, because the reader, the first time, won’t even see that, just patterns. She just loves making these ironic patterns throughout the books.

Kat: Well, I mean I definitely think it’s foreshadowing, whether you catch it or not.

Noah: Yeah, but then you’ve got to wonder why. Why the foreshadowing? Just so we can go back and say it was genius, or is there some…

Kat: [laughs] Yeah, she just wants us to call her a genius all the time.

Noah: I feel like it’s part of the art, in a way, just because she’s trying to figure out what the sound really seems like. And we know it is Parseltongue, so the natural words for it to come out are venom. So, I think when she puts it there, it’s because it’s kind of poetic, not just for foreshadowing. It’s to get that perfect sound out there so even when you’re reading the first time, “ice-cold venom” is a close poetic image to what Harry is hearing and feeling.

Kat: I don’t know. I don’t think of venom as ice-cold. I definitely feel like it’s a foreshadowing word.

Noah: But isn’t it a weird image, ice-cold? What does a voice sound like? That doesn’t make any sense. How does it sound like venom, because isn’t venom the poison?

Kat: Yeah.

Amanda: It just brings up the idea of evil. You can just tell it’s an evil-embodied voice.

Noah: It kind of creates an image. I’m taking a poetry class, or I study a lot of it, and sometimes writers will put different words together, that when you really think about the image… an image kind of comes to mind, but it’s weird and it often happens when you put various words together that are kind of strange, and it doesn’t make sense. But I think it’s actually very poetic.

Kat: I mean, that’s what I’m saying. It’s funny because this is the first time I caught that word as well, when I was doing the re-read, and I read that sentence now… and maybe it’s because I’ve read the book already, but I picture a snake, and I never did before, even other times that I’ve read the book. This is the first time I’ve ever pictured it.

Noah: Yeah, or it makes you picture something slimy and slithery. But yeah, just a cool find. Good work, Kat.

Kat: Thanks. But this voice, who do we think it’s talking to? I mean, it says, “Come. Come to me. Let me rip you. Let me tear you. Let me kill you.” And we know it doesn’t go out and kill anybody at this point, or even petrify anyone, so who’s it talking to?

Noah: Well, we know it’s definitely eating the roosters or the chickens after Ginny has wrung their necks, right? Because doesn’t the Basilisk need to feed on those before it can become strong?

Laura: No, I think the thing with the roosters is that their cry kills them. Isn’t that what it is?

Kat: Yeah.

Amanda: Yeah. I kind of viewed this as the awakening of the Basilisk, in a way, and now that it’s free, it’s kind of just looking for anything. I saw the “you” as just a general blanket term of any Muggle-born in the castle.

Laura: You think not Harry? It’s Slytherin’s monster, like Tom Riddle’s the one talking to it, I guess. And obviously, the Basilisk tries to kill Harry later.

Amanda: I think at first not Harry, because he hears that the voice is going away from him, I think both times, I believe. So, I feel like it’s kind of just luring Harry into it. But I feel like the “you” still is just any Muggle-born.

Kat: Yeah, I mean I just thought it was weird, because nobody can hear it. So, who is it talking to if nobody can hear it?

Noah: It’s just talking to itself. The thing about the Basilisk is that it’s pretty much stuck in there going hunger crazy. It’s really just insane, a mad killer, and all it knows is it has been released, it’s hungry, and it wants to kill.

Amanda: Right.

Noah: So, that is all that’s going through its head.

Kat: So, is Tom Riddle out of the diary at this point? Or is he still in the diary? He is still in it, right?

Amanda: He’s still in it.

Noah: Still in the diary, but he can flit in and out to kind of speak to the snake through Ginny.

Laura: Yeah. I think he only really achieves that physical form…

Kat: At the end.

Laura: …at the end when Ginny’s soul is drained or whatever it is that he’s taking.

Kat: Right.

Laura: So, I think he is getting stronger through Ginny and since it is still at the beginning I think he really just is the diary at this point.

Noah: Yeah. But what has been happening is Ginny has been opening the Chamber of Secrets and slowly, I guess, creating this Basilisk? Or has it been there? It certainly hasn’t been there this whole time. It has just been newly bred I think, right?

Laura: No.

Amanda: No, it’s been down there.

Kat: No, I definitely think it’s been there, growing. Yeah, definitely.

Laura: It’s Slytherin’s monster, yeah.

Amanda: Because Harry finds all the shed skin and the bones down there.

Noah: From years. Oh, wow.

Amanda: So, it’s definitely been just biding its time down there.

Noah: That is an old snake.

Laura: And the legend surfaced from something, and I think it’s true and that Slytherin probably did put it there. Which was a very long time ago.

Noah: Got it.

Kat: So, right here at the end of the chapter… of course Harry doesn’t quite understand what is going on, so he just goes back to his dormitory and tries to go to sleep after telling Ron what happens. And I just liked this comment from Ron. He says that, “Even someone invisible would have to open the door.” So, I like that kind of immediately that is taken out of the realm of possibility and you’re left wondering, “So what is it?” Which is a good cliffhanger.

Noah: That’s true. And we start to get that sense that maybe Harry is hearing this only himself. Is he crazy?

Kat: Right, exactly. And that’s the end of Chapter 7.

Noah: Chapter 8: “The Deathday Party.” I love this chapter because it is Halloween again and epic stuff always happens on Halloween. So, we started with Harry just in his… in Gryffindor tower, and then he’s talking to Nearly Headless Nick who is lamenting about the fact that he can’t join the Headless Hunt, going on about how they are always playing Headless Polo. And I was just thinking: Is this really what ghosts are doing in their spare time? They’re grouping each other? We know how important death is in the series, but I can’t help but think that she’s mocking death here, that we have ghosts playing around with each other and Nick trying to get into their club, and then we will see the party later. But how do you guys think this mocking of death with headless ghosts playing around with their heads pairs with the theme of death in the series, which is morbid and you have to go against it?

Kat: I kind of see it as life after death, not so much as just death, because they’re not dead… I mean they’re dead, but they didn’t move on, so they chose this existence. So, I see it as life after death, kind of like in a parallel universe, but in ours.

Noah: They’re kind of in between both worlds, aren’t they?

Kat: Yeah.

Noah: And they can’t quite be in either form. It’s like they are creatures of the second world but they leave imprints on the first. I don’t really know. I just thought it was interesting because they are often points of humor, these ghosts, in the series.

Kat: Well, I think they have to be. I mean, it is a children’s book and she doesn’t want the ghosts to be uber-scary.

Laura: I don’t think so much scary as I think a lot of the times the ghosts are often portrayed as sad. I don’t know, I think of the Grey Lady and I think it’s… the way even Jo has described it as almost being stuck as a ghost, it’s kind of a sad way of afterlife because they’re not moved on. But I think it’s interesting to portray them as that way but then always have them be humorous and convivial, like Nearly Headless Nick. So…

Kat: Right.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: Because I mean they did choose that life, after all.

Laura: Is that how that works?

Noah: How does it work, Kat, exactly?

Kat: No, I mean we discussed this before. You definitely have to choose to be a ghost before you die. It’s kind of like a conscious decision you make.

Amanda: Right.

Laura: Mhm.

Amanda: I think they mentioned it in one of the other books. If you’re not… if you don’t fully accept your death…

Noah: Or if you’re scared of it.

Amanda: …and you’re not able to move on, then you remain behind.

Kat: Right, like when Harry talks to Nearly Headless Nick later on about Sirius and how he says he wouldn’t come back. He fully accepted his death. He wouldn’t choose this life.

Amanda: So, how does Voldemort not come back as a ghost? Is he just totally so damaged that it can’t even happen, but…

Kat: Yeah, I think his soul is too maimed.

Noah: Yeah, right.

Kat: He’s not complete, not whole.

Noah: But it seems as if he hadn’t split his soul, he probably would have come back, right?

Laura: I would think so.

Amanda: I think so.

Laura: For someone that’s that obsessive about not dying, I would think so.

Kat: Yeah, but he wouldn’t be able to do any magic or anything, so I don’t see that as a feasible possibility for him.

Noah: He wouldn’t have wanted to linger on anyway because he wouldn’t have been exactly alive. But then again, he also couldn’t accept it. He’s always holding on.

Kat: Yeah.

Laura: I don’t know, I just think someone that resorted to the Horcruxes and the unicorn blood and everything, [laughs] I just think that it’s… ghosts seems like an option.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: I mean, I suppose that that’s the only reason he made the Horcruxes, is because he would never want to be dead and he probably wouldn’t ever want to be a ghost.

Laura: Yeah, I suppose that’s true.

Noah: Right. Well, we’re going to get a little bit more into ghosts later but before then, while Harry is talking to Nick, Mrs. Norris comes over because Harry has just come out from Quidditch and he’s slopping wet and he’s dragging mud on the floor. And then Filch comes right up, and there’s this cool line from the book and Harry just kind of reasons – or the narrator does – that Filch comes because a “mysterious power that seemed to connect him with his foul cat.” And we know this is true to some degree because wherever Mrs. Norris is, Filch is always around. But I was wondering how this works. We’re going to get a little bit more about how Filch is a Squib and doesn’t necessarily have magic, but is it possible that because he is a Squib, because he has… he’s kind of in the magical community, he can maybe sense animals or the animals can sense him and he has this extra sense, such that he can communicate with her to some degree?

Kat: Well, it says on Pottermore that she is most likely a familiar, which I always kind of viewed as kind of the daemons that are in The Golden Compass. I don’t know if you guys read that series. It…

Noah: I didn’t yet. I want to.

Kat: So, it’s basically like a part of your soul that lives outside of you in the form of an animal. So, I see that… I see Mrs. Norris as kind of a part of Filch, and that’s why they’re so connected.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: That she’s kind of a part his soul, his body, whatever. She’s not a Kneazle, JK has said that, so… I don’t know, I see her as some kind of… something like that, like the daemon.

Noah: That’s interesting that his embodiment in animal form is female because… I was actually going to talk about it in my next point, the fact that he has to resort to the Kwikspell and that a lot of the funny statements about it are… he’s clearly trying to get it so he can get some magic in him that isn’t there. It kind of emasculates him in a society where magic is so important and is a beacon of power. The fact that he can’t do it is very, very embarrassing for him. So, maybe in that degree he is kind of feminized.

Kat: Well, and maybe Mrs. Norris is really a boy, and he just named her as a girl because he doesn’t know any better. I mean, how many people do you know that name their cats girl names or boy names when it was the opposite sex?

Noah: I’m pretty sure Mrs. Norris is female.

Laura: And Kat, correct me if I’m wrong, I only read the first three chapters [laughs] of The Golden Compass, but isn’t… the daemons, I remember, they didn’t correlate exactly with their gender, right?

Kat: Right, they do not correlate with their gender.

Laura: Yeah, because I remember the one, it was a male one.

Kat: Right. Yeah, the main character, Lyra, her daemon is a male. Yeah.

Laura: Right.

Noah: Right, so that’s interesting. I mean, in any sense Mrs. Norris is probably the only female companionship Filch is ever going to get.

[Kat and Noah laugh]

Laura: Poor Filch.

Kat: What about Madam Pince? Come on.

Noah: That is just a rumor that Caleb started. I don’t think there’s anything to that rumor.

[Laura laughs]

Kat: No, I think that rumor has been around way before Caleb starting it, but yeah [laughs]. Perpetuated it, maybe.

Noah: Well, I don’t know if I buy it.

Kat: Yeah, but I do see what you’re saying about the Kwikspell, how it kind of emasculates him.

Noah: Yeah, actually… and that’s just so funny when he’s… did you read through the pamphlet? I was just reading it, and it’s just… it’s so funny. It’s just a very cheesy commercial-sounding thing, right?

Kat: Yeah! Kind of like our ad for our app. [laughs]

Noah: Exactly. And everybody should go get that app.

[Kat and Laura laugh]

Noah: But just reading through the pamphlet, one quote was, “Yeah, my wife told me I couldn’t do magic, but then I turned her into a yak!”

Kat: [laughs] Yeah.

Noah: ‘Thanks Kwikspell!’ which is great. But then just the whole idea of the fact that “my wife is telling me I can’t do this” made me think of certain things in our society where you need help or your wife isn’t going to look at you the same way again. I’m not going to go into detail, but I just had that kind of feeling, and in that way I feel to not be magical emasculates you in society big time. And Filch is hugely embarrassed by this, and that’s why he is so humiliated when Harry stumbles upon it, not realizing what it was. But it did sound like this was an homage to maybe more adult themes that Jo is trying to hint at to maybe older readers. What do you think?

Kat: Yeah, I mean I can see that it’s the bickering between the man and the wife. Yeah. But I mean… wait, did Pottermore specifically say that he is a Squib? Because I’m pretty sure it just said that he’s a non-magical human or something.

Noah: I feel like that’s general knowledge though, right?

Kat: I know, but if he’s a Squib… I don’t know.

Amanda: Well, if he is just non-magical completely, I don’t think he could be at Hogwarts. I don’t know.

Noah: And don’t Squibs have some degree of magic affinity anyway? Like, can’t they see Dementors?

Amanda: Arabella Figg could see them.

Kat: They could feel the Dementors. I don’t think Mrs. Figg actually saw them.

Amanda: Oh, she couldn’t.

Noah: Okay, then I don’t think Kwikspell would have done anything for him anyway.

Kat: Right, that’s what I’m trying to get at.

Noah: I just thought it was interesting that we get his story in this chapter paired with Nearly Headless Nick because it seems like both characters are abnormal in terms of their community and marginalized because of it. Nick is nearly headless so he can’t join the Headless Hunt and be really cool…

[Kat laughs]

Noah: …and Filch can’t do magic. There is one section about how Nearly Headless Nick asks Harry, “Can you please tell them I’m frightening? I’m really scary.” So, in the same way that magic is powerful in wizard society, how scary you are is really important in ghost society, it seems. And because Nearly Headless Nick is not scary, he’s also emasculated by the society.

Kat: Hmm. I think that Nick just wants to look cool on front of this… the Headless Hunt. I’m not sure he’s, in general, too concerned about being frightening. I think maybe that’s just a prerequisite to get into this group. I don’t know because things that are headless are generally kind of frightening.

Noah: Yeah, but do you remember that quote where Nearly Headless Nick actually asks Harry, “Please tell them that I’m scary because that will show that I’m important or I’m powerful”? I think a lot… I think Jo keeps with the ghost tradition so that ghosts funnily engage in that on occasion, and they judge each other in power based on how frightening you are, and that’s why the Baron also has his notoriety because he’s scary. Even the ghosts are scared of him.

Kat: Hmm.

Noah: But just… then we’re taken to the Deathday Party where Harry, Ron, and Hermione need to go. What’s really cool is we get our first realization about what the day is in Harry Potter because it’s Nick’s 500th Deathday Party – he died in 1492 – so that tells us we’re in 1992 on Halloween night, and I think this moment in the series is the first and probably only time where we’re linked exactly with the time frame for the Harry Potter series. Is that right?

Kat: Yeah, that’s… it’s almost 20 years ago next month. Isn’t that crazy?

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: And I just want to say how amazing it would be to go to a Deathday Party. I would totally go to that. I’m just saying.

Noah: It sounds pretty gross, actually. Very smelly…

Laura: Yeah, I’m going to have to disagree with that.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: With the exception of the food, I would definitely go.

Amanda: The music.

Noah: What about the music? It’s these really…

Amanda: Nails on a chalkboard. [laughs]

Kat: That’s cool, whatever.

Laura: [laughs] It seems like a miserable place to be.

Noah: But I thought that was really interesting because you have one ghost who comes up to the table and passes through the food and kind of licks it.

[Kat laughs]

Noah: And Harry asks, “Can you really taste it?” and he’s like, “Almost,” and he drifts away. And that’s just so sad, but it kind of gives you a little insight into the ghost experience. They have music that is so eerie and loud and extreme, and the food is also so heightened because of the smell, that it’s like trying to get the world of the living to reach the world of the dead by just having the most extreme flavors and sounds, but it doesn’t quite reach. And it’s cool that… that’s why I think the music and the food are like that, not because it necessarily sounds good or tastes good, but because they’re so pungent in the way they are that it can almost reach to a higher world.

Kat: Well, I also don’t think that it… I think, too, that it just makes sense. I mean, what kind of party would it be if the ghosts had regular food?

Noah: No, no, but… that’s true. I just mean I don’t think a ghost could taste something that had less flavor.

Kat: Right, there was mild or… right. Delicate. I agree. It does sound really gross, though.

Amanda: Yeah.

Kat: Burned charcoal cakes, maggoty haggis, slab of cheese covered in furry, green mold.

Noah: How does it look on Pottermore?

Kat: You don’t actually see the food on Pottermore.

Amanda: It just looks blue and transparent.

Kat: Yeah.

Noah: The entire party?

Amanda: Yeah.

Kat: I thought you said you were caught up on Pottermore.

Noah: Oh, I’m all caught up. I’m just bringing it for fans who haven’t seen it.

Kat: Oh.

Noah: Anyway, moving on…

[Amanda laughs]

Kat: Right, of course.

Noah: Moving on. [laughs] And then, after all that, we get our first run-in with Moaning Myrtle. And Peeves actually pops up from the table – not a ghost but he’s at the Deathday Party – and he calls over Myrtle, and we learn that she resides in the girls’ bathroom and haunts a toilet. And of course, we’re going to get more of her in the next chapter, but… yeah, that happens.

Kat: Again, it’s the foreshadowing of Jo’s brilliancy, I suppose.

Amanda: I just noticed something different with that, in that situation, not really about Myrtle herself, but about Hermione, how she says, “Oh, it’s really hard to go to the bathroom when she’s moaning in there and making all this noise,” and then she gets so embarrassed when Peeves points out that she was talking behind Myrtle’s back. And it just seemed so unlike Hermione’s personality that she would say that, in a way, because she herself was so judged…

Kat: Oh.

Amanda: …especially in the first book, by Harry and Ron.

Kat: Right.

Noah: Good point.

Amanda: I just thought that was such a strange thing for her to say.

Noah: Speaking of ghosts, we have a great Ghosts section on MuggleNet and… [laughs]

Kat: [laughs] Oh my God.

Noah: …and also on Wands on Level Nine. No, no, but I’m really interested in all these mysteries of stuff, like ghosts and wands and… we can’t quite put our finger exactly on how these things work. But if you want to write something about it, several Alohomora! listeners have already begun writing quibbles for MuggleNet, exploring how this magic works. If you want to submit something, just go to our Alohomora! section and click Submit. Write an article, and I’d be happy to link to it on MuggleNet, and we can share it. I’m hoping that happens a bit more frequently. But yeah, thanks to everyone who’s already written. So, after that whole bit with Moaning Myrtle, the group generally gets pretty frustrated with the party. They make their way out. Nearly Headless Nick goes up to say… to tell a speech, but again the Headless Hunt bustles through. He’s not able to say anything because everyone’s just enamored by the way they can toss their heads. And again, there was that great moment where it seems like to be cool is to be frightening, or to be headless. And I guess that goes along with the fact that in myth about ghosts, the headless ghosts are most notorious, or they have a special connotation, especially with Halloween, so it’s great that this all happens on Halloween. But after they leave the party, they’re thinking about heading back up to the feast, but then Harry hears strange noises in the wall, again this… the Parseltongue. We don’t quite know it’s Parseltongue yet, but it’s the Basilisk, “Rip, tear, kill.” And it leads them to Mrs. Norris, hanging from the light, petrified, and then all the students come bustling in, and it says on the wall, “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.” And… that’s kind of poetic there, wouldn’t you say?

Kat: I would say so. It’s very ominous. “Enemies of the heir, beware”? Not only does it rhyme, it sounds really good. But it’s scary. It’s a little scary.

Noah: Can you imagine Tom Riddle in his little book, thinking of, “What am I going to say? What am I going to do? It’s been 50 years, but, oh man…”

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: He’s always had a way with words, that Tom Riddle, I think.

Noah: Yeah, he has. He’s a regular poet. And then, finally, when all the students come into the hall and see Harry, Hermione, and Ron with Mrs. Norris… but Draco just comes up in front of everyone and says, “You’re next, Mudbloods!” And you got to think, man, if they didn’t know Draco before, now he’s going to get a reputation because I’m pretty sure most of the students there are recoiling from him saying that.

Kat: Yeah, I don’t know. Personally, I just… I see Draco as kind of a load of BS [laughs] pretty much. I personally probably wouldn’t take anything that he says too seriously.

Noah: Do we think he knows anything about… I guess he knows about the Chamber of Secrets, right?

Kat: I mean, he must because nowhere in here does it imply who the heir is and yet Draco says, “You’ll be next, Mudbloods,” so…

Noah: Yeah, at this point, there’s no indication that Mudbloods are in danger.

Kat: Well…

Noah: So, the only way he could know of it is if he knew about the Chamber of Secrets.

Kat: Right because it doesn’t mention who the heir is. It could be the heir of Hufflepuff, for all we know.

Noah: The heir of Hufflepuff would not do that.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: I’m just saying that obviously Draco knows something, because otherwise he wouldn’t know that it relates to Mudbloods.

Noah: What would the heir of Hufflepuff do, Amanda?

Amanda: [laughs] He’d write the message in cake frosting.

[Everyone laughs]

Noah: That’s right.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: Yum, that sounds good.

Noah: Because we’re hobbits.

Kat: Because you’re hobbits? Oh.

[Noah laughs]

Amanda: [unintelligible] was pretty short.

Kat: That’s true.

Noah: That’s true.

Kat: I had elevensies this morning, can I just say? Anyway, okay…

[Everyone laughs]

Noah: And there ends our chapter discussion.

Laura: Okay, so now moving on to our special feature, Pottermore, In Depth, where we’re going to discuss the new information that JK Rowling brought forth in these chapters, so that’s on purebloods and Peeves the Poltergeist.

[“Pottermore, In Depth” intro plays]

Announcer: Pottermore, In Depth.

[Sound of quill writing]

Rita Skeeter: Well, Harry, the Daily Prophet readers want to hear the in-depth scoop on you.

Harry Potter: Umm, well, I…

Rita: Absolutely brilliant – ignore the quill – tell me more, Mr. Potter.

[“Pottermore, In Depth” intro ends]

Laura: So, first off, in this bit of text about the purebloods, what I thought was really the most interesting thing here was, back in the day, Muggle-borns were originally considered to be particularly gifted and often considered even more special because they were able to harness magic without it being just part of them. So, I really think… how would the series have been different if the Muggle-borns were the ones feeling elite? It’s just really interesting to think that that was once a thing.

Kat: I also like that they were originally called “Magbobs.” [laughs] I don’t know, I just find that to be the silliest name ever. But I feel like at least, in these seven books, in these seven years, of Harry’s life, that the animosity between Draco and himself, particularly towards Hermione, so would not have existed if Muggle-borns were the ones that were more elite.

Laura: So much wouldn’t have happened because it just… I mean Voldemort in himself. I just think it’s interesting that that used to exist. But of course, the opinions changed with the International Statute of Secrecy in 1692, and she said that wizarding/Muggle marriages declined because they thought that they would get in trouble with the law, but also that physical and mental weakness and instability result from marrying within this small group of wizards. So, it seems that Rowling is insinuating that wizards kind of became incestuous, which I think we saw even on a family tree.

Noah: Yeah, I mean we know that her reading history is a lot of Victorian novels and you’d often get these very old families [unintelligible]. In a lot of old stuff it was hinted at, the incestous pairing of a brother and sister, whatnot. But it also tends to… the offspring of these couples are crazy children who are kind of insane. And I’m often thinking of Bellatrix, I think of the Black family which is so old and they’re so tied to their family tree. I don’t know if there was necessarily that in their family, but Bellatrix seems to be the embodiment of this crazy offspring that comes from very old families. And look at the Malfoys too, just with their palid skin complexion and their dark eyes and their heritage. I wouldn’t be surprised if that kind of theme is carrying along.

Kat: Wasn’t that mentioned surrounding the Gaunts as well, in Half-Blood Prince? Wasn’t there some form of insinuation about…

Noah: Yeah! I think there was.

Laura: I think I remember… I don’t know if I just read this on the Lexicon or something, but there was a very clear family tree and there was definitely instances where it was… I think mostly with the Black family, of just downright incest.

Kat: Yeah, well I mean if you’re not going to marry anybody besides a pureblood…

Laura: Right.

Kat: Ron says it himself, they would die out if not. So, you either marry a Muggle or incest, I guess. That’s…

Laura: Right.

Kat: If that’s your beliefs, of course.

Laura: Yeah, and I think… they listed in this feature what they call “The Sacred 28” which includes the Carrows, the Crouches, the Gaunts, Lestranges, Longbottoms, Malfoys, et cetera. So, if there’s only these 28 families, I think that seems pretty solid that that kind of thing would happen. Especially since we know the Weasleys aren’t doing that and the Longbottoms and probably Ernie MacMillan’s family, that it really kind of comes down to the more Death Eater type names like the Lestranges and the Malfoys.

Kat: And here’s the thing: if we’re to believe creationism, that we all came from Adam and Eve, some point in our lives or in our family history there’s probably incest. But I think what this is saying is that it happened far more often than it probably should have.

Laura: Right.

Noah: I mean, that’s going pretty far down in human history.

Kat: Right.

Noah: But just in this culture that prides blood over so much other things… I mean it makes sense. Like, you have this… the whole idea of an heir of Slytherin is someone who has his DNA in a way or his blood somewhere far down the line.

Kat: In the male line though, correct? An heir is technically the male side?

Amanda: I believe so. Because I feel JK Rowling is going a lot with royal history right now.

Kat: Right.

Noah: Yeah.

Amanda: Especially with the whole incestous thing. I mean, insanity in the royal family was rampant [laughs] in some families. But I feel like it would have to be a male, yeah.

Noah: So, there’s this worry to keep that blood alive, even generations back. So, kind of the symbolic and purest way to do that would be incest, keeping that family…

Kat: Marry your brother, that’s right.

Noah: …progeny on the line.

Laura: And it’s kind of weird that that’s their idea of keeping blood pure, is… I don’t know.

Noah: But then, that makes me think… I kind of understand why Muggle-borns having magic was probably so amazing of a phenomenon, because that means that it kind of undoes the whole idea of keeping magic in the family, and that being a stronger magic. Because if you can have Muggle-borns anyway, who are just as skilled, that’s a potential challenge to the system.

Kat: Right.

Noah: So…

Amanda: Right.

Noah: …it’s possible that they were persecuted so much so because they potentially undo the status quo and the power that exists.

Kat: Kind of like witches. People didn’t understand where they got their… okay, you know what I mean. Obviously we are talking about witches and wizards. [laughs] I meant witches like Salem witches.

Amanda: Right.

Kat: They didn’t understand where the magic came from, so they persecuted them for it. And really it was more special, the ones that were real witches anyway.

Noah: Right. But that’s a reverse scenario.

Laura: So, another thing I thought was interesting was that calling yourself a pureblood was less of a fact than a political statement, and I think this can be seen in the Weasleys, in that even though they are pureblood they rarely refer to themselves as pureblood. In fact, JK Rowling said that they tried to say that they weren’t, and saying that, oh, we have Muggle lineage, and that was something they were proud of and what earned them their blood traitor title. But I think that’s interesting that it’s becoming pureblood kind of became a political statement that I’m not going to associate with Muggles and that’s the way I think of myself, rather than a biological fact as she says.

Kat: Yeah, they were just trying to raise themselves up on the evolutionary scale, so to say.

Laura: Also, it is said that in scholarly writings purebloods would write about the different characteristics that could be seen especially in young pureblood children, and things as far as being able to ride a broomstick and being able to harness magic at an early age. But I thought what was interesting was that it said that they also had a dislike or a fear of pigs…

[Kat laughs]

Laura: …and those who tend to them. It said that the pigs are notoriously difficult to charm because they are particularly non-magical, and we all know on this podcast, the…

[Kat laughs]

Laura: I don’t know what word you would say, but obsession, I guess, with the pigs and the desk pigs. Why are these students having to try and make desk pigs if these pigs are so difficult to charm?

Kat: Because they needed bacon for breakfast. I don’t know.

[Everyone laughs]

Noah: Well, it’s interesting because pigs in a lot of religions are seen as unholy too, or at least in Judaism. They’re un-Kosher, we are not supposed to go there, and I think in other religions they’re held at various levels of esteem. So yeah, there’s something about magic and pigs that goes all the way down…

Laura: Yeah.

Noah: …in myth.

Kat: I don’t know, I just like to think, like many of the people on our forums, that maybe Jo is listening to the show and she’s making commentary on our discussion. Just saying. It’s probably not happening, but in my perfect world it is.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: In my little bubble.

Amanda: When I saw that they’re particularly non-magical, I always think about when Hagrid tried to turn Dudley into a pig, and how it says Dudley is particularly non-magical.

Kat: Oh.

Laura: That’s interesting.

Noah: That’s great.

Amanda: [laughs] So, it’s kind of showing the huge dichotomy, I guess, between Harry and his Muggle family.

Kat: I had never thought of that before. That’s brilliant. That was a good…

Noah: That’s really great.

Laura: I’d never really thought of pigs as particularly non-magical until this article. [laughs]

Noah: Why are they so? Does that mean some animals are just more magical than others? I guess the ones that students can pick…

Laura: Like the owls.

Noah: …for school pets. Yeah.

Kat: Well no, I think, too, that… I’m not sure why I feel this or if I read it somewhere, but animals with more vertebrae or more bones tend to be more difficult. Am I just making this up? Did I read that somewhere? I feel like I…

Laura: [laughs] I haven’t seen that, but…

Kat: I feel like I read it somewhere. And pigs obviously have a lot of bones, like a cow would.

Laura: I don’t think they’re alone in that, though.

Amanda: Well, I mean cats have…

Noah: Cats have a lot of bones.

Kat: That’s true. Yeah, well…

Amanda: But they’re more fluid.

Kat: Right.

Noah: Cats and owls and – I don’t know why – toads, but at least cats seem more clever, possessing a slight personality.

Kat: I don’t know, maybe the founders were all Jewish and they were Kosher and just don’t like pigs.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: I don’t know, it could be anything.

Noah: Somehow I don’t think it was that, but…

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: No, you’re probably right. It probably was not.

Laura: And the last thing about the purebloods… also in these same scholarly articles, they said that they had outstanding physical attractiveness. And I think this is more just an instance of the self-declared purebloods thinking too highly of themselves rather than being actual fact. [laughs] But what I thought was interesting was that it said that studies by the Department of Mysteries have said that there are no facts behind them. So, is this the sort of work that the Department of Mysteries does?

[Everyone laughs]

Laura: Like, investigate? Because they never really explain… that’s what’s so mysterious about them. So, this is really, I think, the only thing I have necessarily heard of, besides the whole prophecies and all that, of work that they do.

Kat: So, like hotness surveys?

[Amanda laughs]

Laura: Yeah.

Kat: They go out and and take someone with them. “Is this person particularly attractive to you?”

Laura: Right.

Amanda: Is there a correlation? [laughs]

Laura: There’s the hot list right next to the prophecies.

[Kat laughs]

Noah: No, no, but guys, think about old, old families, especially Victorian families. The family traits, the fair traits, are the nose, the eyes, the high brow, certain things carried over from the old families. So, this is just a reiteration of that.

Laura: But the Weasleys don’t have that same… they’re kind of portly and everything.

Kat: Right, they’re not symmetrical. That’s what you’re thinking of.

Noah: Yeah, but thinking of maybe the Holocaust and other times when we need to purify the race, there’s always going to be the higher party or the higher group of people deciding what are the traits that should pass along and what are more attractive. So, this just sounds like one community of people deciding what these traits are, and they just happen to be in the old families which happen to be pure-bloods.

Laura: Yeah, I suppose that could be true.

Noah: Yeah. Because attractive to us, now, is really in the eye of the beholder.

Kat: So, Marvolo Gaunt, you’re telling me, was attractive?

Amanda: Super hot.

[Everyone laughs]

Noah: In his day, he was probably godly.

Amanda: Hey, when he was a teenager, who knows?

Kat: He’d be on the cover of Seventeen Magazine, you’re saying? Yeah? Come on.

Noah: No, but they have certain family traits that carry over that are attractive. You know what I mean!

Kat: I know, but… I don’t know, I don’t particularly agree with it.

Laura: I think it’s just them thinking highly of themselves.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: Yeah, that’s what I think.

Amanda: I think so, too.

Noah: Whether they are legitimately attractive is not of concern.

Kat: Of course, there are a lot of Draco fans…

Amanda: Yes.

Kat: …that would be very angry at us. Or more Tom Felton fans, I suppose, than Draco. But anyway…

Laura: Okay, so moving on to the other part of the Pottermore new information we received, this concerns Peeves the Poltergeist and we knew that, obviously, Peeves is not a ghost. He’s a poltergeist which, it says in German, roughly translates to noisy ghosts…

[Kat laughs]

Laura: …that create audible and kinetic disturbances. But what I thought was interesting was that they’re associated with young people and teenagers, and that’s really why Peeves kind of took ground at Hogwarts. And I know that poltergeists are kind of rooted in actual mythology, but why is that, that poltergeists kind of gravitate towards young people?

Amanda: I mean, I used to know a lot more about this when I was in high school because I was actually kind of obsessed with the idea of poltergeists and the whole kinetic disturbances, because it’s more than just a normal ghost haunting. It’s actual objects moving and control of the physical world. And I know in our world mythology, I guess, and sightings, it’s that it’s always the children who they believe they’re possessed by demons, I guess, is when you see that the physical world is being altered rather than just, say, noises or regular hauntings. I just kind of feel like J.K. Rowling, Jo, took that myth and put it into Hogwarts because Peeves is able to do all this physical movement.

Kat: So, you mean children are more susceptible to poltergeists?

Amanda: In our mythology, I believe so.

Kat: Okay.

Amanda: Just from what I’ve read. I don’t really know as much about it as I used to.

Kat: So, is it like an innocence factor maybe? Like, they’re younger and therefore they believe in more things that way and then the poltergeist would have more control over them in a way?

Amanda: I mean, I guess that could make sense. I almost thought it was more of a… children were more innocent in a way and they didn’t really have this… they were able to control more, I guess, or express more in the form of the poltergeist. Because the poltergeist is kind of like the embodiment of the child, and I guess children don’t have… I’m like messing up all of my words. [laughs]

Noah: No, but what I think you’re also saying is just that Hogwarts, throughout all the ages, had many, many children rebelling, and Peeves seems to be the embodiment of that chaos…

Amanda: Right.

Noah: …that comes between the children and the professors and just the older folk. And he is just this storm who reacts to each new year of students, and again, he is like somehow connected to their energy or what they’re doing, and that’s why he is such a rebeller too. He’s like the worst kid ever.

Kat: And why he gets along with the Weasley twins.

Noah: Yeah, exactly.

Amanda: Right.

Kat: Or they’re really the only people he ever listens to.

Amanda: Right. He senses a kindred spirit, I guess.

Kat: Right.

Laura: I think it’s interesting that he has a physical form, which they said is a blend of humor and malice and can become invisible at will. And then he materializes in front of people’s noses, which… I don’t like people popping out at me, and especially if he’s this seamless blend of malice and humor and all popping in front of me, I can’t imagine something more terrifying than walking down the stairs and him just bothering you and throwing things at you.

Kat: I feel like there would be a lot more accidents because of Peeves, [laughs] especially if they were walking down stairs.

Laura: Right.

Kat: I don’t know. It would definitely scare me as well.

Laura: Only way Hogwarts knows how. More accidents.

Kat: Right.

[Amanda and Noah laugh]

Kat: Yeah.

Laura: So, and of course Peeves… he has a long history of bothering the caretakers, and she went into this history of one instance where a caretaker tried to dispel him from the castle and it just resulted in chaos where he was throwing weapons at children. And this actually resulted in him not only getting to stay on the castle, but getting more privileges…

[Kat laughs]

Laura: …just so that he wouldn’t kill the students. And are there… there are no people that kind of specialize… I mean, even in the Muggle world now, [laughs] we have people that specialize in ghost removals. So, I just… is there no one similar to the dark wizard catchers that could have taken care of this?

Noah: The Ghostbusters.

Kat: I was just going to say. “Who you gonna call?”

Laura: Yeah.

[Kat laughs]

Laura: I feel like there needs to be someone. [laughs]

Noah: There is nobody. [laughs] He is running wild.

Kat: I mean, maybe it’s because he has been around so long that he is just impossible to get rid of. Maybe if you nip it in the bud and get him right in the beginning. I don’t know.

Laura: Lazy Aurors.

Noah: But he is just part of the castle. I feel like that’s been stated so many times.

Laura: Right.

Noah: And again, I would say that he… as long as the students are there, he reacts to their energy.

Amanda: And also, there is a certain fondness for Peeves from the professors. I mean, I know Lupin teaches… he shows him spells or whatever, and McGonagall definitely encourages him when Umbridge is in the castle. I feel like he definitely…

Noah: Yeah.

Amanda: There is a kind of love-hate relationship I feel, between Peeves and the faculty.

Kat: Well, and it did say that he respects them and won’t bother them while teaching, right? So…

Amanda: Right.

Laura: Yeah.

Kat: Which I thought was great.

Noah: Right.

Kat: I didn’t expect that.

Laura: I think that’s the only reason, the only way he knows he will truly never get kicked out.

Kat: Right.

Laura: Is if he kind of just respects that.

Kat: He can run amok in the hallways but not in the classrooms. [laughs]

Amanda: Yeah.

Laura: And lastly, has it ever really been told why Peeves is exactly so afraid of the Bloody Baron, and why the Bloody Baron has this effect on him that no one else seems to have? I mean, he’s a ghost. He still can’t do anything to him. [laughs]

Kat: I mean, we’ve talked about it in the past where we came to several conclusions about how Peeves came to the castle. One of them…

Noah: Yeah, we have.

Kat: One of them was that he came from the founders and the other was that he kind of materialized because of the murder of the Bloody Baron.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: But I don’t think it was ever specifically in… finalized and stated why he is so afraid of him.

Noah: And I think the Bloody Baron, just as a ghost, has certain abilities to haunt people and probably haunted Peeves if he just pulled on his chains a little bit too much. And it really sets up our negativity towards the Bloody Baron because we know how powerful Peeves is. So, if he can control Peeves, he is somebody to be conscious of.

Amanda: Right.

Kat: Do you think the Bloody Baron had a much bigger part in the books to begin with? Is he one of those storylines that was cut out? Because he does seem to be mentioned a lot. Mentioned about how terrifying he is, how much blood is all over him. And I know he is mentioned in the end, but I feel like maybe…

Laura: I think that’s probably what they were leading up to.

Kat: Yeah.

Amanda: Right. Because he is connected to the Grey Lady, right?

Kat: Right.

Noah: And he committed suicide, right?

Kat: Yes.

Laura: Yeah.

Amanda: Yes, because I believe he accidentally caused the death of the Grey Lady.

Laura: The Grey Lady.

Noah: Yeah. Who is Helena.

Kat: I just didn’t know if it… I mean, to me it felt like something else was cut out, but maybe it was just because of the whole plot at the end.

Laura: Right.

Kat: I don’t know.

Noah: Well, we could probably certainly ask Jo about that because it’s still really open.

Kat: Get right on that. Send her an email.

Laura: Yeah, when she comes over for dinner.

Amanda: We’ll text her right now.

Noah: She listens to the show, so I’ll just…

[Amanda laughs]

Kat: Oh, wouldn’t that be incredible?

Noah: Email in!

Kat: Anyway, that was good. I really, really enjoyed the Pottermore information in these couple of chapters. It’s great.

Noah: Yeah, what… how do you guys feel about Pottermore? Getting better with the sound effects and the content?

Laura: I was having a lot of trouble feeding the stupid Cornish pixie things…

Amanda: Yes!

Laura: …to get this information. I was trying to write my notes right now and [laughs] I just couldn’t beat the Cornish pixies!

Amanda: Those stupid pixies.

Noah: [laughs] Well, that’s good. It should be a relative challenge.

Kat: It took me two tries to get them all in there, but I happen to love Pottermore now. It’s gotten so much better. So much better. I like that there’s different interactions, all the sound, everything. It’s great.

Noah: Yeah.

Amanda: The interactions…

Kat: I mean, it’s not something I’m going to spend twelve hours on every day. I’ll go in there when new chapters open, I’ll do it, and then I’ll be done. But…

Laura: Yeah, I think that’s all really it is at this point.

Kat: Yeah.

Laura: I don’t think it’s something that you can spend all day on, unless you are just spending your life brewing potions.

Kat: Right. I mean, I did go back to the first book, to see if maybe anything had changed. To see if I could get new information… not information, but gather some new items.

Noah: Yeah.

Kat: And I couldn’t. That would be nice if they did that. Then I might go through it again.

Noah: Hmm.

Kat: But not at this point.

Noah: I think they’re just really focused on getting new material out as fast as possible.

Amanda: Right.

Kat: Yeah, which is good. That’s what we want. So…

Amanda: Yeah, for now I just like finding out the new information.

Kat: Yeah.

Amanda: And I feel the interactions – the games – have increased…

Kat: Yeah.

Amanda: …a bit. So…

Kat: I brewed Polyjuice part one the other day. That was difficult.

Amanda: Oh!

Kat: It actually…

Amanda: I haven’t gotten there yet.

Kat: It actually wasn’t as hard as it seemed, but potions have always seemed kind of easy to me anyway, so…

Noah: I mess mine up all the time.

[Amanda laughs]

Kat: Uh oh.

Amanda: I brewed my first…

Laura: I don’t think I’ve attempted since the first time.

Noah: Well, we love Pottermore because it gives us all this new content to analyze.

Kat: And are you going to use some of that content for the podcast question of the week, Noah?

Noah: No!

[Kat and Laura laugh]

Noah: No, I am not!

[Amanda laughs]

Kat: All right, so why don’t you tell us what the question is?

Noah: Yeah, well as we know from this latest chapter, there were tons of ghosts because we just went to a great Deathday Party for Nearly Headless Nick. But we haven’t talked about ghosts in very much detail on Alohomora! yet, so this question is all about them. Given that particular scene where the ghost comes up to the table and tries to taste the food but can’t quite do it, and the fact that the ghosts are listening to music that is terrible for humans but eerie enough that it kind of connects, what do these instances reveal about the connection between the human world and the ghost world? Or the world of the dead? Are ghosts in between, such that they can kind of taste or feel from both worlds? Or are they solidly in this other world? And because the music and the food is so strong or potent, they can get a taste. And what does that taste consist of? Is it kind of like an imprint like they are? Is it just the smallest portion of the thing? Or can they really have a true experience? Basically, any insights into the ghost experience would be really helpful on this… on your comments. I know that’s kind of a broad question, but I’m going to simplify it much more in a passage on the Alohomora! website. So, just go there and leave a comment if you like, and we’ll read it on the next episode.

Laura: We definitely want to thank our special guest, Amanda. Thank you for being on the show.

Amanda: Oh, thank you.

Laura: And giving us all the information on the poltergeist, especially. [laughs]

Amanda: [laughs] I tried. No, thank you guys. This was great.

Noah: Any shout-outs, Amanda, to anyone at Muhlenberg or anybody else?

Amanda: Oh man. I mean, not off the top of my head, but we have the Quidditch team. It’s doing pretty well.

Noah: Yeah.

Amanda: They just started it.

Kat: Are you on the Quiddtich team?

Amanda: I dabble in it when I have time after track practice. But I see them running around and they’re doing good.

Kat: Nice, good.

Amanda: So…

Noah: Yup.

Laura: Noah, did you make the team?

Noah: Yeah, I did make the team. We’re still… we’re struggling with hoop designs.

[Amanda laughs]

Noah: Right now I’ve just been hanging hoops from tree branches. But…

Laura: Your email to that when we were having a staff meeting, you were like, “I can’t make the staff meeting, I have Quidditch tryouts,” was… I took a picture of it, a screenshot.

Noah: You did?

[Amanda laughs]

Kat: Yeah, it was pretty amazing.

Laura: It was just the best excuse for missing a MuggleNet meeting ever. [laughs]

Noah: It seemed like a legitimate excuse. I was really playing.

Kat: Yeah.

Noah: But yeah, shout-out to the entire team: Scott, Dan, Ian, Ben, Tim…

[Amanda laughs]

Kat: Fabulous.

Noah: Everybody, you guys are great. [laughs]

Kat: And if any of you listening want to be on the show, much like Amanda, there are several ways you can go about that. Of course, the first one is by submitting content on the Alohomora! website and the forums. If you comment on there all the time, we’re going to notice you. We’re going to read your content on the podcast here much like we do for many of our constant commenters. And the other way is you can email us a clip of yourself analyzing a part of the Harry Potter series. You can send it to alohomorapodcast at gmail dot com. Please know that you do need appropriate audio and recording equipment.

Laura: And if you want to contact us, our Twitter handle is @AlohomoraMN. You can visit us at Facebook.com/OpenTheDumbledore or MNAlohomora.Tumblr.com. If you want to call to leave us a voicemail, it’s 206-GO-ALBUS or 206-462-5287. Please visit us at our main site at Alohomora.MuggleNet.com, and if you’ve seen our T-shirts, our lovely T-shirts with our logo, we only have a very small amount left to sell – a small and large only. So, please email us for details on purchasing at alohomorapodcast at gmail dot com.

Noah: And we’d also like to announce that we… I guess not so recently, but we have a new app for iPhone in the US and for Android. But in the UK it’s only the iPhone app. You can get it for $1.99 or for 99 pence. And it’s really cool. There are interviews on there from Mark Oshiro, Hank Green, Lev Grossman, and MinaLima. There’s tons of different transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings from the show. We’re going to have host vlogs and tons of other stuff. So, if you’re following our app you’ll get our content as soon. And you can also listen to episodes through that app on your phone and on your other devices. But what you really ought to do is check out our promotional video which is a huge success and thank you, Laura, on the show right now, for making it.

[Laura laughs]

Noah: It’s just really funny. And there is going to be a link to it in the show notes for the episode.

Laura: And also, don’t forget to subscribe to our iTunes feed.

Kat: And we’re actually very happy to now announce that exclusively on our archives at Alohomora.MuggleNet.com, we are offering low-bandwidth versions of the show for those of you with slower connection speeds or what have you. It will be starting with the first Chamber of Secrets episode, which was Episode 10. It’s not currently available for download on iTunes. We’re working on that. But for now, you can head over, again, to Alohomora.MuggleNet.com and you can download the low-bandwidth versions there.

Noah: I also have one more announcement.

Kat: Sure.

Noah: Several people who have been writing quibbles on the Alohomora! site, just about our podcast… Ali Wood, wiseoldbaker, killey, Hippogriff, and basically anyone who has been writing quibbles I’ve really been noticing, and I’ve been linking a lot of them to the MuggleNet main site and they’ve been getting a lot of traffic, which is good. So, we’re going to try and do a lot more integration between the two sites. So, if you write an essay, feel free to either email me or continue to submit it to Alohomora!. But hopefully we can develop a little community of people interested in looking at the deepest magical mysteries, because we have a great section on MuggleNet that I keep bringing up. It’s called Level 9, and we’re looking to have a little community there of people who want to do that. Kind of like our own little Department of Mysteries. We’ll have our own Unspeakables. And basically, if you pick any very confusing element of magic, ghosts, or time travel… anything that could use some further study, just write an essay about it and I’ll be happy to post it on MuggleNet. We’re really trying to promote that all over the site. So, thanks to everyone who’s been doing it, but wiseoldbaker, Ali Wood, and some others have become our chief Unspeakables and they’re going to kind of head that effort, and I’m going to make a post about it on Alohomora! very soon.

Kat: Excellent.

[Show music begins]

Noah: But that’s the end of the episode. Thanks for listening. I’m Noah Fried.

Laura: I’m Laura Reilly.

Kat: And I’m Kat Miller. Thank you for listening to Episode 13 of Alohomora!.

Noah: Open the Dumbledore!

[Show music continues]

Kat: Hey guys, welcome to Episode 13, the unlucky episode. I’m Kat…

Noah: No.

Kat: Noah!

[Everyone laughs]

Noah: Well, I hope it won’t be unlucky, but anyway, continue with your intro.

Kat: All right, I’ll do… I’ve been trying to think of what to say with the number thirteen. I’ll say the…

Noah: All right, do it again, I won’t ruin it.

Kat: Okay. [clears throat] Similarly… I can never say that word. Similar – someone say it for me. [laughs]

Laura and Noah: Similarly.

Kat: Sim-i-larly. [laughs] That sounds ridiculous. Similar. Ly. Okay. Similarly…

Noah: Wow.

Noah: …you see this with the paintings…

[Amanda and Laura laugh]

Kat: Stop laughing! [laughs]

Noah: [laughs] All right. So, should we do Chapter 8?

Kat: [coughs] Yup.

Noah: Okay. Get it all out, Kat. Got it all out?

Kat: I think so.

Noah: All right. Time to stretch.

[Laura laughs]

Noah: [makes groaning noises] Okay, okay, let’s go.