Transcript – Episode 152

Patrick Musilek: Hello, Alohomora! listeners. This is Patrick, the editor, and I wanted to let you know before you started listening to this episode that we had a few problems with Alison’s track. She was recording during a storm and it caused a few technical difficulties. So every now and then when she’s talking, her track will drop out and sound a little jumbled. And for the most part the episode should sound okay, but I just wanted to give you guys a little bit of a heads up and an explanation for what you will hear. So thank you and enjoy the show.

[Show music begins]

Rosie Morris: This is Episode 152 of Alohomora! for August 22, 2015.

[Show music continues]

Rosie: Hello everyone, and welcome to this brand new episode of the show. I’m Rosie Morris.

Alison Siggard: I’m Alison Siggard.

Patrick: And I’m Patrick Musilek, filling in today for Kat, who could not be here.

Alison: And we want to say a huge thank you to Patrick, who, listeners, if you don’t know, is one of our fabulous editors. So thank you so much for being on the show today and making sure all of our episodes sound amazing. And we also want to introduce our guest this week, who is Holly. Hi, Holly. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Holly Norris: Hi, everyone. Like they said, I’m Holly. I am 20 years old. I am from North Texas – go DFW – and I am a college student currently studying journalism at the University of North Texas. And I work at the regional non-profit North Texas Commission, and I’m also a leadership coach for high school students.

Patrick: Wow.

Alison: Awesome. Tell us about you and Harry Potter, Holly.

Holly: That is a very long story. I recently did a big blog on it. I blog at pearlsandpuns.com, so if anyone wants to read the ridiculously long story about it, they can. But basically, I’m a Ravenclaw, so that’s my big connection to Kat. I love me some Ravenclaw pride. But the first time I ever saw anything related to Harry Potter was the first movie because I was really young when the books started being published, and the first movie terrified me.

Rosie: Aww. [laughs]

Holly: I was six years old, my sister and I were watching the VHS in my parents’ room, and I saw one look of Voldemort and I ran screaming from the room. The forest scene where he is eating the unicorn; I ran.

Rosie: That’s a very creepy scene.

Patrick: It’s pretty scary, for sure.

Holly: Yeah. I didn’t even touch it again until my mom started reading the books, and she used to let us listen to the audiobooks a little bit when we were older, and then finally… the movies always came out around my birthday because my birthday is in mid-July, and so finally, one year my birthday was right when Order of the Phoenix came out and I went to see Order of the Phoenix and I loved it. And I got really addicted to the movies and so I went back and watched all the movies over, and I got dragged to the Book 7 release party at Borders, and… I know, rest in peace, Borders; it makes me want to cry every time.

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Holly: But that was probably the cinching experience because it was one of those super fandom release parties where they had cosplayers, and people were doing the great Snape debate as to whether he was good or evil, which I know is a favorite topic on this show. And it was a super fun experience and it hooked me into the fandom. And I didn’t read the book that night because I hadn’t read any of them before, obviously, so my mom got it and during the next year – because that was going into, gosh, middle school – so the next year I read all the books, caught up, and finally read the seventh book and it got me into the fandom. So I used to write fan fiction a lot under the pen name RitaSkeeterWannabe, so that tells you where my loyalties used to lie with that. But I used to be super involved with that side of the fandom and then I took a break and now I’m trying to get back in with just commenting, and I caught up on Alohomora! in probably five months.

Alison: Wow.

Holly: I started listening when you guys were about two years in, and it really got me back into writing again and Pottermore and everything because I had taken a really long break to do what I do now for a living, which is coaching high school students, and I was a student officer for a student organization for a long time and it took a lot of time away. And now that I’m having free time I actually get to get back into the fandom. My one claim to fame in the entire fandom is that I am… I don’t know if you guys have seen, Barnes & Noble does the pop culture photo contest for the last couple of years and they pick pictures to do promotions from the last couple of years. Last year I did a cosplay as Hermione and they used my picture to promote this year’s contest all over the place.

Alison: Nice.

Rosie: Oh, wow. Well done.

Patrick: Awesome.

Holly: It was ridonculous how much they used my picture.

[Rosie laughs]

Holly: So even though I didn’t win last year, my picture was all over their Instagram and their email blast and I was like, “Okay, well, consolation price; I am now used in their PR.”

Alison: Nice. Do we have all four houses on today? Patrick, what house are you?

Patrick: I am Ravenclaw as well…

Alison: Oh.

Patrick: … though if you want to get into a discussion, I’ve always wanted to say that I’ve never heard anyone on the show that was disappointed that they didn’t get sorted into Hufflepuff.

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Patrick: When I logged onto Pottermore for the first time I was like, “This is it. Hufflepuff.” Not because I have a special love with the house. I just thought Hufflepuff seems to be the best place that I would fit and I’m really into music and so to me, I have always associated Hufflepuff as being the have-fun creative side of everything.

Rosie: Coffee house.

[Holly and Rosie laugh]

Patrick: So when I was sorted into Ravenclaw, I was really disappointed.

[Everyone laughs]

Patrick: And then for a little while I felt this big pressure put on me. I was like, “Man, I have to try to be smarter now. I have to try a lot harder.” And after a while, I was like, “Yeah, whatever, I can be a lazy Ravenclaw too, so…”ù

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Patrick: But yeah, so two Ravenclaws representing today for sure. [laughs]

Holly: Caw! That was for Kat.

Patrick: But real quick, Holly, I think it’s really interesting that you saw the fifth movie first, and that that was the thing that got you into it because the fifth movie and the fifth book, too, have such a different tone. There’s more romance in it; there’s a lot more teenage drama and stuff in it. You were probably close to that age when you saw the movie. When you went back, did you find it hard to get into it? Because the first two books especially have a much younger audience feel to them.

Holly: Yeah, I had seen bits and pieces of the other movies. I had seen parts of Harry Potter Weekends on ABC Family and Movie 4. But it was my 12th birthday when Movie 5 and Book 7 came out; that was the same summer. And so as a 12-year-old it’s really hard to relate to people who are going through that romantic change because I hadn’t dated anyone at that point, so I was like, “What is going on?”

Patrick: Mhm.

Holly: But I liked the idea of Dumbledore’s Army and I liked the rebellion of that. And I think that going back, it was a lot easier after having been hooked by that to completely watch all the movies and then completely read all the books and relate to a character who is now younger than me and grow up with them, versus, I think, starting at a younger age and moving forward. Because I was so young when the other books came out that I think it made it a lot easier for me to transition. And then, of course, after that point I was younger than Harry was, but I think after Order of the Phoenix and after Deathly Hallows came out is really when I started reading a lot. So I give J.K. Rowling credit for every novel I’ve ever read…

[Alison laughs]

Patrick: Mhm.

Holly: … just because I was able to, after Harry Potter, get into older novels, get into the more young adult fiction, and then into adult fiction. Because it wasn’t me trying to grow up with the character; I had already grown up with him if that makes sense.

Patrick: Absolutely it does. I think that’s also the best way… there are certain series that I think it’s almost better to do that with. I think the best way to get into the Game of Thrones books is to watch Game of Thrones Season 1…

Alison: Yup.

Patrick: … because if you just hop into the books blind it is impossible to understand what’s happening. But watching Season 1 first, then you understand all the characters and it’s much easier to get a grasp on what’s happening. So I just think that’s interesting that you started in the middle and went back. I think that’s fascinating, so…

Rosie: Yup. And it’s interesting as well that you didn’t find that a jarring experience. I know obviously with Eric’s experience, he started on… was it Book 3? And then got really confused and then he jumped around a bit before he actually got really into the series.

[Alison and Holly laugh]

Patrick: Mhm.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: … but for you to actually really enjoy that fifth movie and then come back to it all is really a positive thing, I think. It’s a different way of entering the fandom.

Holly: Yeah, I think Order is probably also one of the easiest ones for people to relate to because everyone has an Umbridge…

Rosie: Yeah.

Holly: … everyone has the student organization that they’re involved in. Everyone has something that they can relate to with Order. And even though… I knew the premise going into it and I knew the idea behind Harry Potter, and I’d listened to enough of bits and pieces of audiobooks, and I’d seen enough of the movies to get what was going on, to understand the characters. And I’m a big Wiki researcher…

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Holly: … so I had done enough research before the movie to be able to understand what in God’s name was going on in the movie, but it was a relatable enough film, I think. And I think that’s the good thing about any of the Harry Potter films, is that you really… because they’ve cut out so much continuity, I think it’s easy to jump into any of the films and really understand what’s going on.

Rosie: Yeah. I think with Order, as well, because you’ve got characters like Luna being introduced for the first time…

Alison and Holly: Yeah.

Rosie: … it’s actually quite a nice way of joining… it’s an appropriate time after the darkness of the film before – or it’s the end of the film before – that’s really starting the second wave of the series. So yeah, you can definitely join in at that moment and not feel too confused.

Holly: Yeah.

Rosie: But anyway, we’re done with Order! That was a while ago.

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: And this week, of course, in our podcast, which is what we are doing right now and not just talking about our own experiences of Harry Potter…

[Everyone laughs]

Rosie: … we need you guys to read Deathly Hallows Chapter 2, which is “In Memoriam.” So if you haven’t read that yet, you can listen to the next two sections of the podcast, but then go ahead and read that before listening for our main chapter discussion.

Alison: But before we get that, we’re going to recap our comments from Chapter 1 last week. And we’re going to start off with a little bit… well, a common comment this week. The ones I found were from WhoDoYouKnowWho’sLostaButtock, SnapesManyButtons, Ellen Dawn, and a lot of others… just gave us some clarification that the source that Snape is mentioning in Chapter 1 is Mundungus Fletcher…

Rosie: Mundungus Fletcher.

Alison: I don’t know why, I just get tongue-tied with that… as per “The Prince’s Tale”ù where Snape Confunds Mundungus to suggest the decoy plan. So we had a lot of people who said they were yelling at their devices last week for that one.

[Alison and Patrick laugh]

Alison: So clarification: We did remember.

Patrick: Yeah, always a good thing.

Alison: Yes. But our first real comment comes from Ellen Dawn this week, who says,

“I don’t believe that Charity Burbage is a test for Snape at all, and I would agree more along the lines of the discussion saying Voldemort was pulling Snape into the joke. Voldemort was enjoying finally having Snape outed as the double agent and boasting of his loyalty to himself. But from another side, I think killing Charity Burbage in the very public fashion that occurs in this chapter was supposed to taunt Draco Malfoy as well. Voldemort would have got a full report of Draco’s failure. Let’s not forget how Draco retorted that he didn’t invite Greyback in to the school. From this, I think Voldemort could have recognized that Draco still had an appreciation for the school and the people within it. Although Malfoy surely disliked Charity because of the class she taught, Malfoy isn’t a killer. He would never have wanted to kill her because of their differences, and it is very apparent that her presence and her death rattles Draco.”

Patrick: See, I disagree with this. This was one of the instances where I was editing the episode last week and I was yelling at the… not yelling…

[Alison laughs]

Patrick: … but I found it interesting because I had never thought from this perspective that it wasn’t a test for Snape and everybody else there. I had just always assumed that it was a test for Snape and to see how he reacted, and then also a way for Voldemort to reestablish his dominance. He’s had some failings over the last couple of books and this is one instance of him getting everyone together, saying, “Here, look, I’m going to do this.”ù But at the same time, every time I’ve read this, I’ve always read it from the perspective of it’s a test for Snape. He’s watching Snape to see how he reacts. And Snape is the one that has to keep it all together during the whole thing.

Alison: Which is interesting because I actually had never thought of it as a test for anyone at all.

Rosie: Me neither.

Alison: I thought it was just Voldemort giving a sign… almost enjoying it. It’s him giving a sign of his power and just saying, “Look, we’re on the up and up. I can kidnap Hogwarts professors and just throw them aside with no thought at all.”ù

Rosie: I always thought the fact that she was the Muggle Studies professor at Hogwarts was the most important thing. It’s a sign that the new regime is starting, that the Muggle aspect of Hogwarts is going to be removed as much as possible, which obviously we then see later on when we hear about what has actually been happening at Hogwarts. So this, I always saw it as the first example of Voldemort infiltrating Hogwarts and taking over that regime and really starting to make changes; obviously very horrible, deathly changes in this case.

Patrick: Right.

Holly: But I guess you can definitely see it as a test for those that know who she is in the school. I can’t image that Draco would have ever went to a Muggle Studies lesson…

Holly: Yeah.

Rosie: … so whether he actually knows who she is to that extent or whether he just knows that she’s a professor and actually witnesses a death properly for the first time…

Patrick: Right, I think that’s more of what’s important.

Alison: Yeah.

Patrick: It’s not who it is so much as how it’s happening, and the joy that Voldemort gets from it all.

Rosie: Yeah, and the horror of it all. And to have that at the end of the first chapter as well is really setting the tone for the book.

Alison: Yeah. I do think it’s interesting, though, that this commenter brought up that she’s connected to Hogwarts. And Draco has shown that he has some loyalty to the school, and so to have that in play as well is a great observation, I think.

Patrick and Rosie: Mhm.

Patrick: Absolutely.

Alison: And our next comment comes from FelicisWolf, and they say,

“Just a comment on the symbolism in this chapter. In the same sentence the yew hedges and the white peacock are described[:] The yew symbolizes death, and the peacock is an early Christian symbol of immortality. Yaxley scorns the peacock as a sign of the Malfoys[‘] riches and vanity. The normal full[-]coloured peacock is sometimes a symbol of vanity, but Jo has chosen a “pure white peacock”. Pure white animals usually are symbols of purity or innocence, like the unicorn. I think this is foreshadowing of (or part of ring theory) the last chapter, 36, that there will be death, but the pure will be immortal.”

Rosie: Interesting.

Patrick: I think that might be a little bit of a stretch, but… to me, I’ve always taken it as a pure white peacock is much harder to get a hold of than a regular peacock so that’s what they’re going to go for.

Alison: That’s true. It could also almost be a… you could almost put it along with Narcissa and how she is going to save Harry in order to find her child, so Harry will become immortal, in a way, at the end because of Narcissa’s more pure ambition to have her be reunited with her son.

Patrick: Yeah, we’ll talk about Narcissa in a little bit when we get to the Podcast Question of the Week responses.

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: That’s true.

Patrick: We’ll talk more about her at length.

Rosie: Has anyone actually ever seen a white peacock?

Alison: No.

Rosie: Yeah. Well, do a quick Google [search], because they are stunning creatures. I mean, if you think of an actual normal peacock, they are that symbol of vanity and all that because they’re gorgeous birds, but a white peacock is so stunningly beautiful, even though it’s just the same creature but white. And when I first read that description about Malfoy Manor, I was like, “Of course they would have white peacocks.” Peacocks are a symbolism of great riches and have something that is… it also represents their hair color and all of that kind of thing. It perfectly represents the Malfoy family. They’re [this] kind of strutting family that [is] so proud of [its] riches and yet [has] this very strong personality and persona with the white hair and all of this thing. Very much in the same way of the Targaryens in Game of Thrones, the pure white peacock just perfectly symbolizes Malfoy, Sr., I think, to me. It wouldn’t even surprise me if his Patronus [were] a pure white peacock. That would be perfect, in my view.

Alison: They are gorgeous. They almost look like they should be in a ballet.

Rosie: They are beautiful creatures.

Alison: [laughs] That’s what it looks like.

Rosie: It’s very Swan Lake, isn’t it?

Patrick: Yes. Screw the swan, let’s get peacocks.

[Alison and Holly laugh]

Alison: All right. Well then, our last comment from this week comes from WhoDoYouKnowWho’sLostaButtock, and it’s about the epigraphs at the beginning that there was a lengthy discussion on last week, and they say,

“The epigraphs are lovely, and there are obviously huge connections to the story and the characters, but I remember when I read them for the first time that I read them as a farewell message to the fans. The first acknowledges that torment of death, that human condition, and then acknowledges that there is a cure in the house (in ourselves), ‘not from others, but from them, from their bloody strife.’ We cure ourselves and our own fears through our stories of bloody strife because they’re really stories about ourselves, even when they’re about three young wizards. Those blissful powers underground – the Muses, if you will, or the powers that come from these stories, from our hearts [-] bless us. We are the children, just as we are Harry, Ron and Hermione. The second one especially felt like a farewell because it felt to me like J.K. acknowledging to us that she knows how we feel about this series – our series is dying. We’re holding its final tome in our hands, and that feels like a little death. But she reminds us that our friends may be said to die, but they are ever present and immortal. Our love for these characters and this world will never die. They are always with us, even when we close the last page of Book 7, because in a very literal sense we can return to them, recall them to life as it were, through our own trick of resurrection – opening the book once more. Hogwarts, she is saying, is over, and she knows that it breaks our hearts. But she reminds us, in the same way that Harry learns that death is nothing to be feared, that we don’t have to feel loss, because we will never lose the love we have for this world, for her and her work, and for these very real friends that we have made a world away. Reading that, when I first got this book, [it] made me feel so warm and lit up inside. I felt like whatever happened in this book (and these epigraphs also hinted to me that my suspicions were right, that Harry would die and return to conquer), IT WOULD BE OKAY. Rowling was there with her hand on my shoulder. And maybe, like Harry in the Mirror of Erised, I know that her hand isn’t really there. But she was letting us know, as readers and friends, that she was with us and that we could find her whenever we needed to. That set the tone of the entire book for me, and I went into it with a sense of hope and conviction that it would all turn out all right.”

Holly: Geez.

Rosie: “Hogwarts will always be there to welcome us home.”

Holly: Yes! That is literally what I’m sitting here thinking of, is that never-ending GIF that makes me cry.

Rosie: [laughs] I think these epigraphs are exactly the same as that speech that she did for that movie. I mean, it’s her way of telling us that it’s okay and that… yeah, like they said, it is a little death that the series is ending, but it’s okay. We’ll get through it together and that things may be a bit painful but that we can always come back to it. Actually, thinking about it, there are three moments within the Harry Potter fandom that have had this very similar feeling to me. So reading these epigraphs for the first time, listening to J.K. Rowling doing that speech for that final movie, and also, for any StarKid fans out there, I had the privilege of being able to watch the third Harry Potter musical live at LeakyCon in Chicago, and the moment that they sang “Everything Ends,” if anyone… are you guys StarKid fans? Have you heard that song?

Patrick: Oh, yeah.

Holly: Yup.

Alison: Yeah, no, I’ve seen them.

Rosie: So the moment that they sang “Everything Ends” is exactly the same atmosphere that these epigraphs and that speech gave me. So it’s such a sad, gorgeous, beautiful song that, again, said [that] it’s okay. Everything’s fine. It ends, but we’ve still got this fandom, we’ve still got each other, we’ve still got all of the gorgeous memories that this book has given us, and we have the strength to carry on together and face all the darkness that we’re about to read.

[Alison laughs]

Rosie: So yeah, just tapping into those feelings is just amazing that this fandom can actually feel that through so many different channels as well.

Holly: And as someone who came in so late to the fandom, the last three movies were probably the only real fan experiences that I got to have, but being a part of MuggleNet Fan Fiction and Harry Potter FanFiction and all of those different communities, and even in Dallas we have a big Harry Potter meet-up group, and there'[re] just so many different communities that you can get involved with in the fandom, and I think by this point, Joanne had realized that this was something much bigger than just books.

Rosie: Oh, yeah. She definitely knew by now.

Holly: And she’s always said that she knows that for her readers, this is something that’s huge to them. And so this is almost, like the comment said, her just standing behind everyone and giving them a pat on the back and saying, “It’s going to be all right in the end. I promise.”

Rosie: [laughs] It’s just that everyone else’s Mirror of Erised would have her producing another book from behind her back at a moment as well.

[Everybody laughs]

Alison: “Here, it’s okay. I’ll hand you a new one.”

[Rosie laughs]

Alison: It reminds me of going to the only midnight premiere I got to go to for the movies – [it] was the last one – and I remember just sitting there in the theater as it ended and the credits were rolling, and I just started crying, and I was like, “No, everyone, we have to stay until the very end credits.”

Rosie: Yeah. “You had to stay. There was no way you could go yet.”

Alison: “We’re not leaving!” Even though it was two in the morning. [laughs] But it’s nice to know, too, that it’s lasted so long, and there’s this idea that we can have over 150 episodes of a podcast going through these books again, and it’s still amazing and incredible, and we still all love it so much, so we’re here. It’s wonderful.

Holly: We’re still doing it.

Rosie: It hasn’t ended, all these years later!

[Alison, Holly, and Rosie laugh]

Alison: We may not have anything entirely new, but we can still go back, and that’s great.

Rosie: And isn’t it funny that we’re focusing so much on the end when we have barely started the book yet?

Alison: Yeah!

[Alison, Holly, and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: We open at the close, people!

Patrick: Yes, exactly. [laughs]

Rosie: Everything is always ring theory, and nothing hurts. Let’s carry on with the rest of the episode! Let’s go.

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Alison: Well, we want to thank you all for all of your comments this week. It was really hard to choose them. There were a lot of great conversations going on in the comments about everything from Snape’s loyalties, to the Malfoys, to Charity Burbage and what she was doing and why she was chosen by Voldemort to die, to more comments on peacock symbolism, to how timelines are working out at the beginning of this book. So thank you all so much for your comments, and you can head over to alohomora.mugglenet.com to go read all of those.

Patrick: All right. So now we’re getting to that wonderful conversation about Narcissa that we know we’re all going to enjoy so much. Of course, I’m talking about the responses from last week’s Podcast Question of the Week. So in case you don’t remember or need a refresher, here’s what the question was:

“Even though Voldemort targets Lucius and Draco with his taunts, the most striking description is of Narcissa, especially [since] she is described as the opposite of her sister Bellatrix, who longs to be near Voldemort. Is Narcissa the only person in the room really starting to consider distancing herself from the Dark Lord? Is this the start of her huge decision at the end of the book with Harry? What is going through Narcissa’s head as Voldemort acts this way in her own home?”

So I just want to point out here, Kat is the one who went through and read all of the comments, and she is the one [who] picked specific ones to point out. So I’ll read them, and then we’ll discuss a little bit, but I think she did a perfect job choosing different ways of looking at this. So the first comment we have here was from DoraNympha, and she says… or he, I suppose, but probably she.

“I think Narcissa is already in pure survival mode – she may have agreed with pure-blood supremacy, but now she only cares about getting her family to survive whatever happens. She knows by now that Voldemort will do whatever he wants to do regardless of what most advise him or ask him to do [or] not to do. So she’s just sitting there, […] trying not to do or say anything that might make things worse. Voldemort [i]s going to taunt the Malfoys and make them aware that they should be grateful and not complain anyway, so keeping abidingly silent will probably worsen the situation the least for them right now. Lucius still thinks [that] he has [the] power to talk to Voldemort about his affairs, which he doesn’t by now; he foolishly retained some of his Death Eater pride, so to speak. Draco is young and is seeing these things for the first time; of course he’ll be scared and unsure and falling out of his chair in freight [sic]. Even Bellatrix receives humiliation in turn, despite her words coming from genuine admiration for Voldemort. Narcissa, however, has this dignity about her and a bit of strategic wisdom that may get [her] family to survive this situation, which is all that counts for now. Let’s just survive this war. Let’s just survive [this] next battle. Let’s just survive this meeting.”

So this is basically saying that she’s sitting there thinking that it’s all in the moment. She’s not necessarily starting to doubt anything. She’s just sitting there thinking, “I’ve got to get through this. I’ve got to take care of my family at all costs.”

Alison: I think that it’s a very Slytherin thing to do. I know I’ve brought them up before, but there’s a Tumblr blog called Sorting Hat Chats that do really in-depth analyses of all the houses, and one of their things for Slytherins is that they’re very much protective in times of crisis of their inner circle. And so I think it’s very interesting that this is what Narcissa’s doing. It’s a very Slytherin thing where she’s saying, “My people are the people I’m caring about, and my people are my family at this moment of crisis.” So I think that very much shows some of the motivation for what she’s doing throughout this entire book. It’s her inner Slytherin backed against the wall saying, “We’re going to protect our people, and everyone else is just going to have to do their own thing.”

Patrick: Right.

Rosie: I think it’s interesting when they’re all so obsessed with bloodlines as well. But for Narcissa it’s not just about purity of blood, it’s about sanctity of blood as well.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: You protect your own blood, you protect your own family. The others may be pure-blood as well, and they may be connected as distant family, but her own little family unit, especially for the Malfoys, seems to be particularly loyal to each other.

Patrick: Mhm.

Rosie: It’s interesting then when we see Bellatrix encroaching in on that family unit, even more than Voldemort in the sense he’s taken charge of their home and everything. But when we see the Malfoys in the “Malfoy Manor” chapter later on, it’s definitely Bellatrix that seems to be invading. And this is Narcissa’s sister, so when we can see that that blood-tie is less than the tie between her and her husband and son, it really puts that into an interesting context. And I think it really does show Narcissa as the mother. She is the Lily equivalent…

Alison: Yeah.

Patrick: Mhm.

Rosie: … and she will do anything possible to protect her son just in the same way that Lily did, but possibly not to the extent where she is quite willing to die in the same way that Lily did. But then the threat level is different as well, so… yeah. It’s just interesting to compare the two and to keep thinking of those two in comparison to each other as we carry on to read.

Patrick: Right. And then something else to think about, too, is we have our second comment here – came from thequeerweasleycousin – and I really like this one a lot because it brings up some interesting points. They say,

“I think what has changed for her, and is new for the whole family, [are her and Lucius’s roles]. For all we know, Lucius was always busy visiting the minister, donating to St. Mungo’s… [and doing all those other things that he was always hated for doing throughout the series.] We saw him being important and in charge; Narcissa was always in the background. However, after he returns from Azkaban, Lucius seems to be broken. He has lost all his self-confidence, arrogance and influence, [and] he’s being laughed at and humiliated in his own house. He’s helpless and terrified and can’t protect his family anymore. Narcissa, on the other hand, had to take care of everything while Lucius was away [in prison]. For example, she met with Snape and made him take the [U]nbreakable [V]ow, and she’s been managing pretty well. And now Lucius is back, and she guides his decisions; she is in charge and decides what is best to do [while] […] tak[ing] care of both him and Draco. She is the only one of them who is able to retain her composure. The family structures have changed, and this might be the moment when they all three notice the dimensions of that change because they are under such immense pressure hosting the [D]eath [E]ater[s’] headquarters in their house.”

And I think this is absolutely spot-on.

Rosie: Mhm. I love that comment.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: It perfectly describes the situation and who Narcissa is as well. She’s not afraid to take on that role. She’s definitely not subservient, and she will do whatever she needs to do to keep her family on top.

Patrick: Right.

Alison: Yeah.

Patrick: But I think it’s also important to note, too… up until this point, Narcissa hasn’t really messed up for Voldemort. Draco, he messed up because he didn’t kill Dumbledore; Snape had to step in and do it. And Lucius, of course, he messes up all the time; he can’t do anything right.

[Alison laughs]

Patrick: So both presumably Draco and Lucius are just completely in fear of Voldemort because at any moment he could be like, “Hmm… nope, you’re dead.”

[Rosie laughs]

Patrick: And so, Narcissa, she’s sitting there without that particular fear on her shoulders. But it’s the fear not of Voldemort but the fear of losing Draco and Lucius that is keeping her there. And so I think it’s interesting to note the differences in the fear there. I don’t know if Lucius is sitting there going, “I hope Narcissa’s okay.” And Draco’s probably sitting there just thinking about himself as well. But Narcissa seems to be sitting there thinking about everything else other than herself – I’m sure she’s thinking about herself as well – but I’m just saying it’s a different type of fear and it’s interesting to note.

Rosie: Yes.

Holly: And I also always found it really interesting that basically she and Bellatrix are really the only women that we ever really see around the Death Eaters, too.

Alison: Yeah.

Patrick: Mhm.

Holly: And I almost wish…

Rosie: One of the Carrows as well.

Alison: Oh, yeah.

Holly: Yeah, and the Carrows. And for me, the Carrows almost seems like – because it’s that brother-sister relationship – but with Bellatrix and Narcissa, they married into this and almost seem like… biker gangs. You have the women who married into it and they kind of take care of the business around the gang and around the house or whatever, and it almost seemed like that kind of relationship. And I almost wish we had seen Crabbe and Goyle’s parents and their moms – or any of the other women in the Death Eater family, I guess is the best way to put it – because I wonder how those relationships would have been once all of this started happening. Because I feel like having seen Molly Weasley on the good side of things, she’s very involved in the Order of the Phoenix, and she’s an incredibly strong female the same way Narcissa is. And I almost wonder if they’re the odd cases out in the two worlds.

Rosie: It’s interesting that you say that they married into it, because I have often wondered whether Narcissa should count as a Death Eater. She’s sat at this table and…

Alison and Holly: Yeah.

Rosie: … she’s joining in this meeting, but she never strikes me as a Death Eater.

Patrick: Right.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: Bellatrix definitely is. She is an active member of the group and she does the Dark Lord’s bidding and all of that kind of stuff. But Narcissa, I think, married into it on the outskirts. She is the wife of a Death Eater and the mother of a Death Eater, but she is not [one] herself. And I think the next comment…

Patrick: Yes, exactly. I was going to say, let’s pause that for a second and I’ll read the comment, and then we’ll continue that because that’s interesting. So SnapesManyButtons said,

“I don’t think that Narcissa was thinking of distancing herself from Voldemort here, but rather that she was never completely devoted to him above her family. She was the only member of the inner circle to not take the Dark Mark, and that is interesting. How did she get out of taking it, and how is she allowed to be [there] at these meetings of the inner circle without one? Perhaps Voldemort knew how devoted she was to her husband, and later her son, and he knew he could control her through her fear for their safety.”

Which is what we were just talking about.

“Voldemort knows how close they are because he wants to punish Luci-…”

Ha! I was going to say Lucifer. Oh, boy.

[Alison and Holly laugh]

Alison: Woo! That changes things.

Patrick: [laughs]

“Voldemort knows how close they are because he wants to punish Lucius for his failures, so he uses Draco, knowing that would hurt him most. I think Narcissa’s family was more important to her all along, and I don’t think there was ever a time when she wouldn’t have lied to Voldemort if it meant saving her son.”

So this brings up some interesting points, kind of what we were just talking about, that she really isn’t a Death Eater.

Alison: No, I definitely agree with this. And I also think, especially with the fact that these Death Eaters and Voldemort have kind of invaded her home… it seems like the [Malfoys] are very traditional, old-fashioned, this is her sphere of influence, and they’ve kind of invaded her space. And so she is kind of fighting back a little bit by trying to infiltrate and resist what Voldemort’s trying to do in her home and with her family.

Patrick: Mhm. Well, and in terms of this sort of thinking here about her being there… or at least Voldemort kind of allowing her to be there, I wonder – and I don’t know if we’ve ever seen a specific example of this – but I’m pretty sure that if Voldemort is so set against Mudbloods, he would sort of be a pretty sexist jerk as well. Maybe in his mind Narcissa is there for… like you said, she’s there to take care of them and that’s the reason she’s there, and he doesn’t necessarily think she’s good enough or important enough to have the Dark Mark. So I don’t know.

Rosie: See…

Patrick: I can’t think of a specific instance of Voldemort being specifically horrible towards women, though I’m sure there were many.

[Patrick and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: I don’t think it’s necessarily Voldemort deliberately not giving her a Dark Mark because she’s a woman – obviously he does for Bellatrix and the Carrows. I think it has more to do with her role as a mother and Tom Riddle/Voldemort’s relationship with the idea of a mother.

Alison and Holly: Yeah.

Patrick: Ah, that’s a good point.

Rosie: I think he completely underestimates Narcissa…

Alison: Oh, yeah.

Rosie: … and just kind of overlooks her. If you do read through the chapter previously, he never talks to her directly. Whenever she’s referred to, she’s referred to as Lucius’s wife or Bellatrix’s sister. She’s there, she’s silent, but she’s never given her own person in Voldemort’s eyes. So I think the fact that she doesn’t have a Dark Mark is because she doesn’t need one because she doesn’t have her own personality in his view. She… in that way, she’s like a sleeper agent for Harry, almost.

Holly: Yeah.

Rosie: We’re just waiting for that triggering moment in the forest later on when she’s finally given that chance to take on some responsibility and completely betrays Voldemort in that moment because of who she is. She is privy to all of this information, and she is such a strong character in her own mind that she can take all of this information and process it and come up with a completely independent way of viewing it that is not swayed by Lucius and Draco’s actions, it’s not swayed by Voldemort’s actions, [and] it’s not swayed by her sister’s actions. She’s doing her own thing, and she knows what she’s going to do, and she’s just waiting for her moment, really. Yeah, to me, that makes her one of the most interesting characters in the series, because we know so little about her in terms of what is actually written about her, but when she does act, it’s so important and it’s so meaningful that we know who she is from such sparse information. Yeah, I really like Narcissa. [laughs]

Holly: Well, and I think it also has to do with Voldemort’s relationship with his own mom, because if you look at the way that he feels about his mom and how he views her as weak and as unworthy of a lot of his love and his feelings, I can see how that would translate into the second Narcissa had a child, he views her as unworthy of his trust and of his Dark Mark, of his highest level of communication and of a symbol of his inner circle, because he views her as weak in the same way he views his mother. And I think that that might also be the reason why he chooses to punish Draco and the Malfoy family over and over again, is because he sees them as that cohesive family unit that he never had. And they’re part of that ideal image of mother, son, and father that is at least together for the majority of the series, and Narcissa is never taken into the fold because he has that horrible relationship with his own mom. I mean, he never got to have that.

Rosie: We see it again when, in the moment of James and Lily’s death, Voldemort revels in killing James. He is the father, he is the strong, protective unit of the family, and he is dead within seconds because Voldemort views him as someone worthy of killing within seconds. Again, he underestimates Lily. He doesn’t really care about her. He might save her because Snape asked him to, that’s fine. She doesn’t mean anything at all to him. And he is quite blasÈ in killing her. He calls her a silly girl, I think, when we see that memory of him actually going and killing her. She is completely reduced to “silly girl, mother, not worth dealing with” in his mind, and I think, yeah, it’s just quite an interesting psychological view of Voldemort and Tom Riddle that he just has completely no respect for mothers. Mothers die. They are weak. They are supposed to be protective, but even when they are magical, they are not worth the magic that they have, they’re not worth anything, so they are nothing to him. And Narcissa uses that to her advantage.

Patrick: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s cool that we can sit here and talk about all of this stuff like this, but I remember [when] reading the books, I hated Narcissa with a burning passion.

[Rosie laughs]

Patrick: Because up to this point, we only knew several things about her: 1) she birthed and raised…

Holly: Draco Malfoy.

[Alison and Rosie laugh]

Patrick: … and the only time we’ve actually seen her in action was forcing Snape basically to say that he would kill Dumbledore. And so none of that stuff is good stuff.

Holly: And that one time in Madam Malkin’s.

Rosie: That’s very true. She… I guess I like her as an anti-hero. [laughs] Because she does some bad things, but she does it for the right reasons, in a very odd way. As far as you could say that they’re the right reasons. But yeah, she’s not a good person, but she is a strong person.

Patrick: Yeah. [She] and Cersei Lannister having tea together would be an interesting conversation to hear, for sure.

Rosie: Yeah. [laughs]

Patrick: So Kat wanted me to read one more thing here, and this is just a cool little quote here. This was sent in from Eileen Prince/Jones, and it says,

“I just realized [this] after reading all the comments here: [V]oldee [sic] lost some of his most loyal supporters because he threatened the ones they loved. If he had cared about love and anyone besides himself, which, let’s face it, if he was like that, then he wouldn’t be the [D]ark [L]ord… if he had any clue about love, then [S]nape wouldn’t be a double agent, [and N]arcissa would’ve told the truth in the end…[be]cause [S]nape and the [M]alfoys were, for all intents and purposes, with [V]oldee [sic] until they saw that […] their loved ones were expendable to him.”

So that’s just a cool little reminder about what we’re all here for and the reason we all love this so much and the reason that, because our hero is the epitome of love, our anti-hero – the villain – has to be the antithesis of love.

Alison: And I mean, it’s obviously one of the major themes of the series, is that love is really a powerful, powerful thing, and if you ignore what love does to people, then there is no way you’re going to be able to win, basically, that love is the thing that makes people do good things and win in the end.

Patrick: It’s true.

Rosie: Definitely. Ooh, I love these discussions. [laughs]

Patrick: So that’s all for our Podcast Question of the Week from last week. Stay tuned and wait on bated breath for the wonderful question we come up with at the end of this episode.

[Rosie laughs]

[Deathly Hallows Chapter 2 intro begins]

[Sound of a clock ticking]

Harry: Chapter 2.

[Sound of a clock ticking]

Harry: “In Memoriam.”

[Sound of a clock ticking]

[Deathly Hallows Chapter 2 intro ends]

Rosie: I can’t believe we’re on the last book. We’ve only got so many chapters left, and I’m already feeling all of those emotions over again.

Alison: I know.

Holly: Feel the feels.

Rosie: This book is going to be torture for me because I read it so quickly when it first came out that to sit here and have to go through it weekly is… it’s a very slow, torturous death, isn’t it? [laughs]

Alison: Yeah. Well, this is tied for my favorite book. And so we’re going through, and I’m just like, “All of the perfect things.” [laughs] Everything is just…

[Holly and Rosie laugh]

Alison: I can’t believe we’re doing this, and it’s… oh.

Rosie: All of this discussion and all of our attitudes, all of our emotions at the moment, are actually quite perfect for this chapter. Because this chapter is “In Memoriam,” and this sort of atmosphere that we’ve created – and hopefully you guys at home listening to this are feeling as well – is pretty much what Harry is feeling throughout this chapter that we are looking into this week. So to do a quick summary of what will happen in this chapter, it has been about a month since the end of the school year. So it’s a little more than that since the death of Albus Dumbledore. And Harry is at home at Privet Drive, and he’s clearing out his school trunk and packing a rucksack full of the most important items that he’ll need for his adventures in the year to come. These include books and potions, some Muggle clothing, his Invisibility Cloak, and touchingly, the photo album that Hagrid had once given him full of pictures of his family and friends. And I’d completely forgotten that until rereading this just now, that that little detail was in there. It would have been so lovely to have seen him take that out and look at it at some point later on. Just the fact that he thought that was so important enough to take with him is just… aww, poor Harry. Hedwig, however, is very unhappy because she has been kept in her cage pretty much for the entire month and hasn’t been allowed to go out and hunt because, obviously, Vernon Dursley has had enough of owls by this point.

[Alison and Patrick laugh]

Rosie: And it’s quite sad, actually, that there is no owl post chapter in this book. Obviously, we know why that is the case in upcoming chapters, but we will not speak of that now!

Alison: Oh!

[Alison and Patrick laugh]

Rosie: Because it’s too sad! But she is unhappy, and she’s kept in her cage, and Harry, likewise, is slightlty kept in his cage. But for once, he is not quite so angry at being kept where he is because he knows that he is about to leave. He is resigned and very pensive in his views, and his memories are leading him to rereading an obituary that has been placed in the Daily Prophet, which is a tribute to Albus Dumbledore. So to start off, the very first sentence in this chapter is only three words, and it was “Harry was bleeding,” which just…

Patrick: Ugh. Our hero is already fighting a losing battle.

Holly: He’s always bleeding.

Rosie: Straight away, he’s already injured. [laughs]

Holly: My favorite line Hermione ever says is, “Why is he always covered in blood?”

Rosie: And we already started out that way, and we don’t know why. We haven’t had any mention, really, of Harry yet and what he’d been doing since Dumbledore has died, but we now know that he is bleeding. And this time it’s self-inflicted slightly. He’s clutching his right hand and swearing because he has accidentally cut his hand on a significant item that he has found rooting around in his trunk. Special mention just very quickly to the cup of tea outside the door. We will look into that a little more later on in another chapter, but I love the cup of tea just for what it symbolizes. It’s – aww – so sweet. And also very British.

[Alison, Holly, and Patrick laugh]

Rosie: Cup of tea: perfect. Luckily, he doesn’t cut his foot on that as well.

[Patrick laughs]

Rosie: But he’s cut his hand because he has sliced it on the fragment of mirror that Sirius once gave him that is still sat in his trunk. He pauses his cleaning up to treat his wound before returning, and he actually lists a few significant items that he is taking out of his trunk. The items that he lists are the mirror itself, which gets so much attention here it seems really quite heavy-handed in foreshadowing in a way that Jo doesn’t often do. But obviously, it will crop up again so many times in this book that it is actually very significant, so she’s making sure we take note, and…

Patrick: Well, because we’ve probably forgotten about it at this point as well, so…

Rosie: True, yeah. We’ve already been told that it was really insignificant in the last book because we will never be able to Sirius through it again, so it has very little meaning to us at the moment, which is possible why it feels so heavy-handed. It’s like, “Okay, why are we focusing on this?” Because we know it doesn’t work, but obviously, that’s going to turn on its head. The other items that he is pulling out of his trunk are a “Support Cedric Diggory/Potter Stinks” badge…

[Patrick laughs]

Rosie: … the Sneakoscope that he once hid in some wooly old socks, which, again – actually just thinking about that now – that’s another significant thing that I will talk about in a second, and RAB’s locket. And all of these items were things we saw before very significant deaths in previous books. So here we have [an item] that represent Cedric: “Support Cedic Diggory/Potter Stinks.” He obviously dies at the end of that book. We have something that represents Sirius in the mirror. We’ve got RAB’s locket, which represents Dumbledore. The Sneakoscope I was going to mention as a hint, possibly, toward Moody in a few chapters: “Constant Vigilance.” We had that idea of Sneakoscopes and all of those things in Barty Crouch Jr’s office that would have been Moody’s office if it had been him. But now, thinking about the fact that he hid it in socks as well, we’ve got another foreshadowing there to someone else [who] dies in this book, which…

Patrick: Oh. [laughs]

Rosie: It could also represent Dobby.

Holly: It could!

Holly and Rosie: So sad.

Alison: It could also be… well, the Sneakoscope is most mentioned in the third book, and it’s usually when Peter Pettigrew is around. So it’s…

Rosie: That’s true, yeah. So it could represent Peter Pettigrew?

Alison: Yeah. It’s linked with also the truth about Harry’s parents’ deaths, that Pettigrew betrayed them, and that’s why they died.

[Holly sighs]

[Rosie laughs]

Alison: So it’s linked with him finding out the truth about that significant death as well.

Rosie: So the only significant… well… no, there'[re] more significant deaths. I was thinking that we don’t really have anything that represents Fred here, and we don’t really have anything that represents Lupin and Tonks. So they are the ones [who] are missing from this little sequence, but there are… you can read so much into just a very small list of items that if this chapter is “In Memoriam,” then we’ve already a little altar of memories that we are looking at to pay tribute to some dearly departed characters from the series and/or even some characters that are yet to depart but will be sorely missed.

Alison: The Sneakoscope connects to Fred because in the letter Ron writes to Harry, he says that it kept going off at dinner, and Bill didn’t notice that Fred and George [had] put beetles in his soup.

[Holly laughs]

Alison: That Sneakoscope just connects to everyone. [laughs]

Rosie: They’re all so sneaky, that’s why. [laughs]

Patrick: I was going to say, “I think that the omission of Fred and then Remus and Tonks’ deaths in this specific symbolism is because they are passive deaths that happen in the series.” Harry is not there. He does not see them. And I’m not sure if they would be deaths of such importance.

Rosie: He does see Fred’s.

Patrick: He sees Fred dead, but he doesn’t see Fred die, does he?

Alision: He sees him right before, yeah.

Rosie: He does. He’s in the corridor when it happens.

Patrick: Okay. All right.

Rosie: But I do think they are different from the other deaths. Everyone else dies on their own in a significant moment, whereas, as you were saying, the others are slightly more passive deaths, but they’re also collective deaths. They are deaths that happens in an actual battle in an actual war, whereas these are fallen heroes that happen throughout the book series rather than in this one final, climactic moment. So I think that does group them apart.

Patrick: Yeah. These deaths are ones that would definitely cause… I was actually thinking about this a couple [of] days ago: Which deaths in the book would be significant enough for us, as readers, to then be able to see Thestrals after experiencing them? And to me, it’s all these ones that we mentioned: Sirius, Dumbledore, all these things that we experience. Whereas Fred’s and Remus and Tonks’ and everybody [who] dies at the end… those wouldn’t be deaths that are… they’re significant for sure, but they affect everything in a more roundabout way rather than just… it doesn’t hit the point home to us, if that makes sense. I mean, yes, it’s sad that Fred dies, but…

Rosie: Aww, now I just thought that Percy Weasley is definitely seeing Thestrals after Fred dies.

Alison: Aww! No! [laughs]

Rosie: Okay, we need to move on. [laughs] Okay, so the most significant aspect of this chapter comes from the newspapers that Harry has piled up next to Hedwig’s cage where she is sad with her head under her wing, not looking at Harry. And that’s making me even more sad because it makes me think she never had freedom before she dies. We’ll never know…

[Alison laughs]

Rosie: Oh dear! This is such a bad chapter to focus on.

[Alison and Patrick laugh]

Rosie: Okay!

[Alison laughs]

Rosie: Not a death chapter! This is not a death chapter! [laughs] Sorry.

Holly: This is your thing, Rosie.

Rosie: It’s my thing. It’s really bad. [laughs]

[Patrick laughs]

Rosie: Okay! There is a pile of newspapers. There is one for every single day that Harry’s been at Privet Drive, and it’s really interesting, because we know exactly what date this scene is taking place. We can even tell you which day of the week it was. It was Saturday, July 27, 1997.

Patrick: Wow!

Rosie: We can be that specific, because we know that Harry will be coming of age in four days time. Which means he has to turn 17 on July 31, 1997. Which means we can track back four days and find out that this the 27th of July. So we can tell exactly what day we were on and what is happening, and we can trace the timeline back and forth from this moment, and it’s quite rare that actually happens within the books…

Patrick: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Rosie: … so I think it’s quite interesting that we can actually pin-point that particular moment. He is however, looking for a newspaper that is within the pile. So it’s obviously one that came out a few days ago. He’s looking for something on the front, which is mentioning the resignation of Charity Burbage, the Muggle Studies teacher at Hogwarts.

Patrick: I wonder what happened? [laughs]

Rosie: Which of course having just read the previous chapter we know that’s not true. And just that little bit of dramatic irony straight away. We already know that that’s bad, and we already know that Harry already probably knows as well that she hasn’t resigned…

Patrick: Uh-huh.

Rosie: … and that she’s dead. Yeah, not good… but within this edition of the Prophet, he actually looking for… the obituary of Albus Dumbledore, written by Elphias Doge – at which I have to say much memories, many sads, such friend, because of the meme that has cropped up since then – so…

[Alison laughs]

Rosie: Doge… there you go there’s a little bit of Doge dog there for you.

[Holly laughs]

Rosie: Many sads.

[Alison laughs]

Rosie: Let’s carry on.

Holly: Many sads.

Rosie: And I think it’s interesting that Dumbledore has mentioned friends occasionally throughout earlier Books. Obviously, we know he was very friendly with Nicholas Flamel, although Doge will tell us that Flamel is quite a bit older than Dumbledore and was already quite a significant figure whilst Dumbledore was still at school. But we know very little about his friendship with… well, any of these characters, and especially Doge before reading this article.

Patrick: Mhm.

Rosie: Elphias himself has popped up now and then throughout the books, most significantly in Order of the Phoenix. We see him as part of the Advance Guard that took Harry from Privet Drive to Grimmauld Place in that Book, and we also see him in a photograph that Mad-Eye Moody showed to Harry during that Book, which showed all the original Order of the Phoenix, of which Doge was one. So we know that he knew Harry’s parents, and we know that he is… considered very trustworthy and quite knowledgeable about Dumbledore and the things that have gone on in the past. So he is a figure that we can trust and respect, so on reading this article we are given no reason to distrust it at this moment. So we will look… in a little bit of depth at this article. Obviously it’s quite lengthy, so I’ll try to skip to the most important parts. The first one being that Dumbledore arrived at Hogwarts under the shadow of his father’s attack on some young Muggles. So he is… he’s already got notoriety on arriving at school, very similarly to Harry, but for a very different reason. So it’s for his parents, but for a very negative event rather than a very positive one. He is said to be friends with Doge because they are both slightly outcasted, but then that might be Doge’s view of it more than Dumbledore’s. It’ll be interesting to know what’s Dumbledore thought of that relationship. Obviously we’ll never know that. But I quite like that fact that Doge had Dragon Pox as well, just because it is a funny thing. It’s kind of like chicken pox.

Patrick: Yeah…

[Rosie laughs]

Patrick: … I think it’s interesting to know too, here, the year that they started. So I looked it up and it looks…

Rosie: Yeah.

Patrick: … likes the year Albus and Elphias started would have been 1899, I think.

Holly: Wow! [laughs]

Rosie: Wow!

Patrick: Which is interesting to keep that in mind because we know that Dumbledore was born in 1888.

Rosie: Sure. Because we know Dumbledore was actually…

Patrick: Yeah. Dumbledore was born in 1888, so 1899 would have been the year they started. And it’s interesting to keep that in mind as you continue to read all of that stuff… because in our heads were thinking of teenage Dumbledore and teenage Elphias, but really we need to be thinking of teenagers in the 1900. [laughs] So something to just keep in mind.

Alison: Yeah.

Holly: And also if you keep thinking about that timeline – I’m just thinking about world history – if you think about when they’re older, after they finished Hogwarts, would’ve been around the time World War 1 started and…

Alison: Yeah.

Holly: … the draft in England and…

Patrick: Uh-huh.

Holly: Oh my gosh. Just thinking about all the history of early Dumbledore.

[Rosie laughs]

Holly: I wonder if wizards were exempt from that.

Alison: I wonder if any of them, yeah.

Patrick: Well, am I making up? I thought that Grindelwald had something to do with World War I or World War II. Am I making that up?

Rosie: He is…

Alison: World War II.

Rosie: … to do with World War II…

Patrick: Okay.

Rosie: … so the main battle between … Dumbledore and Grindelwald is 1945…

Patrick: Oh, sure.

Rosie: … which obviously…

Holly: Yeah.

Rosie: … is a very significant moment in World War II, but we’ll get to that a little bit later on.

Patrick: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Rosie: Just to put some context into the 1890s, so… Doge and Dumbledore would’ve definitely joined Hogwarts in 1892. Some… things that people may know about… from the 1890s would be… there'[re] lots of wars going on… let’s look at literary people.

Patrick: Was that before… when was the Werewolf Registration Act? Was it still really common at that time to view… was the wizarding world still very split into Mudbloods and pure-bloods, and it was common to think of it that way? Or had the wizarding world already moved beyond that, and it was already considered a negative thing to think of pure-blood/Mudblood mentality?

Rosie: I don’t think… the Mudblood mentality thing was a significant issue until Grindelwald and Voldemort picked up on it – as far as I’m aware. I need to go and look on Pottermore a bit more about that…

Patrick: Well, it’s hard to tell any of that stuff specifically. But I mean…

Rosie: We get some information about that with the Malfoys’ backstory…

Patrick: Uh-huh.

Rosie: … which might tell us a bit more… but I don’t think that blood status was actually that important in wizarding history.

Patrick: Okay.

Rosie: Especially at Hogwarts. The founders supposedly weren’t that interested…

Patrick: Oh, that’s true.

Rosie: … in blood status.

Patrick: Yeah, that’s true. That’s a good point.

Rosie: Yeah, that significance isn’t really there. Sorry. Going back to the 1890s, so you’ve got Oscar Wilde, you’ve got Arthur Conan Doyle, publishing their works, Thomas Hardy, Rodger Kippling, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who published The Yellow Wallpaper – which if you haven’t read The Yellow Wallpaper, go and read it because it’s an amazing short story that’s very psychological and yeah, I love it. You got Dracula being written for the first time…

Patrick: Uh-huh.

Rosie: … you’ve got Joseph Conrad writing Heart of Darkness. It’s a…

Alison: Oh!

Rosie: … really important significant time period in literature, which is quite interesting. So we’ve got a lot of significant scientific discovery happening at the same time. So a lot of elements were discovered in the 1890s. It’s called the fin de siËcle – the turn of the century – in European history. It’s quite a significant moment, so for Dumbledore growing up at that time is a very perfect thing, when we’re thinking about his character.

Patrick: Uh-huh.

Rosie: You got people like Nicholas Tessler, and Thomas Edison around the same time, so…

Patrick: Yeah.

Rosie: … Dumbledore fits into those historical figures, but on the wizarding side. And it’s interesting as well that he and Doge were considering going on the grand tour, which I love the fact that the wizards would go on the grand tours as well. So it’s an old-fashioned gap year. You would graduate from your education and go off to see the world, and put your theoretical education into context, so Muggles would generally go from Dover in England, to France, onto Italy, before moving onto Germanic countries. Whereas the wizards seem to tour further abroad, so they would go to Egypt and Greece, and countries with a bit more mythological heritage, a bit more classical, a bit more… magical, really, in their history than perhaps some of these other countries that would be a bit more traditional.

Patrick: Uh-huh.

Rosie: And we’ve actually got an audioBoom to play, which is asking us a question just about this specific topic, so if we listen to that now.

[Audio]: Hey Alohomora!, it’s El or Ellen Dawn on the main site. I just finished reading Chapter 2 and it really got me thinking about an interesting What If? scenario. In reviewing Elphias Doge’s article, it struck me how significant it was if Dumbledore decided to stay home from his planned trip with Elphias after his mother died. At the time, he would have been 18 – that means Aberforth was 15 and Ariana was 14. It makes sense that he would stay home to take care of his younger siblings because he and the family were all quite young. What would he have happened if he had gone on this trip with Elphias and left Aberforth to take care of Ariana? Grindelwald and Aberforth and Dumbledore never would have fought, and so Ariana wouldn’t have died the way she did. Her death was entirely what shaped Dumbledore into the person he became and turned him away from the darker path of the greater good. If this didn’t happen, would he and Grindelwald have met at all? Would they have proceeded to some type of domination together if they did? Or would he have come to his senses in some other way or avoided the temptation altogether by not meeting Grindelwald? Would Dumbledore’s achievements have been more limited because of having to take care of his sister if she did live? Or perhaps the exact same thing would have happened as in the book, only later on? Overall, although it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for Dumbledore to have left for the trip with Elphias, I still find it an interesting concept to entertain. Let me know what you guys think. Cheers.

Rosie: So I think this is a really interesting question, mainly because I don’t think it would have changed much, in a very odd way. I think that if Dumbledore had set out on his grand tour, he would have been seeking to learn as much about the world as possible, and I think it would have actually led him into the path of Grindelwald even if it was in a different place. So because he misses out on the grand tour, he stays at home, and he encounters Grindelwald while staying at Godric’s Hollow. But I think that without Albus being in England, Grindelwald wouldn’t have stayed as long, and I think he would have gone back to Germany or… I can’t remember which country he actually comes from. I think it is just actually Germany. Might be Austria. And Dumbledore could have still encountered him in Grindelwald’s home country while on the grand tour, obviously. He went from France, Italy, to Germany and Germanic countries, so it would be interesting to know whether that would have had much of an effect on their relationship. And I still think that they are both wizards that were seeking enlightenment in that idea. And they would have been drawn to each other, and they are both quite notorious within their communities, so I think, almost like magnets, they would have been drawn to each other no matter where they were.

Alison: Well, I don’t know if they would have gotten as close, though, because Elphias would have been there. And so I feel like Dumbledore is very much the person where he’s… they might have interacted, but I don’t know if they [would have] quite become as close as they did. I believe it says somewhere that one of the reasons why they felt so drawn together – and especially Albus felt so drawn to Grindelwald – was that he was feeling so lonely and so lacking in peers.

Patrick: That’s a good point.

Alison: So I mean, they might have interacted, but I think it would have been tempered a little bit by Dumbledore’s loyalty to Elphias in that tour.

Rosie: I guess it depends on how close he actually is to Elphias, because I read a lot of the closeness within the obituary as Doge maybe playing it up a little bit.

Patrick: Embellishing.

Rosie: I’m not entirely sure that Albus would have felt the same way about Doge that Doge does about Albus. Does that make sense?

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: So in the same way that… I guess not exactly the same way, but I see Doge as more of a kind of Pettigrew of the group. He’s obviously not going to betray them or anything, but he’s a bit of a follower and a bit of a hanger-on rather than a leading mind of his own, especially… when Doge talks about Aberforth, he says that “living in Albus’s shadow cannot have been an altogether comfortable experience. Being continually outshone was an occupational hazard of being his friend and cannot have been any more pleasurable as a brother.” So Doge is feeling outshone as well. And I think that Albus would have sought the brightest minds, and I don’t really see that he would have been loyal to Doge above someone who could offer him enlightenment. So I think he may have even abandoned Doge at the point that he met Grindelwald, wherever it was that he met him. To continue this search for the greater good.

Patrick: Yeah. But I think at the end of the day, the thing to keep in mind is that there’s just no way that that would have ever happened because Dumbledore wasn’t going to leave his family. He couldn’t, so…

Rosie: Yes. With Kendra’s death, there’s no way.

Patrick: That’s the main… I mean, we need to keep that in mind. For sure.

Rosie: And it’s really interesting to think about that family. And to think about Aberforth, who was not academic, who solved his problems through aggression and had a thing about goats that we were never really given the full information about.

[Alison, Holly, and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: Which I just find that hilarious that Jo included that and that it’s always been a bit of a puzzle as to what he was exactly doing with those goats that got him arrested and why a goat would then become his Patronus, but never mind. [laughs] The family itself is so intriguing, and I really hope that I’m on the episode when we get to reading Rita’s book and we get a bit more information about Kendra later on because I find Kendra completely fascinating due to her heritage that’s hinted about, and I would love to know a bit more about Kendra on Pottermore. Please, Jo, please! What we do know about them from this article… and I’m going to stick very close to this article in a moment. I’m going to try not to strain to information that we find out later on because I don’t want to spoil our experience of that later on and have quite a repetitive discussion. So what we do know is that on the very moment that Albus and Doge were about to set out on this grand tour to seek enlightenment, to embrace the world and see what it has to offer them, Kendra dies. And we don’t know why; we don’t know anything about it. We just know that she dies the day before Albus was set to leave, and I think that is quite interesting, the fact that it happens the day before. Again, I can’t say too much because that will come into later discussions, but it makes you question about what triggered Ariana’s “fit,” for lack of a better word, at that moment.

Patrick: See, for me, this is interesting because my experience with the seventh book, I feel, is the same as a lot of people’s. I was so excited when it came out. I read the seventh book. I read it through real[ly] [quickly], and then when it was done… and I know a lot of people don’t necessarily feel this, but it felt a wonderful and great sense of closure. I felt like Jo did everything she needed to do, and I felt that a weight was lifted [off] my shoulder, and I felt, “It’s done. We’re done. We can move on.” Not that we necessarily want to or have to, but I felt that it was done. And so then I waited, like, two years before I read the book again, and I read it again, and so I’ve only read this book twice. I’ve read the other books multiple times, and I don’t… both of times I read this book, I always skim the Dumbledore family story, and it’s just not that super interesting to me, so that and a lot of things that have to do with this book… I’m really excited to go back through and see all the specific details and study them and learn more about the family because honestly, I don’t even remember what happened to Ariana, and I didn’t remember that Dumbledore’s mom’s name is Kendra.

[Holly and Rosie laugh]

Patrick: I don’t remember any of that stuff.

Rosie: You should.

Patrick: I remember general stuff, but that’s why it’s so interesting.

Rosie: Yeah, my well-reported issues with Dumbledore…

[Alison laughs]

Rosie: … made his family extremely interesting to me on reading this book. It was probably more the rereadings. I’ve read this book several times. But I have focused quite a bit on Kendra and Ariana. Interestingly, Ariana in particular… when in my fandom life… you guys may know me on Twitter as Roxy Black, and when the whole RAB mystery came about, the name I came up with for myself was Roxy Ariana Black, and I was RAB, and that was my fan fiction persona, whatever.

[Holly and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: But for Ariana to be the name of Dumbledore’s sister in this book was kind of like, “Oh my God, Jo knows who I am.”

[Alison, Holly, and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: Especially after having my first name, which is actually Rosalind, come up in the previous book as Rosalind Antigone Bungs – another RAB reference – I was like, “Oh my God, she actually does think I am RAB. This is really cool.” But for Ariana to appear here was one of those serendipitous moments where I was like, “Perfect. It’s brilliant.” But yeah, Kendra and Ariana are fascinating to me, and I would love to know as much about them as possible, but all that we are told here is that Kendra dies. We don’t know how. We don’t know why. We just know that it happens and that it stops Albus from leaving on this tour, so that he is suddenly saddled with his younger brother and sister and very little gold, actually, interestingly. We imagine that Dumbledore is from a rich heritage, or at least I did. I think the grandness of the Dumbledore of him all and the fact that his name is Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore… that just seems like a very posh name.

Alison: Yes. [laughs]

Rosie: And so I imagine them to be quite landed gentry.

Patrick: Mhm.

Holly: Coming from Godric’s Hollow, too…

Alison and Rosie: Yeah.

Holly: … probably doesn’t help that because… [unintelligible]

Rosie: Well then, we only find that out in this book… yeah. And they actually moved to Godric’s Hollow when Ariana was young, so I would like to know where they moved from, maybe a bit more about that. Sorry, I’m talking to myself around in circles because I can’t help but go into all the interesting details.

[Everyone laughs]

Rosie: Also the fact that he was going to go on a grand tour, that is very much a landed gentry thing for upper class English people to do in the late 1800s.

Holly: Though not when you can Apparate or use Portkeys.

Rosie: Exactly. So yeah, it’s interesting that wizards could have a different view.

Alison: I wonder if some of his father’s imprisonment and his mother’s death and trying to keep Ariana under wraps was one of the things that might have diminished their economic standing.

Rosie: Yeah, drain their resources.

Alison: Yeah. So I wonder if that is the reason that he… well, a contributing factor to him not being able to go and to being left in that situation.

Rosie: Yeah. And I think it’s also linking them a bit to maybe the Gaunts. They have this… I imagine that the Dumbledores would have had some blue-blood heritage and would have come down probably from one of the Peverell brothers. It just seems like they would be on that Godric’s Hollow path that the rest of them seem to be on. So to have them have a family secret and to have them dwindling away the money and all of that kind of thing, it just links them in my head.

Patrick: Mhm.

[Alison laughs]

Rosie: [unintelligible] … they seem to be the other side of coin.

Alison: Well, if you’ve seen the Internet lately, “Dumbledore is death” is the new theory going around. In “The Tale of the Three Brothers,” Dumbledore is the connection there.

Rosie: Oh, yes! Sure, I did see that, yeah. That would be interesting.

Alison: Yeah. Mhm.

Rosie: Because of his thing at King’s Cross. He definitely takes on that role. Yeah, interesting. We’ll get there right at the end of the book next year some time.

[Alison, Holly, and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: We need to remember that that was going around now…

[Alison laughs]

Rosie: … so that we can put that in the document somewhere. [laughs] But yes, so we know that Dumbledore has to stay at home and that Doge really insensitively just keeps writing to him…

Holly: Yeah.

Rosie: … describing all of the things that he’s missing. So he’s missing Chimeras in Greece, the experiments of Egyptian alchemists – which I love the idea and the fact that they’re probably experimenting on mummies and all of that kind of thing. And just linking it to Egyptian and Greek myth is just gorgeous, and I love Jo for doing that. Albus’s letters back to Doge tells little of day-to-day life, but just that he was immersed in whatever was going on. He didn’t really want to be writing about what was happening, so he was writing about more academic things, probably. And then we skip over probably a lot of detail about what was actually happening to Dumbledore. Doge probably is very significantly trying to leave out any information about Grindelwald as well. I’m sure he would have had some information about that that he is trying to hush-hush, because obviously he knows that Rita’s going to sensationalize it all later on. But we find that Ariana has been ill for a long time. And this is the first mention of Ariana and her poor health and that she actually dies whilst Doge is on this tour, so it can’t have been very long at all after Kendra’s death. And I believe that Albus, in that “King’s Cross” chapter that we just mentioned, says that he only knew Grindelwald for two months. It was a summer and things got out of hand, but that was a very intense relationship that they had that ultimately lead to the death of Ariana. And again, I’m going ahead – I’m really bad at this. We need to focus on what we’ve got here and that’s only that Ariana died.

Alison: I think the thing – especially about this book and this chapter – is everything is so interconnected…

Rosie: Yeah.

Alison: … in this book, that you can’t help but flash-forward, flashback, scramble everything, because it’s all so tightly knit that you start unraveling one…

Patrick: But at the same time though, this is the first time we’re getting literally any of this information.

Alison and Rosie: Yeah.

Patrick: I don’t think that we had ever heard anything about Dumbledore’s past.

Rosie: So we’ve got so much hindsight.

Patrick: Yeah, and Harry even says that at the end when he finishes reading… but that’s always been my thought. We never really knew that much about Dumbledore throughout the books, you know?

Rosie: Yeah.

Patrick: He started to slowly show us parts of his personality the more Harry got to know him, which honestly wasn’t even really until the fifth book. Then he started to slowly show us pieces of himself but he never talked about himself, as Harry mentions after he’s done reading this.

Alison: Yeah.

Patrick: And so we’re reading this and your eyes are glued to it like, “This is incredible, all this information right away.”

Rosie: Yeah.

Patrick: And she’s giving you all these little mysteries that you don’t even know are mysteries that are, like you said, so connected to everything else.

Rosie: And it’s really interesting that we get all this information kind of drip-fed to us throughout the book.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: It’s doesn’t happen once here at the beginning and then once at the end when we re-meet Dumbledore in King’s Cross. Although I think that moment is where we finally get to feel like we actually understand who Dumbledore is when he actually tells us from his own point of view. But we get snippets of information scattered throughout this story in quite a similar way that we came to understand who Tom Riddle and Voldemort was throughout Half-Blood Prince.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: We encounter aspects of Dumbledore and aspects of his history throughout this book that kind of jigsaws together a picture of who he was as a man and fills in the… almost like plot holes, but actually just holes in Harry’s information.

Alison: From a storytelling point of view, it’s a fascinating thing to be deconstructing this momentous figure of the kind of Hero’s Journey cycle of the mentor, who’s usually just this ethereal guide. And in this book all of a sudden, our Hero’s Journey mentor is just…

Rosie: It humanizes him.

Alison: Yeah. He’s just completely deconstructed to be…

Patrick: Exactly. What else Jo is doing, too is sowing the seeds of doubt within this chapter.

Alison: Uh-huh.

Patrick: Because we’re reading this and we’re like, “Man, Dumbledore really was a good guy.” And then you go a couple paragraphs down and it’s like, “Oh. Was he that good of a guy?” and she’s sowing the seeds.

Rosie: Yes, we’ll get to that in a moment. Shush! [laughs] Yes. So all we are told at this moment is that Ariana dies and that she had had poor health for a while and that her death had a profound affect on both brothers. Albus, on Doge’s return from the tour, is a changed man. He is much more reserved, he is more quiet, he’s probably a lot more like the Dumbledore that we’ve come to know, and he is totally estranged from his brother as well. So whatever closeness he may have had with any of his family has now been cut off. It’s almost as if these two deaths have resulted in him losing his entire family, and he has become another one of these orphan figures, even though his family… well, his brother still exists. It goes someway to explain why we have never heard about Aberforth previously… or at least, I think we’ve had one mention of his brother, but we’ve never really been interested in that before. And here we’ve got this idea of an estranged brother that we come to see as a mystery that we want to solve. And obviously that will be solved later on. We will find out a bit more about Aberforth and about his view of what happened.

Patrick: Mhm.

Rosie: And we see that he never really spoke of his parents or Ariana from then on and that his friends learned not to mention them. And then Doge goes, “Everyone else would talk about how amazing he is and that he was the best headmaster that Hogwarts has ever known…”

Patrick: Right, and that I take issue with.

Rosie: Yeah.

Patrick: That I would like to bring up.

Rosie: Go ahead.

Patrick: So, he says – and this is exactly what he says – “That he was the most inspiring and the best loved of all Hogwarts headmasters cannot be in question.” Can it?

Alison: Uhh…

[Rosie laughs]

Patrick: I mean, if you think about it, Dumbledore definitely was a wonderful wizard and respected by everybody, known to be extremely powerful, but I think about this in a couple of different ways here. One: is that saying that in Doge’s mind, he is more beloved and inspiring than the four original house guys that created Hogwarts? Because they were headmasters as well, right?

Alison: Well…

Rosie: As far as we know, yeah.

Patrick: Right. So that’s one thing that he’s saying there, which I feel like is… and I understand that he’s saying this about his friend who had just died and he’s embellishing a little bit, so first of all, I think that’s something to bring up. But then secondly, I was trying to think about, what did Dumbledore actually do for Hogwarts?

[Rosie laughs]

Patrick: Yes, we know he saved Hogwarts. He put up the wards, and I mean, he really didn’t even… he saved Hogwarts by preparing everybody to defend at the end of this book, but someone [whom] I would consider to be maybe even more inspiring or beloved would be the Headmaster [who] brought plumbing to Hogwarts, for example.

[Alison, Holly, and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: We’ve got that mysterious bathroom that leads to the Chamber of Secrets that… sinks didn’t exist, and yet somehow the passageway is in a sink. It’s very confusing. Never mind. [laughs] Magical worlds obviously had plumbing far before the Muggle world. [laughs]

Holly: Was he the longest-serving Headmaster?

Patrick: That’s an interesting question.

Rosie: I don’t think we have that information. If Jo ever writes Hogwarts, A History, it would be very interesting, and I would love to have that added to our little collection of magical books that she’s written. Maybe she’ll do that to continue the Fantastic Beasts movie lot: Hogwarts, A History.

Patrick: And I have one other question. I’ve been thinking about this: Was it Dumbledore [who] introduced Muggle Studies to the Hogwarts curriculum?

Holly: Maybe.

Patrick: I don’t know if we know that for sure, but it would make sense, wouldn’t it?

Alison: I doubt it.

Rosie: I’m not sure. He’s definitely a Muggle supporter. But I don’t think he would be the only one.

Patrick: Yeah, I mean, it was just something I had wondered.

Rosie: I mean, [from] what we know about Dippet, he seems an all right guy. I don’t think he would be particularly against Muggle Studies. Muggles and wizards [co]exist for centuries before we get to Harry getting to Hogwarts. The International Statute of Secrecy, I think, happens… I think Dumbledore is one of the people [who] helps set it up? Hang on a second. “Dumbledore’s triumph, and its consequences for the wizarding world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy…” So no, he’s not one of the ones who sets it up, but he is as significant as the set-up of it. So I think you would need Muggle Studies as soon as…

Patrick: It was set up.

Rosie: … Muggles and wizards separated.

Patrick: Yup, that’s true. That makes sense.

Rosie: So I think it would’ve been more of a historical class.

Alison: Would you, though? Because if they had… it’s almost a generational gap thing. It’s going to take some time for people who used to… what’s the word I’m looking for?

Rosie: For the distance to happen enough that needs to be studied, yeah. I do think that that would’ve happened long before Dumbledore becomes Headmaster. The Secrecy thing happened quite a long time ago.

Patrick: Yeah. I think I agree. Yeah, I was just trying to think of something that he specifically brought to it other than just his clout and his name, because as far as we know…

Rosie: [laughs] But that’s the thing, because we only really get the youngest generation’s view, and we have heard from so many people throughout the seven books that Dumbledore is an amazing figure. The very first thing that we hear about him from Hagrid is that he’s the greatest wizard of his age and that no one would dare attack Hogwarts with Dumbledore in charge and that Hogwarts is the safest place next to Gringotts because Dumbledore is in charge and that he’ll be looking after people. And I think we can’t forget that the wizarding world at large knows about Dumbledore and knows about his actions a lot more than we do. So they know about his battle with Grindelwald and how he was… again, let’s look for the quote [about] the battle: “Those who witnessed it have written of the terror and awe they felt as they watched these two extraordinary wizards do battle.” So this is a highly significant moment. I mean, Dumbledore is Churchill to these people. He is the great hero of World War II in the wizarding world. And so he’s also set up the Order of the Phoenix and fought Voldemort the very first time. Obviously, he didn’t have the grand battle that he [had] with Grindelwald at the end of that fight, because Voldemort ultimately has his downfall because of Harry and because of the events of Godric’s Hollow, but he’s still the leading figure against Voldemort within that first war. Which we know very little about. And it would be so interesting to know more about that first war. Yeah, sorry. Yeah. [laughs]

Patrick: I see what you’re saying, but at the same time, none of that directly connects to Hogwarts at all. That’s all wonderful stuff that he does in his life. And you’re right.

Rosie: It’s all Dumbledore and the fact that he’s there.

Patrick: The way it’s worded, “most inspiring and best loved,” but to me, when I read that, I connected that to Hogwarts, and everything you’re talking about is stuff that has nothing to do really with Hogwarts. He did all that wonderful stuff, [and] then he went to Hogwarts, and so I just feel like that’s… the first sentence of that says, “Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain,” but I feel like that’s a vain statement in saying that he was the most beloved Hogwarts Headmaster when none of his belovedness came from being Headmaster, if that makes sense. And I know that this is just talking in circles, but yeah.

Holly: I looked it up. The Statue of Secrecy was 1692, so I wish Dumbledore was that old because that would be awesome.

Rosie: Two centuries more.

Holly: But I see where both of you guys are coming from. I think that for me, when I read that, it was Doge bragging, but I think when you’re looking at comparing… going back to the founders, if you think about the way that Hogwarts was set up and you think about the founders as Headmasters, they’re almost like the Heads of Houses would be, referring to them with their own Houses. So people who would have looked up to them would’ve been the people in their original groups from their Houses. Yeah, they would’ve been awesome for founding a school, and everyone would’ve been looking up to them, but the people who would’ve been really like, ìOh my God, Rowena Ravenclawî would’ve been the original people who studied under her as Ravenclaws. And then from now to back then would’ve been everyone just looking at them as the founders. They’re not really seen as the Headmasters. But I think pulling, like Rosie said, when you look at the accomplishments of people like chancellors of schools and deans of the university, they get their jobs because of the things that they do outside of their school, and they gain all of this knowledge to lead the schools based on things that they’ve done before they get that position. And even the work that Dumbledore did as a professor at Hogwarts before he was the Headmaster, I think, gave him credit [from] students to get him to that position.

Patrick: Yeah, that’s a good point.

Holly: And having the experience within the wizarding world, like finding the 12 uses for dragon’s blood or being a part of the Wizengamot and being a respected member of the wizarding society, I think, gives him the credit not necessarily even from the students but [also] from parents and from members of the Ministry of Magic that other people in that position, especially when you have things like Voldemort or his followers after he was defeated the first time still around… you have to have someone like that [who] has enough credit, and for him to not have that would’ve been really hard. And I think saying he’s the most beloved and the most cherished, or whatever the exact quote was – I don’t remember – probably wasn’t much of an exaggeration to people who were reading it and thinking about all of the things that he did to get there and all of the stuff he did while he was in the position.

Patrick: That’s a good point. I mean, I…

Rosie: I think the important thing as well is that he chose the school. So he didn’t become Minister of Magic. He didn’t become a politician. He didn’t become a great figure or celebrity or hero. He chose to be Headmaster.

Holly: He didn’t go to Durmstrang.

Rosie: Yeah, he didn’t go to Durmstrang. He didn’t do anything like that. He wanted to be an educator, and that was why he is so beloved at the school, because he did all of these amazing things and then turned all of that to the education of children and to furthering the education of the wizarding race, and that is why he is, as far as we know, the only person ever to be buried at Hogwarts. He gets this grand tomb. I mean, the founders don’t have tombs at Hogwarts that we know about. He is given this status above others because of his devotion to the school, and I think that is… he’s not proud or vain. And we have to remember that this is Doge’s account of him, but I think he is a significant Headmaster because of the amount of greatness that he did outside that he could then bring to help other students, and he did so in a way that was interesting.

Holly: And how many years he was there.

Alison: Well, there’s also the fact that he was doing all of these things, and he almost connected Hogwarts through this work to the rest of the wizarding world, so Hogwarts almost became, not the centerpiece, but it’s… you get the sense that it’s this connecting source to the rest of the wizarding world because Dumbledore is working with students [who] are going into the Ministry and into the Wizengoamot and all these organizations that all come back to Dumbledore, basically.

Rosie: Yeah, the Ministry isn’t the wizarding world’s Camelot. Hogwarts is Camelot, and Dumbledore is King Arthur.

Patrick: Right, and I fully admit that I was fishing a little bit for all of this, but…

[Alison, Holly, and Rosie laugh]

Patrick: And I think maybe the thing that I take more issue with is that Elphias would say this, but I would also, as a closing statement, just like to say there were 1800 years of Hogwarts before Dumbledore went there, so there could potentially be other people [who] would give him a run for his money.

Holly: [Whom] we want to see, we want to know about.

Rosie: Yeah, and it would be so interesting to find out that information.

Holly: Hogwarts, A History!

Rosie: Jo, there is so much more you could tell us. [laughs] But anyway, we have reached the end of the article that Doge has written, and he says [that] he was always working “for the greater good and to his last hour, as willing to stretch out a hand to a small boy with dragon pox as he was on the day that I met him.” And that closing statement I find to be the most interesting because, from what we now know of Dumbledore and from what we know of his final moments, it doesn’t quite match.

Holly: Really?

Rosie: So he’s meant to be this figure [who] always is going to be selfless and always going to be seeking the underdog and helping the person [who] needs the most help, but for me and my Dumbledore issues, the fact that he would lead Harry to that tower and know what [was] going to happen and keep him there to watch and not be able to do anything shows that. It’s not quite a perfect description of him.

Alison: I see the moment of this reaching out to the person most in need is when he is talking to Draco. I mean, even in his last moments, he’s reaching out and saying, “You can come back, Draco; we can help you. I know you’re frightened and you don’t want to do this, so let us help you. Even though you’re here to kill me.”

Rosie: And obviously, Doge doesn’t know his final moments, and we do. And we will find out Snape’s point of view of that scene later on as well, which will bring it closer, again, to this. But yeah, it’s just a slightly troublesome perfect view of Dumbledore at this moment that doesn’t quite fit with my problems. [laughs]

Patrick: I want to say one thing before we move on from this specific obituary here. Just a fun little exercise that our listeners can try to do. Replace all of the mentions of Albus Dumbledore in this with Harry and think of it from either Ron or Hermione writing this. And a lot of it works.

Rosie: Oh, don’t do that.

Alison: No! No, no, no! [laughs]

Patrick: No, I’m serious.

Holly: That’s horrible!

Patrick: Hey, whatever. I’m just saying.

[Holly laughs]

Patrick: If you do that, and you read through this, a ton of it makes sense. And there are things that, actually, you start to see a lot of patterns that you wouldn’t see if you didn’t think of it that way, and so I’m just going to say – we don’t need to talk about that now – it’s something interesting that I encourage everybody to do. See if you can find some parallels in there that maybe you didn’t think of before.

Alison: Oh, but that’s painful!

Rosie: But I think that relies on Doge actually being Dumbledore’s best friend, and I’m not convinced that he actually is.

Patrick: Right. I’m just saying [that] it’s an interesting exercise.

Rosie: Yeah. I think if I were looking for a truer comparison, I’m trying to think who[m] I would picture in Harry’s world [who] would be Doge’s equivalent, and I would think…

Patrick: Maybe someone like Neville or someone.

Alison: No, not even Neville.

Holly: Colin Creevey?

Rosie: Possibly Neville, but I think, yeah, I agree, probably Colin Creevey. You need a slightly hanger-on [who] doesn’t have the closeness, [who] knows the secrets. And I think even Neville knows some more of Harry’s secrets and more of Harry’s truth than Doge knows of Dumbledore’s.

Patrick: That’s true.

Rosie: So yeah, someone like Colin Creevey or maybe, I don’t know, Seamus or Dean Thomas or one of those outer ring of Gryffindors [who] has a closeness to Harry but not quite to the extent of Ron and Hermione. Ron and Hermione would be able to tell a more honest point of view than… and I think I would note also that Harry wouldn’t want quite such a glowing review [as] this is of Dumbledore. Yeah. But it’s an interesting thing to do. Harry closes this article and really starts to think about how little he actually knew about Dumbledore. And I think this is a true sign that Harry is actually coming of age. So we know that he’s four days away from his 17th birthday, and this is the real moment that he’s stopping being a child. He’s able to look at the world more complexly, and he’s finally realized that teachers have a life outside of school and that there is more to life than the world of Hogwarts and the walls of the school and the education that he has encountered from previous years. He can really start to think about the world in general that he is actually trying to save and not just what it means for him personally. And I think that’s a really significant moment. And I think it is that moment where your childhood heroes suddenly become real people, and it’s quite a difficult thing to experience, and you’re never really quite sure what to do with that information and it takes a little bit of a while to process.

Patrick: Mhm.

Rosie: And Harry still doesn’t have all the information that he needs to be able to do it properly, and he obviously feels like he has missed his chance to ask Dumbledore himself. And that’s why the drip feeling of the rest of the information becomes so important.

Patrick: Well, I was just going to say… and this maybe has to deal a little bit more with the book as a whole, but specifically relating to this chapter, like you were saying, Harry in this chapter…

[Rosie laughs]

Patrick: When we first meet him, he’s not having a good day.

[Rosie laughs]

Patrick: He’s cut himself, he’s bleeding, he steps on a cup; he’s just frustrated with life.

Rosie: Mhm.

Patrick: And when I actually reread this, I actually took this to be much more of a… the way he was feeling and acting in Book 5: very angsty Harry, fidgety. He’s just very frustrated with how everything is going.

Rosie: That’s interesting.

Patrick: And reading it that way and looking at it like this and then thinking in my head, “This is the seventh book,” and when you’re reading this… if you’re growing up with Harry, which everyone who reads these books grows up with Harry to an extent, whatever age you start reading, but for me personally while I was reading these books, I was about 17 or 18 when this book came out, and you don’t really know this at that time but what Jo was doing here was she was basically completing the growing up of Harry.

Rosie: Mhm.

Patrick: In the first six books Harry goes to Hogwarts, he goes to his castle, he goes to his escape, he goes to his place, and that’s the way children think of you go to school and you have fun at school, you don’t have any responsibilities, and everything revolves around that place and what you do involving that place. And then you go to college and it’s sort of the same thing. But then you go out into the real world and you realize that the real world sucks.

[Alison and Holly laugh]

Patrick: And everybody is basically just a giant jerk, and the whole world has its head so far up its butt that you can’t make heads or tails out of anything. And that’s to me what this book symbolizes.

Rosie: Yeah.

Patrick: Because I know Eric has mentioned in the past that he doesn’t like this book as much because Hogwarts isn’t really in it and it doesn’t feel the same as the other books. What I’m saying is it’s that way on purpose.

Rosie: Mhm.

Patrick: Because life is different when you grow up, and this is Harry growing up. And Jo is telling you, metaphorically and also literally in the story with Harry, you can’t just do what you want; you have responsibilities. And Harry’s responsibilities change him in such a way that it’s his decision to continue to be a good person, whereas most people go out in the world become jaded and continue to evolve the negativity out there, that gives more credit to Harry in saying that he legitimately was a good person who always thought of everybody else before himself. And so I just kind of wanted to mention that, and I think it has to do with this Harry growing up thing for sure.

Rosie: Definitely.

Alison and Holly: Yeah.

Holly: And that’s always… that kind of reminds me… I know Rosie mentioned earlier Starkid, the “Going Back to Hogwarts” song where he lists all of the things.

Rosie: Yeah.

Holly: Magical feasts, goblins, and ghouls, and all the things about Hogwarts that make it magical and make it what we love.

Patrick: Mhm.

Holly: And I think that’s part of the reason why it’s so jarring to be in the real world because asides from the defensive spells, from the Apparating to save your life, from basically cloaking when they’re in the Ministry and at Gringotts, there is very little “fun” magic in the seventh book.

Patrick: Mhm. Yeah.

Rosie: Mhm.

Holly: And I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s so jarring for people, for this book is… you start to realize that it’s that transition, like you were saying, from the protectiveness of Hogwarts and from the fun of being in high school or even in college to going into the real world and not being able to only use that education, or only use those skills for fun stuff because now it’s time to actually protect yourself and use it in the real world.

Patrick: Mhm. Yeah. Yeah.

Holly: And going back to what, Rosie, what you were saying about growing up and realizing, finding out all these things about Dumbledore, it’s almost like you realize teachers don’t live in their school. I know at Hogwarts they actually do, but when you graduate you almost become an adult in teachers’ eyes, and it’s almost like forming a personal relationship with the teacher after you graduate, in a way, him reading this article and finding out all this information about a former teacher for him.

Patrick: Mhm.

Holly: But I think the thing that is so frustrating to Harry and to readers is that he can’t ask Dumbledore any questions.

Rosie: Yeah.

Holly: He can’t make Dumbledore answer for the things that he’s done to Harry over the last seven years.

Rosie: Yeah.

Holly: And he can’t make Dumbledore answer for the things that he’s done to Harry over the last seven years. And for us, as readers, getting a chance to have that closure, we won’t get it. We won’t be able to hear the story from Dumbledore’s own mouth. And so, we’re just collecting information as we get it and making our own assumptions in the same way that Harry is. And I think that is what comes across as so frustrating. And I know that last week Eric mentioned – I think it was Eric – was talking about how… I think he said it was almost like the Doc and Marty relationship… [laughs]

Patrick: Yeah.

[Rosie laughs]

Holly: … from Back to the Future.

Rosie: Yeah.

Holly: But, for them, they have that established relationship and just assumed they know everything about each other. But for students and teachers, they really… Dumbledore and Harry really don’t have that relationship…

Rosie: No.

Holly: … and they haven’t had those conversations before. And Harry hasn’t had a chance to talk to him about his motivations and will never get that chance to ask him why he was frozen…

Patrick: Mhm.

Holly: … when he… and he had to watch Dumbledore fall off that tower. And he’ll never get that opportunity to do those kinds of things. And that, I think, is the most frustrating thing for him.

Rosie: Mhm.

Patrick: Yeah. A lot of times, I think we do. We project what we know about a lot of the characters in this book upon reading and reflecting.

Rosie: Yeah.

Patrick: Through the first couple of books, I was kind of getting mad at everybody when they were like, “Oh, Harry and Dumbledore are so close.”

[Alison laughs]

Patrick: No, they weren’t. They didn’t really…

[Rosie laughs]

Patrick: … get to know each other until…

Holly: No, they are not.

Patrick: … the fifth book, really. I mean, a little bit in the seventh book. But Harry doesn’t even know where his office is I think until Book 2 or 3. And even then, he just talks a little bit and he looks up at him like, “Oh, you’re this unobtainable god-like creature that runs the school.” And it wasn’t until way later in the series that we actually start to see a relationship form between them. And so you have to keep that in mind…

Rosie: Mhm.

Patrick: … when you’re reading this new and we get all this new information about him. Now, we can start to actually formulate an accurate idea of what Dumbledore’s life was and what his relationship with Harry actually meant.

Alison: Yup.

Rosie: And it’s interesting that we’re thinking about this accurate idea because the next thing Harry does is look for another…

[Patrick laughs]

Rosie: … Prophet article…

Alison: Ugh!

Rosie: … which just happens to be an interview with Rita Skeeter.

Patrick: Ugh.

[Rosie laughs]

Alison: Blagh.

Rosie: She… yeah. Accuracy… hmm, not quite her specialty.

Alison: Not her… yeah!

Rosie: But in some ways, she is actually, perhaps, more accurate than Doge because she isn’t afraid of the scandal of Dumbledore’s life. And, obviously, she takes it to an extreme and we don’t actually get a lot of information within this little bit of an extract. She is very quick to discredit Doge’s obituary that we just read, which – as you were saying earlier, Patrick – does kind of plant that seed of doubt in our mind.

Patrick: Mhm.

Rosie: That perhaps… we’ve just been given all of this information about Dumbledore but, perhaps, it’s not actually as trustworthy as we were led to believe.

Patrick: Exactly.

Rosie: And to know that there are these hints of scandals going on throughout his life; that there is something a bit dodgey going on with Grindelwald that we need to know a bit more about, that Aberforth is the tip of the dung heap…

[Partick laughs]

Rosie: … that the Muggle-maiming …

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: … father is something to look into a bit more as well. Yeah, we’ve got all of these mysteries, which we just thought were solved because we’ve finally been getting some information about them but, in fact, we’re told that we only know half the story. And we, obviously, don’t trust Rita but we understand that there’s going to be some truth behind the sensationalism. So we need to know what she wants to say in order to be able to kind of scale it back and actually discover the layers of truth within that… and, obviously, we’ll do that later on. But to have those little hints here at the beginning kind of makes us think, “Okay, so we’re going to get this information later on. We know there’s a book coming out soon and we know that we can… we’re probably going to encounter that book later.” And, for then, they ask to turn on the relationship between Dumbledore and Harry and for it to turn slightly sinister in it’s idea…

Patrick: Mhm.

Rosie: … is what finally sets Harry off and does bring him back a bit further to that same reaction he had in Book 5.

Patrick: Right.

Rosie: And it’s interesting Patrick that you said you thought this was quite similar to Harry’s, you know, angsty Harry phase…

Patrick: Mhm.

Rosie: … because I was reading this chapter and thinking about how different it was from his reaction after Sirius had died. He only knew Sirius for a couple of years, whereas he’s gotten to know Dumbledore a bit more than that. But, obviously, the closeness of their relationship was very different. So it makes sense for Harry to have had a more emotional reaction when he was younger about Sirius, who was definitely a father figure, whereas Dumbledore is much more of a mentor. And for that relationship to come into question, and for him to realize that he doesn’t actually know that much about this person who is meant to be his mentor, I think, is quite disturbing for him. And the fact that they were meant to be so close, and that Rita is suggesting that they were very close and that it was slightly unhealthy, and for that to actually physically be lies, for Harry not to know enough about Dumbledore for it to have been true – not that we want it to be sinister or anything – is as disturbing itself.

Patrick: Sure.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: And of course this leads Harry to have a little bit of a mini storm. He shouts through his window, scares his neighbor, and ends up having so much angsty energy that he just sits down on his bed and starts fiddling with the jagged piece of mirror again. And I think it’s the first time that we’ve ever seen this sense of almost anxious energy in Harry. We’ve seen him being trapped and boiling up and trying to escape, but it’s the first time that he has chosen to sit down and control himself.

Patrick: That’s a good point, yeah.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: So again, that’s going into a more adult way of viewing things, but to try [to] get that energy out through fiddling with the mirror is quite an interesting way to do it. And of course, in that mirror, he sees this bright blue eye, or at least a flash of brightest blue. He does kind of compute it; he says, “No, it can’t be real.”ù He can’t have seen what he’d just seen. He had to have imagined it. He even looks around to try and make sure that there’s nothing blue behind him, and then looks back and only sees his own eye. But he is determined and he knows that he did just see the bright blue eye of Albus Dumbledore through this mirror.

Patrick: That was it for me. At that point, I was like, “Confirmed. Dumbledore still alive.”ù

[Alison and Holly laugh]

Rosie: Yeah. And I think so many people had that as well.

Patrick: Oh, absolutely. You had to, reading that, because you just read a whole chapter about Dumbledore, and then all of a sudden he’s like, “Oop, I saw Dumbledore’s eye.”ù

Alison: Yeah, and you went, “Wait. Wait, what? No!”ù

Patrick: You’re like, “Oh, man. This is it. He’s coming back. Knight on a white horse; he’s saving the day.”ù And… no.

Rosie: And the fact that we don’t really know of anything about other potential characters who it could be yet. We haven’t been given any descriptions of them. So we have no other options for who it could’ve been, other than Harry’s wishful thinking. And we know it’s magic; we know anything can happen, so we’ve got this glimmer of hope. This discussion has literally just in the last ten minutes got me thinking about Corinthians in the Bible. The passage, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, and I understood as a child. I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.” The next part of that actually goes, “For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.” Or the different translation is, “For now, we see through a glass darkly.” But this idea of growing up, putting away childish things, and then seeing the world in a mirror and then looking out a window and seeing it face to face; that just seems like a perfect summary of this chapter in the end.

Patrick: Yeah, that’s awesome. Absolutely.

Rosie: I have no idea if Jo ever thought about that, but that one little phrase just seems so perfectly to summarize this chapter that I felt the need to put it in here at the end. And I rarely do that. I don’t really like connecting religion to Harry Potter all that much. But it just seemed to work perfectly here.

Patrick: Yeah, definitely.

Rosie: So Harry is putting away his childish things and will soon be departing the Dursleys, and that is the end of this chapter.

Patrick: One more thing.

Rosie: Okay.

Patrick: On a slightly less ominous note…

[Rosie laughs]

Patrick: … I noticed the last paragraph of the interview with Rita.

Rosie: Yes.

Patrick: It says, “Well, I don’t want to say too much. It’s all in the book.”

Rosie: That’s true! [laughs] It’s all in the book!

Patrick: But then she says, “Potter later gave evidence against Severus Snape, a man [against] whom he has a notorious grudge. Is everything as it seems? That is for the wizarding community to decide once they’ve read my book.”ù And I read that and I was like, “You could take it this way: That is Jo sending us a message as the readers.”ù

Rosie: Yeah.

Patrick: You’re on the precipice looking down and you’re about to jump into this book, and you’ve got all these questions; questions about Snape, now all these questions about Dumbledore, questions about Harry and what he has to do and how’s going to be able to get through it, and she’s just saying, “Sit down, put your feet up, lay back, and jump.”

Alison: Yeah.

Patrick: And I just thought that was really cool.

Rosie: Gosh, I love these books. [laughs]

Holly: That was one of my favorite things about Rita, and how Jo always… she doesn’t do anything without intention.

Patrick: Right.

Rosie: Yeah.

Holly: And especially since she wrote Rita into Book 4, and that was about the time when everything really started taking off. If you look at how much things have changed, and how the conversations are different between Book 4, Book 5, and into really all of the different times we see Rita, it looks almost like a transition between she’s paparazzi, and then now she knows that if she doesn’t deal with Harry in a respectful way – because they’ve got dirt on her – they can hold her thumb down. And then now that Harry has blown up, and she realizes that Harry and Dumbledore have this relationship, and that she’s got more dirt on Harry now than really Harry and Hermione might have on her, she can actually say that kind of stuff. It’s really Jo’s commentary on paparazzi.

Rosie: Yeah.

Holly: But that’s my favorite part about when she writes about Rita.

Patrick: Mhm.

Alison: Yeah.

Holly: It’s just seeing the ways that she writes it, and how it’s such a great commentary on media, and that was part of what urged me to audition and send in a request to be on the show is because I love the way that she uses journalism in Harry Potter…

Rosie: Yeah.

Holly: … and how it sways public reaction, and especially in this article. One of my favorite quotes in this chapter is when basically Rita says, “Me and Harry are BFFLs.”

[Everyone laughs]

Alison: Yes! Oh, it makes me so angry!

Holly: It’s totally infuriating. I was literally sitting in a restaurant rereading that, and I burst out laughing and almost spit water on the table because I completely forgot that happened.

[Patrick and Rosie laugh]

Alison: Ugh.

Rosie: And Harry is just completely fuming at that point as well.

Alison and Holly: Yeah.

Rosie: We’re totally with Harry in all of that. All of these revelations that Harry is having, we are having along with him. And the fact that we know Rita and we know what she’s like… it doesn’t really mean anything because we know that she does ground it in truth. She may get her information from underhanded tactics, but she always tries to ground her information in truth. She sensationalizes it, she makes it over the top, all of that kind of thing.

Patrick: Mhm.

Holly: That’s totally yellow journalism.

Rosie: Yeah, but we do trust that she has some element of understanding, and that she’s not just fictionalizing everything. So for Rita to say it, we know that there must be some aspect of information that we need to go and explore. Yeah, even if it’s completely lies that she’s completely best friends with Harry.

[Everyone laughs]

Rosie: Yeah, it was just really good.

Patrick: And I think it would be a crime for us to skip one other thing from this chapter, too, and it’s the other mystery that Jo sets up here: That Rita had a… how did she word it? “A source most journalists would swap their wands for.”

Alison and Rosie: Yes.

Patrick: So something else to put out there to get the reader thinking.

Rosie: We need to know who that source is, and of course we do find out who it is later on. But that in itself is quite a sad story, so we’ll come to that at Christmas.

Holly: Sad day.

[Everyone laughs]

Rosie: Yeah, Christmas is the time for sad stories, isn’t it? And it’s bound to be Christmas by the time we get to that chapter. [laughs]

Holly: Which is ironic because that chapter takes place during Christmas.

Alison: Yeah.

Rosie: Yeah, exactly. We seem to be quite good at getting our timings right for these things.

Holly: Yeah.

Rosie: When term starts in this book will probably be when term starts here in England, so…

Alison and Holly: Yeah.

Rosie: We’re working at the right kind of moment to be starting this book, which is really good.

Patrick: We planned it all that way from the beginning, though. Don’t you remember?

[Alison, Holly, and Rosie laugh]

Holly: Three years ago.

Patrick: Yeah. Okay, so we’ve reached the end of the chapter, which means it’s time for our Podcast Question of the Week. We talked a lot this week about everything in general, but we talked specifically about the big contents of this chapter, which are the two articles. So here is our question regarding those: “Harry reacts to each article in very different ways. One presents interesting details and mysteries about Dumbledore that Harry wishes he had known. The other suggests that there were darker details that could paint him in a more sinister light. As readers, this is the first time we really get this information about Dumbledore as well. So who are we supposed to believe? What information can we trust, and what should we believe? Or is there someone out there who could write us a better, more trustworthy obituary that would leave Harry feeling less upset, and would leave a more accurate well-rounded perspective of the true Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore?”ù So go to the website, let us know what you think, and we’ll talk about it next week.

Rosie: And all that remains is for us to thank our fabulous guest. Holly, I hope you’ve had an amazing time on the show.

Holly: Yes, it’s been awesome. Thank you so much for having me.

Patrick: Holly, do you have a podcast or something you wanted to plug at all?

Rosie: Your blog?

Holly: Oh. Well, yeah, in addition to [the] Potter fandom I also blog at pearlsandpuns.com. I am a podcaster, but right now I guest on my friend’s podcast, The Stephen Perkins Show, and we’re working on getting one started for Pearls and Puns, so keep an eye out for that one.

Patrick: Okay.

Holly: But you can find me on Twitter at @HollyCNorris.

Patrick: Awesome. Yes, thank you very much for being on the show.

Holly: Thank you.

Patrick: I would like to say on my behalf, since the last time I was on – which was Episode 74 or something like that, way back in the day with Rosie and Laura, actually – I have started my own podcast with my friend Chris and it is a music podcast, all about music. So if you are interested in that and you would like to check that out, please go to www.musicroompodcast.com. We’re called The Music Room, so musicroompodcast.com. And I highly recommend you guys check out the Halloween episode we did last year. And the next episode we are going to be doing – we are going to be posting over the next couple of weeks – we have a very special thing. This is a world premiere announcement, right here on Alohomora!: We are going to be recording and broadcasting from space. So look forward to that.

Alison and Rosie: Ooh!

Rosie: That’s very intriguing. We will have to look out for it.

Alison: Well, if you would like to be on a show, like Holly and Patrick to an extent, [laughs] make sure you go on the “Be on the Show” page at alohomora.mugglenet.com. If you have a basic set of headphones with a microphone, you are all set. No fancy equipment needed. And while you’re on the website, make sure you download one of our ringtones for free.

Patrick: Apart from that, if you’d like to contact us you can do so at Twitter; just use the handle at @AlohomoraMN. You can talk to us through Facebook – our page is facebook.com/openthedumbledore. We are also on Tumblr at mnalohomorapodcast, or – and this is a really cool thing here – you could give us a call, with those phones, the thing you use that you have in your pocket that you type on all the time. You could give us a call. So our phone number is 206-GO-ALBUS. That’s 206-462-5287. Or if you’re really cool, you can send us an audioBoom clip, so just go to alohomora.mugglenet.com. Right there we’ve got a link to the site and all you need is a microphone. Leave us a message. Try to keep it under sixty seconds or I am going to have to edit a lot more than I need to, and you don’t want to make me do that, do you? Come on. So go do that, send us something; we love to play messages from you guys on the show. I personally love inserting that stuff into the show; I think it makes the show more dynamic and it allows your voices to be heard without all the pressure of coming on and doing as awesome as Holly did today.

[Holly and Rosie laugh]

Patrick: So you don’t want to live under that shadow, but you can always leave us a message.

Alison: Yes.

Rosie: And in fact, we’ve actually got an audioBoom widget right on our main front page, so all you need to do is go to alohomora.mugglenet.com and look for this little message that says… I think it says something like, “Give us a hoot,”ù and there’s a little record symbol on the right-hand side of the page. So just look for that and you can leave us a message right there.

Patrick: Yup. Do it.

Rosie: [laughs] We’ve also got our store, of course, so we have our house shirts, the Desk!Pig, Mandrake Liberation Front, Minerva is my homegirl, and so many more. Although we’ve been saying that for a really long time and not added anything new so we definitely need to have some new things for this final book. So we will be trying to update our store with some new merchandise sometime soon. So go and check it out and see what you could be getting ready for starting school again this September.

Alison: And make sure you also check out our smartphone app on that fancy little phone. It’s currently available – as far as we know – across seven continents. Let’s change it up a little bit. [laughs] Across seven continents; Antarctica might be…

Rosie: You’re ruining people’s drinking games, Alison. [laughs]

Alison: It’s a new one!

Alison and Rosie: Yay! [laugh]

Alison: Prices will vary. It includes things like transcripts, bloopers, alternate endings, host vlogs, and so much more. There’s a lot of really good stuff on there, so go ahead and check it out.

Rosie: And all that remains for us to say is that I’m Rosie Morris.

[Show music begins]

Patrick: I’m Patrick Musilek.

Alison: And I’m Alison Siggard. Thank you for listening to Episode 152 of Alohomora!

Rosie: When I was a child, I spoke as a child, and now I must open the Dumbledore.

[Show music continues]

Rosie: Oh, Michael, what have you got for us today?

Patrick: It’ll be interesting to see what he does for this.

[Alison laughs]

Rosie: The intro to last week’s episode was just gorgeous.

Patrick: Yes.

Alison: Oh, it gave me chills.

Patrick: When I put that in there, I was like, “Man, Michael, you’re the man.”ù And I was like, “How long should I wait for the song to start?”

[Rosie laughs]

Patrick: “I’ll crossfade them a little bit so that just as it ends you hear the thing,” and I was like, “This is so great.” He did such a good job with that. It’s perfect.

Rosie: Mhm.

Patrick: I thought it was the perfect way to start the book.

Alison: Oh, it was phenomenal. It started playing and I was like, “Gonna cry, gonna cry…”

[Rosie laughs]

Alison: “… gonna cry… I’m not gonna cry.” [laughs]

Patrick: I know. Seriously I was the same exact way. That’s great.

[Prolonged silence]

Patrick: That’s this whole book for us, though. That’s going to be the whole book…

Alison: Yeah.

Patrick: … and it’s just wonderful.

Holly: Pretty much.

Rosie: I know.

Alison: Yeah.

Patrick: I’m so excited for it.

Rosie: I’m going to have to kind of sit there on every single episode waiting for what Michael is going to do and it’s like, “Yup, that’s totally perfect. Now I’m going to cry.” [laughs]

Alison: I forget how hauntingly beautiful “Lily’s Theme” is until I hear it every time and then I’m like, “Oh, this music. This music is just… I can’t handle how wonderful it is and…” anyway.

Patrick: Yeah.