Transcript – Episode 205

[Show music begins]

Kat Miller: This is Episode 205 of Alohomora! for October 29, 2016.

[Show music continues]

Kat: Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Alohomora! I am Kat Miller.

Eleanor Harrison-Dengate: I’m Eleanor Harrison-Dengate.

Rosie Morris: And I’m Rosie Morris. And it is my pleasure to introduce to you the second of the two new voices that you will hear tonight, our fabulous guest Amy.

Amy Pitts: Hello!

Rosie: Would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself, Amy?

Amy: Yeah, I would love to. I am a middle school choir director in Oklahoma. I make Harry Potter references as [often] as possible.

[Eleanor laughs]

Amy: I’m a standard-generation “Harry Potter, love of my life.” [I] started when I was in second grade. My mom read them to me, and I started just reading without her permission under the covers at night. [laughs]

Kat: Nice.

Amy: I run my class like Hogwarts. So all of the kids are in a House based on their folder color. And I actually… The orchestra teacher does this too. She’s the one [who] started it, and she actually has the kids in Houses like Bach, Beethoven, all the composers, instead of Slytherin/Gryffindor. But the kids earn points for answering questions, being leaders, and lose points for talking out of turn. It’s a big problem in sixth grade.

[Amy and Eleanor laugh]

Amy:I started listening to Alohomora! last year around December, and I actually started with Book 4 because that’s all that was available on iTunes, and then I went back and listened to [Book] 1, [Book] 2, and [Book] 3 recently. So I’m finally getting the “Is it alive?” references and the…

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Amy: … Mandrake Liberation Front jokes, and I’m like, “Oh, this is so cool. I get it now!”

[Kat laughs]

Amy: So yeah. Oh, my House is… It’s kind of funny. My very first Sorting, I was a Hatstall between Ravenclaw and Slytherin, and then my second Sorting, I was a Ravenclaw, and then I recently just went through a big life change – my father passed away in April, and I moved, and I’d gotten a new job – and since all of those… I don’t know. My personality has changed, so I was just curious. I got another email [laughs] and took the test again, and I was Sorted into Hufflepuff, so…

Rosie: Woo!

Amy: … I think that’s…

Eleanor and Kat: Wow.

Rosie: Welcome to the House. [laughs]

Kat: I love hearing stories like that. I’m very sorry for your loss. That is a very hard thing for anyone to go through. But I like hearing stories about when people go through a big life change like that and how they can feel their own personality really changing, and then that’s reflected in how they get Sorted. I think that is so interesting, and we definitely have an episode on Sortings coming up soon, so yeah, everyone should stay tuned for that. We’re really excited about it. [laughs]

Rosie: Speaking of episodes, you will have noticed by now, hopefully, that Alohomora! is actually alternating weeks with MuggleNet’s other podcast, SpeakBeasty. You’ve heard us talk about it loads and loads of times before, and Eleanor, our other voice that you can hear tonight, is actually one of the hosts over on SpeakBeasty, and we’re very glad to have her with us tonight. Eleanor, would you like to introduce yourself to our listeners a little bit as well?

Eleanor: Hi, Alohomora! listeners. This is very exciting for me, being on SpeakBeasty. Yeah, it’s just really exciting actually – strangely enough – to talk about Harry Potter as opposed to Fantastic Beasts.

[Eleanor and Kat laugh]

Eleanor: Yeah, it’s really cool. So yeah, thanks so much for the opportunity.

Kat: Absolutely. Thank you for filling in for Michael at pretty much the last minute and for getting up at, quite literally, the crack of dawn…

Eleanor: [laughs] It’s not that bad.

Kat: … to run the show with us. It’s – what? – 6:30 in the morning for you right now in Sydney?

Eleanor: No, it’s 7:30 now. When you push the time an hour up, it’s around 7:30.

Kat: Okay, wonderful. Good to know. Good, good, good. So this week, we are really excited about something that’s happened upon us beautifully. The 35th anniversary of when Lord Voldemort attempted to murder Harry when he was a child is this Halloween. So in two days from now, October 31, is going to be that monumentous [sic] occasion. I don’t know if it’s something really to be celebrated, but we’re going to talk about it today.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Kat: And I think it’s going to be really wonderful and a lot of fun. We obviously touched on it when we got to those certain chapters throughout the seven novels, but I personally think that it deserves some exploring. There [are] lots of fun things to talk about. So I do want to say that we will not be discussing Cursed Child‘s version of events.

[Amy and Eleanor laugh]

Kat: As a whole, the hosts disagree on whether that is or isn’t canon.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: So we’ve decided to just leave that out…

[Eleanor laughs]

Kat: … since we can’t come to a conclusion about it among ourselves.

Rosie: Or at least give it its own discussion rather than including it in this main discussion of the Harry Potter story novels’ version of it.

Kat: Yeah, maybe, or just pretend it doesn’t exist. That’s good too.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: That’s fine.

Amy: We’ll be walking around outside our house. That makes sense.

[Amy and Rosie laugh]

Kat: No. No, no, no. So yes, this examination will be focused on the seven novels today. And Happy Halloween, by the way, everyone.

Rosie: Happy Halloween! [laughs]

Amy Happy Halloween!

Rosie: And a very special Happy Halloween as well to our Patreon sponsor for today’s episode, Ayesha Hawkins. Thank you so much for doing your bit to help keep Alohomora! running. You guys as well can become a sponsor for as little as $1 a month over on patreon.com/alohomora. We’re always picking out exclusive little tidbits and other things over there on Patreon, so please do check it out, and thank you again, Ayesha, for helping us today.

Kat: Thank you!

Amy: Yay, thank you!

Rosie: Thank you!

Kat: You’re the best!

Rosie: Yay!

Kat: I would give you some chocolate, but I’m on the Internet, and I can’t, so…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Take some digital figurative chocolate. Enjoy that. And I guess, speaking of treats, we will jump into this special Halloween episode. And as usual, this thing that we’re trying out here, we’re going to talk a little bit about our overall impression for this topic and then also the specific things that we’re thinking about we want to focus on within the topic. So this is the first one, besides the women of Harry Potter discussion and the character analyses that we’ve done, that really pulls a lot of information from several different books. So this is a bit of trial-and-error for us, listeners, so please bear with us as we trip our way through this episode. But I think it’s going to be really good. I think it’s going to good. I’ve done hours and hours and hours of research. There’s lots of good stuff in here. But what specifically do you guys want to explore or get out of this discussion today?

Amy: Well, whenever I saw that we were going to have this discussion about Halloween, I thought, “Why is Halloween such a big deal in the wizarding world? There’s always a Halloween feast, that kind of stuff. Is it because there’s a veil between the living and the dead or the magical and non-magical that’s thinner on Halloween?” So I just wanted to explore that.

Rosie: Mine was particularly this Halloween and this particular moment and whether it really changes the wizarding world as much as we think it does. Obviously, it puts an end to the very first wizarding war in terms of Voldemort’s rise to power and then that fall. But if this particular scenario hadn’t happened, how much would the world be different? It guess it’s slightly relevant to Cursed Child, but we’re not going to discuss the actual Cursed Child storyline.

Kat: [laughs] Right. And mine sort of plays off of yours because mine is about one person’s very poor judgment and rash decisions, which is Sirius. Everybody who listens knows that I am not a giant fan of the character, and I feel as though there are some really good opportunities in this discussion to really breakdown Sirius’s judgment and why he’s not really the best father figure for Harry after all.

Rosie: And I will be defending him a lot.

[Amy, Eleanor, and Rosie laugh]

Kat: Good, that’s what I wanted to hear.

Eleanor: And mine connects back to Rosie’s as well, really, in that it’s what would’ve happened if it had been Neville and not Harry? How would that have changed the wizarding world?

Kat: It could’ve been. Who knows? Somebody needs to write that story.

Eleanor: What, Neville and not Harry? I think it has been written.

[Amy laughs]

Kat: I’m sure it’s a fan fic somewhere…

Rosie: There are many. [laughs]

Kat: I don’t know. Maybe Jo can write that as a ninth, tenth, and eleventh story…

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: … or something ridiculous like that. Okay, so…

Rosie: The wizarding multiverse.

Kat: [laughs] Yeah, exactly.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: So Harry is just over a year old at this point. October 31, 1981. And I figure we’ll go through the timeline here, just to set the scene and all of that. And I want to give a really big shout-out to our friend Steve Vander Ark and his entire staff of the Harry Potter Lexicon because, as I mentioned before, these events take place, and we get tidbits of information over the entire seven books. And they have a fantastic resource there, which helped me really research between them all really easily without having seven giant hardback books sitting on my lap, flipping through pages. So giant shout-out to Steve and his entire time at the Lexicon. They just launched the new one, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, definitely go over there and do that. So everything with this started out on approximately October 24, 1981. So about a week before the Potters were attacked is when Dumbledore suggests they put the Fidelius Charm on their house and on them and all of that. And Dumbledore is the one who facilitates that, if nobody knew that.

Amy: Was it that short? They were only under it for a week? I’ve always wondered about this, because I thought they were visiting Bagshot, Pettigrew was visiting, Harry got that present from Sirius on his birthday… Was it only just a week?

Kat: That’s what the Lexicon says.

Eleanor: But did it happen straight after Dumbledore found out about Trelawney’s prophecy?

Kat: Yes. Pretty soon after, yes.

Eleanor: Okay, so that would have been… So there are things that happened in very quick succession. Also, I would assume that because they hadn’t done it beforehand, it just would have been that they thought they were in as much mortal peril as anyone else who was fighting. And then they got the prophecy, I guess, and then that’s when they decided to use the Fidelius Charm.

Amy: But wouldn’t she have given the prophecy before term started for school? It would have been before September 1… I don’t know.

Kat: Well, she wasn’t a teacher at Hogwarts. She became a teacher because of the prophecy, and Dumbledore wanted to protect her if I remember correctly. Is that correct?

Rosie: Yeah, the prophecy happened before Harry was born. So it happened in 1980…

Amy: Oh, that’s right!

Rosie: … because it [said] someone will be born as the seventh month dies. So it had to have been done before July 1980, so they definitely weren’t under the Fidelius Charm for the whole time period.

Kat: Oh, right. And then I believe that Snape found out Lily was pregnant, and since he had heard the prophecy and related it to Voldemort, he put two and two together [and] went to Dumbledore and said, “Protect her.” And then that’s when all of these events got set into place, I believe.

Eleanor: Oh. They must have been fighting Voldemort then in the intervening time, and they couldn’t [do] the Fidelius Charm.

Kat: Yeah. I think so.

Rosie: It must have been something like the Fidelius Charm happened after the third time he defied them or something – or they’d fight him because of that clause in the prophecy and… yeah, I don’t know.

Kat: I really wish we knew what…

Rosie: It’s a little bit complicated and not very clear. [laughs]

Kat: As [are] most things in the Harry Potter universe.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: But I do wish that we knew what those three things were, how they defied him.

Amy: Yeah. That would be so cool.

Eleanor: I always hoped that one of them was when they were at school and they were Head Boy and Head Girl, and that was their catalyst for their relationship. Anyway, that’s my personal headcanon.

Kat: [laughs] I like it. No, I like it, and I’ve always wondered if this moment could be considered a time that they defied Voldemort, because technically, they did. Obviously, not the third time but counted as a time… either way. So about a week later from the Fidelius Charm being placed on the Potters and their home – around midnight on October 31 – Lord Voldemort goes to Godric’s Hollow and attempts to murder Harry after he was tipped off by Pettigrew. And we know what happens there. So Voldemort comes into the house. James doesn’t have his wand, he gets Avada Kedavra‘d, [and] he’s dead. [Voldemort] goes upstairs. He gives Lily a chance to step aside and let him have Harry, and of course, she does not. And he murders her and then attempts to murder Harry, and we know what happens there, which we will talk about significantly a lot later in the episode. [laughs] And from that moment on, Dumbledore knows immediately what happened due to the Fidelius Charm, and then Jo has also said other charms and magic that he has put on the home so that he could be notified immediately if something happened. At that moment, Dumbledore sends Hagrid to Godric’s Hollow to pick up Harry, and Sirius meets him there with the motorbike and gives Hagrid the motorbike in order to take Harry away from the house.

Amy: How did Sirius know to come?

Kat: Because he went to check on Peter, and Peter was gone – and I believe Jo says he had a bad feeling about it – so he went over to the Potters’ house and found the destruction.

Eleanor: But also, there was no sign of a fight, and so he found that really weird. I think that was one of the big ones.

Kat: Oh, right, right. Pettigrew was gone, and nothing was set affray or anything. Right. Okay. So then Sirius in that moment realizes that Pettigrew gave them up, and he goes to find Pettigrew, and of course, as we know also, he ended up being framed for murder in that moment of 14 Muggles, I believe, and was carted off to Azkaban by Cornelius Fudge without a trial, which, again, we will talk about those decisions later. The next morning, November 1, McGonagall runs into Hagrid, who does not have Harry with him – so remember that, the first thing – and McGonagall goes to wait at Privet Drive, where Dumbledore will be arriving later that evening, which Hagrid tells her. And she doesn’t know what he is doing there or why he’s going to be bringing Harry there or what the significance of the address is. She just knows that she wants to see Dumbledore, so she goes to wait for him. She does not have confirmation yet that James and Lily are dead. Hagrid doesn’t tell her, but she hears about it through the whispering as she explains in that first chapter. Later that evening, Hagrid is late and brings Harry to Dumbledore on Privet Drive, and sometime after that – after Harry is left, perhaps while all this is going on – Pettigrew retrieves Lord Voldemort’s wand from the wreckage of Godric’s Hollow. Where he puts it or where he keeps it for the next decade and a half…

Amy: It’s at the Burrow somewhere. [laughs]

Kat: Oh my gosh, I hope not – but probably. But who knows? We don’t know where it is. Jo has never said where he’s hidden it before, so… And I guess since we’re on the topic of Pettigrew, we should just continue talking about him because he definitely is a big catalyst for a lot of these events, along with his fellow Marauder Sirius Black. And it has been said many times before that we know why Sirius convinced the Potters to use Pettigrew, but why did he do that? We know that he said that he thinks he would be an obvious choice and that they would go after him, but isn’t there enough evidence over the years to show that Sirius is a stronger, more trustworthy person than Pettigrew? It seems…

Eleanor: Well, he was trying to protect against the mole, right? Or the rat, I guess, as it were.

[Kat laughs]

Eleanor: And he thought the rat was Remus, and Remus thought the rat was Sirius, so Sirius was thinking about protecting the Potters from Remus. Not so much, I think, from the whole Lord Voldemort/Death Eaters thing. I think if you take it from that perspective… I don’t know. I think that makes that relationship sound a lot more interesting to me. There’s definitely more… I don’t know. Aaugh! There’s so… The Marauders are so exciting. Every time I think about them, I’m like, what kind of relationship did Remus and Sirius have? All the Wolfstar people probably go crazy when they think about this stuff [and] are like, “That’s just so interesting.” Yeah, I don’t know. I just think that’s a fascinating idea that they’ve decided to go with, that J.K. Rowling decided that Sirius thought Peter would be able to… Maybe he thought… I’m not even sure. I don’t know where I’m going with this! I don’t know. Maybe he thought that Remus would capitulate to Remus but Peter wouldn’t or something? I don’t know. Anyway, sorry.

Rosie: I think they all underestimated Peter. They all considered him to be the one that no one thought that they would go to. And that’s why they thought in that case, “Let’s go to him, and we’ll trust him in this case.” Because he was this weak link, no one would think that they would trust him.

Eleanor: I think the Peter thing is obvious, but why not Sirius?

Amy: Well, what if Sirius was worried about…?

Rosie: Because Sirius would be the most obvious. Sirius is the godfather of the situation. He’s the one [who] would be the best friend, so if you’re going to trust anyone, you would go to Sirius. So Sirius would then be the one at risk, and he doesn’t want to be tortured into revealing his best friend’s situation and that kind of thing. Or he thinks that he would be able to withstand that, and if he doesn’t know it – because he’s not the Secret-Keeper – he literally wouldn’t be able to, so he could withstand the torture and not be able to tell the secret.

Amy: I wonder if Veriteserum works. What if they Imperius‘d him to take Veritaserum, if that would reveal a Fidelius Charm.

Rosie: I think that would probably be… You would be able to reveal the fact that there is a Fidelius Charm, but you wouldn’t be able to reveal what that secret is.

Kat: Yeah. That makes sense. And I guess I’ve always wondered, too, why have a Secret-Keeper at all? I know Dumbledore has said… Has Dumbledore said why it wasn’t him? I vaguely remember something in my head about that.

Amy: Yeah, I remember he said that he offered to be it, but they insisted. Because James was all proud of his friends and would never want to admit that one of his friends was his betrayer, so he put his faith in a friend instead of in Dumbledore. Why wouldn’t James just be the Secret-Keeper? That makes sense.

Eleanor: Also, with J.K. Rowling, she obviously had so many biblical allusions in Harry Potter. I mean, obviously, someone has to be the Judas.

Kat: Right. Would James even be eligible to be the Secret-Keeper? I guess he would be because…

Rosie: I don’t think so if you’re one of the one’s [who] are part of the secret.

Kat: No, but he would be because Bill is a Secret-Keeper for Shell Cottage.

Amy: And isn’t…? Well, Dumbledore is the Secret-Keeper for Grimmauld Place.

Rosie: I guess he would be able to, then. I guess it depends whether they were keeping just the place secret or themselves secret. If they were part of the secret, then…

Eleanor: Yes. That sounds right.

Rosie: … it might be slightly more complicated. [laughs]

Kat: Right. Are Fidelius Charms placed on just dwellings or on people?

Rosie: That’s what I meant. If the secret is the dwelling and the people inside of it, then he wouldn’t be able to be his own secret.

Kat: I’m not sure you can use a Fidelius Charm on a person.

Rosie: I don’t know. I mean, if it effectively hides people from sight without knowledge, so Grimmauld Place only appears [on] that street if you know that Grimmauld Place should be there because you’ve been told by the Secret-Keeper, then, essentially, if it works on people, you should only be able to see that person if you know that that person is there because you’ve been told that they are there. So you could essentially walk down the street and not be seen by anyone because they don’t know you exist. Unless they know your names…

Kat: I think I know what you’re saying.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: It would be an interesting form of invisibility if it is that way.

Amy: But don’t people in Grimmauld Place…? They leave all the time, and they’re not…

Rosie: Because it’s only the place that is the secret.

Amy: Oh, so you’re saying… Okay, there’s two different… Okay.

Rosie: Yeah. so if you have a larger secret, which is the people and the place, then the place is secret but also the people within it.

Kat: But only when they’re within it.

Rosie: Unless the secret is that they are around. [laughs] I don’t know. It’s complicated.

Kat: Right. Because if it was the people who were it too, or the people who knew about it or were part of the Fidelius Charm, the Seven Potters wouldn’t’ve needed to happen.

Rosie: Because you could’ve just put a Fidelius Charm on Harry and hidden him. Yeah. That makes sense. So yeah, probably when you’re in a place. And that would make sense with why James wasn’t allowed to leave if it is him getting that letter where he’s getting a bit antsy having to stay in the house all the time.

Kat: Right. Which is funny because that letter was sent… See, that letter is a weird thing, and I think this is what Amy was trying to talk about before, is that how…? I mean, if the Fidelius Charm was only put on the dwelling approximately a week before they were killed and that letter was written months before that, because it was… Well, when was it written? Wasn’t it around Harry’s birthday?

Rosie: It’s saying thank you for a present. Whether that’s a birthday present or a Christmas present, I’m not sure. But I mean, it’s October, so it wouldn’t be a Christmas present. So yeah, it must be…

Kat: Isn’t there a date at the top of the letter?

Rosie: I’m not sure. It definitely says, “Thank you for the gift for Harry’s birthday” or something.

Amy: I really thought it was a birthday gift.

Rosie: Yeah, so it would’ve been July. How do we know that the Fidelius Charm was October 24, roughly a week before? The way I always remembered this story was that they had been in hiding for a long time and that, toward the end of their being in hiding, there were rumors of a mole, and they convinced them to change [the] Secret-Keeper to make it safer, and that was when Sirius convinced them to use Pettigrew. And that gave Pettigrew the opportunity to betray them because he was then [their] Secret-Keeper. And that’s why things suddenly picked up [in] that last week of October. If I have completely misremembered that, that’s completely my fault.

Kat: If we go by what the Lexicon says, and they are 99% right most of the time, it says,

“Approximately a week before the attack, Dumbledore suggests that the Potters use the Fidelius Charm to protect their hiding place. The Charm’s Secret-Keeper was initially supposed to be James’ best friend, Sirius Black. However, Sirius persuaded the Potters to bluff and use Peter Pettigrew instead.”

Rosie: Fair enough. That was me misrememebering or misunderstanding at the time. [laughs] But I think I prefer my story.

[Eleanor and Rosie laugh]

Eleanor: I liked it.

Amy: I think that they could’ve been in hiding longer than a week. I think that that makes everything line up better if they went into hiding before they did the Fidelius Charm. So I liked your idea, Rosie.

Kat: “Dear Padfoot…” No, it just says, “Thank you for Harry’s birthday present! It was his favorite by far.”

Rosie: So presumably late July.

Kat: “If you could visit, it would cheer [James] up so much. Wormy was here last weekend, I thought he seemed down…” So that doesn’t necessarily mean the Fidelius Charm is already on the house.

Eleanor: But also, we don’t know when the letter came in. I mean, Sirius could’ve given that gift at any point between July and October because, I mean, they’re fighting Voldemort and wouldn’t’ve had an enormous amount of time to get…

Rosie: And if she did write it in that week, Harry could’ve just been using the broomstick, and therefore, she was thanking him for the birthday present. It doesn’t necessarily have to be close to the birthday.

Amy: That’s a point. Maybe Harry just started figuring out how to ride it.

Kat: Actually, it continues on to say, “We had a very quiet birthday tea, just us and old Bathilda…”

Rosie: Oh, there you go.

Eleanor: Ah. There we go.

Rosie: Had to have been in July. Or August, because it’s July 31.

Kat: But that’s only two months. And again, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Fidelius Charm was already on the house at that point.

Eleanor: And also, if Wormtail is down, maybe it’s because he’s getting pressure from Voldemort to sell them out but he can’t because he obviously isn’t the Secret-Keeper yet.

Kat: Which made me wonder – and I was thinking about that a lot today – what did Voldemort do to flip Pettigrew to his side, or is it just in Pettigrew’s nature? Because I know a lot of people try to defend Pettigrew.

Eleanor: I have so many headcanons about this.

[Eleanor and Kat laugh]

Kat: Well, let’s hear them. I really want to try [to] figure out why Pettigrew decided… I mean, besides the whole wanting to be near power and all that stuff.

Eleanor: I mean, there’s that, but I think that basically, the Marauders have this massive breakdown in their system. After Sirius tried to frame Remus basically with trying to hurt Snape – but inadvertently putting his friend in danger as well – I think Remus and Sirius had a massive falling out. That’s how they could suspect each other a few years on. And when that fallout happened, James and Lily got much closer. And so the Marauders ended up going to three different places, and Peter was just kind of left, and that’s when there’s obviously a vacuum for him and for obviously a need for at least people around him or friends or whatever, and that is when the Death Eaters found him, took advantage of him. That’s where I think it went.

Kat: I think that’s beautiful, for the record. Props.

Eleanor: Oh, thank you.

[Eleanor and Kat laugh]

Amy: I feel like I remember in Order of the Phoenix they talk about how the Order of the Phoenix then was not nearly as well organized as [it was] the second time around. And so maybe it’s just that Pettigrew wanted to be on the winning side, and he could see… The McKinnons were getting murdered. Molly’s brothers got murdered. He saw all of those deaths, and then he was like, “Okay, I better switch to the side that’s going to win.” I think that that it was his choice. [laughs] Lord Voldemort didn’t do it. Peter was just…

Rosie: Yeah. Pure survival.

Eleanor: But when did it happen? [laughs]

Amy: He could have been thinking about it for a long time, if people were dying, and then he just was like, “I’m going to be your servant now.” [laughs]

Eleanor: I mean, I wonder how he got in there, though. I mean, I’m assuming you can’t just waltz up to Voldemort and be like, “Hey, dude. So I’m cool with selling out my friends.” Voldemort would be like, “Are you, though?”

Amy: [laughs] That’s a good point.

Rosie: I don’t think he would have gone to Voldemort. I think Voldemort found him. I mean, if Voldemort is out there looking for James and Lily, you are going to track down the friends, and Peter doesn’t strike me as being able to hide himself as well as the others, despite the rat form. He probably got caught and therefore, either tortured… or probably not even that but just questioned and gave them up because he was threatened basically.

Kat: He’s a sad little man. I don’t…

Rosie: He is.

Kat: [sighs] Like I said, I know there are a lot of people who defend and sympathize with Pettigrew. And I think that there is a place for him in the story and a place for redemption, but I’m not sure he reaches that quite for me. I don’t know. How do you guys feel about him?

Amy: Yeah. I don’t think – I don’t know – there was ever even any redemption. And I always wonder… I think about the hand because to me, the whole Harry not choosing to kill him, I don’t know if that really ever comes full… It comes full circle, but I don’t know. I thought there was going to be more of his good side or something like that.

Rosie: Well, he does save them from the basement. And that was the mark of goodness that kills him.

Amy: Does he save them? Or does he just start choking himself? [laughs]

Eleanor: He just has a moment.

Rosie: He was going to let them go, and that’s why his hand turns against him. Because that was Voldemort’s trick, is that “If you betray me, I will kill you” kind of thing.

Rosie: Because he knows that Pettigrew will go for whoever will allow him to survive. And Pettigrew chose Harry over Voldemort.

Amy: Oh, that’s what it is. Oh my gosh. I just thought I knew everything, but I didn’t. [laughs]

Rosie: I think the most interesting things about Peter are not necessarily him saving Harry at the end or betraying James and Lily. I think the true marks of his character are what happens in that scene with Sirius that we don’t get to see and what happens in the year after Prisoner of Azkaban. It is completely Pettigrew [who] brings Voldemort back to power. If he had just gone and lived as a rat in the woods, none of it would have happened, and the whole of the rest of the story wouldn’t have mattered. [laughs] So the worst thing that he does is go to Albania and find Voldemort. And that is, I think, more telling of his character because that is the one thing that he chose to do out of his own free will. He was out scot-free. There was no reason for him to have done that other than to seek out power or to seek out some kind of advantage for himself. That may have backfired on him eventually, but that was the one choice we see him make that was completely [of] his own free will, and that is the reason for me why he cannot be redeemed.

Kat: So then – and I mentioned this briefly before as well – who do we think is the true catalyst at setting on the events of what happens to James and Lily and eventually to Harry? Is it Pettigrew’s fault? Is it Sirius’s fault for making the wrong decision and putting his trust in the wrong people? Is it Dumbledore’s fault? Because I mean, obviously, it’s no one person’s fault, but who do we think set these events into motion?

Rosie: I still think it’s Voldemort. I think, no matter what happened, he would have found them in the end. He was looking for these people, and that was a choice that he made based on his own similarities to Harry. So I don’t think the influence of these other characters made too much of a difference or a catalyst effect. It may have sped things up, it may have made things easier, but I don’t think it would have been very different if Pettigrew hadn’t betrayed them. It’s just that added complication.

Kat: What about Snape, then? Since he had such a big part in Voldemort finding out about the prophecy. I feel like Voldemort would have been fighting James and Lily, but he may not have targeted them the way that he did without Snape.

Amy: Yeah, I think it all comes back to Snape. [laughs]

Rosie: Yeah. Do you think he would have ever heard the prophecy without Snape? Because the prophecy still exists, whether Snape heard it or not.

Kat: I think he would have… Oh, God. So many things would be different if he didn’t hear the prophecy. He might not have even ever known about it.

Amy: Because I mean, his only interest in prophecies is because of that prophecy. It’s not like Tom Riddle was going around talking about the Hall of Prophecies.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Right, and they don’t send you a letter when a prophecy is made about you.

Amy: Especially not if you’re Lord Voldemort.

[Eleanor and Rosie laugh]

Kat: So it’s not like you’re notified.

Rosie: Yeah, especially if you’re Lord Voldemort. [laughs]

[Kat laughs]

Rosie: I guess the interesting thing, then, would be if Snape hadn’t heard the prophecy, the people [who] would have known about it – or person, because Sybill herself didn’t know about it – would have been Dumbledore, and we know that Dumbledore is fairly arrogant in his ideas of how he protects things.

Kat: Understatement.

Rosie: So his interpretation of the prophecy becomes important. I think Dumbledore would have done the research whether Voldemort knew about the prophecy or not. He would have found out who those children were, and he would have done something to try [to] fulfill that prophecy, to try [to] defeat the Dark Lord. So he would have focused in on Harry and Neville and done something in order to bring about that prophecy because he wants to be the man behind the curtain. He wants to pull those strings.

Eleanor: Yeah, so he would’ve made sure that Voldemort marked one of them as his equal.

Rosie: Exactly. So in that sense, would Voldemort have found out about the prophecy because Dumbledore gave it away? Is Snape really involved at all in this sense?

Amy: Yeah, I think Dumbledore would’ve tried to fulfill it because… wow.

Kat: Well, because it says that one will defeat the other basically in the end. So Dumbledore would deduce, I assume, that it has to be one of those people to defeat Lord Voldemort, and yeah, he probably would set the events into motion in an alternate reality.

Amy: Give Harry and Neville the opportunity to prove themselves. I think it was on an episode of Alohomora! that… or maybe it was Muggle[Cast]… or not. I can’t remember, but they were talking about how the Sorcerer’s Stone just doesn’t make sense if you’re not thinking of Dumbledore as the puppet master, of giving Harry all these opportunities to learn how to cultivate his leadership and cultivate his bravery and all of that with… everything. So yeah, Dumbledore would’ve totally done that. [laughs]

Rosie: In which case the instigator, the person who is doing all of it and influencing it most, is Dumbledore.

Kat: But that’s in an alternate reality; we’re not reading Cursed Child.

[Amy and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: That’s true.

Kat: So I brought this up before, how I wanted to talk about Sirius and his bad decisions, and Rosie brought this up: this scene that we don’t get to see between Pettigrew and Sirius in the alley. We get tiny little bits of it in Prisoner, of course. We get a scene on the Knight Bus when Harry is pretending to be Neville, which I think is very cute, and Ern and Stan are talking about what happened. And I am not going to attempt to read this because I cannot read it in this accent, but you guys all know what I’m talking about. Let’s see…

Rosie: [as Stan Shunpike] “Anyway, when little ‘Arry Potter got the better of You-Know-‘Oo—”

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: There you go. Keep going.

“Harry nervously flattened his bangs down again.”

Rosie: [as Stan Shunpike]

“‘— all You-Know-‘Oo’s supporters was tracked down, wasn’t they, Ern? Most of ’em knew it was all over, wiv You-Know-‘Oo gone, and they came quiet. But not Sirius Black. I ‘eard he thought ‘e’d be second-in-command once You-Know-‘Oo ‘ad taken over.

“‘Anyway, they cornered Black in the middle of a street full of Muggles an’ Black took out ‘is wand and ‘e blasted ‘alf the street apart, an’ a wizard got it, an’ so did a dozen Muggles what got in the way. ‘Orrible, eh? An’ you know what Black did then?’ Stan continued in a dramatic whisper.

“”Ole street blown up an’ all them Muggles dead. What was it they said ‘ad ‘appened, Ern?'”

[as Ernie Prang]

“Gas explosion.”

Amy: That was a great accent.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: Right. Well, it helps that she’s British.

Amy: It helps.

Kat: That helps.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: That helps. And then the next little bit that we get that informs us on what happened that evening is in the Shrieking Shack during the “Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs” chapter. They’re all discussing Pettigrew and why Sirius needs to get Scabbers from Ron desperately, and it says,

“‘THAT’S NOT TRUE!’ Harry yelled. ‘HE WAS THEIR SECRET-KEEPER! HE SAID SO BEFORE YOU TURNED UP. HE SAID HE KILLED THEM!'”

“He was pointing at Black, who shook his head slowly; the sunken eyes were suddenly overbright.”

“‘Harry . . . I as good as killed them,’ he croaked. ‘I persuaded Lily and James to change to Peter at the last moment, persuaded them to use him as Secret-Keeper instead of me. . . . I’m to blame, I know it. . . . The night they died, I’d arranged to check on Peter, make sure he was still safe, but when I arrived at his hiding place, he’d gone. Yet there was no sign of a struggle. It didn’t feel right. I was scared. I set out for your parents’ house straightaway. And when I saw their house, destroyed, and their bodies . . . I realized what Peter must’ve done . . . what I’d done. . . .'”

And a little bit [earlier] in the chapter…

“‘Just before he transformed,’ said Black. ‘When I cornered him, he yelled for the whole street to hear that I’d betrayed Lily and James. Then, before I could curse him, he blew apart the street with the wand behind his back, killed everyone within twenty feet of himself — and sped down into the sewer with the other rats. . . .'”

So that is a very, very small glimpse of what happens in that moment. But I have an issue with Sirius, obviously, as I mentioned before, [since] I’m not sure running after somebody who gave up your friends to Lord Voldemort is really the appropriate response to that action.

Eleanor: What is the appropriate response?

Amy: Go tell Dumbledore!

Kat: Probably setting the professional wizarding government on finding him.

Eleanor: Why is that a good idea?

Rosie: But when you’re in the middle of a war and you are one of the fighters [who has] been fighting against Voldemort, and your best friend has just betrayed one of your other best friends, you are going to go […] fight that person…

Amy: I get him going after him…

Eleanor: There’s no way I’d leave that to the government!

Amy: Yeah. I get him going after him, but why wouldn’t Sirius have said something to Hagrid like, “Hey, by the way, it wasn’t me [who] betrayed them! This is going to come out pretty soon.”

[Rosie laughs]

Amy: Why wouldn’t he have told Hagrid or told Dumbledore, “We switched to Pettigrew” and then try to go kill Pettigrew?

Kat: Well, Dumbledore knew. Dumbledore knew.

Rosie: I don’t think there was time for conversation. I think he would’ve been shocked by what he’d seen. He would’ve been horrified by seeing their bodies, and you can hear the emotion when he is saying this, and you can hear the guilt in his confession of he killed them. He is not thinking straight. He’s probably just told Hagrid, “Keep the bike” and Apparated straight away because he is searching out Peter straight away. He feels entirely responsible for what he has done and therefore wants to gain some redemption for himself by killing that responsibility, by correcting the wrong, by getting revenge for James and Lily because he feels like it was his mistake and he needs to fix it.

Eleanor: Also, he’d feel terrible as well because he betrayed Remus.

Kat: I still feel like he should have relayed a message to somebody. It would not have been hard to get a message to Dumbledore. He was a part of the [Order].

Rosie: But this is Sirius Black. He’s not very good at relaying messages and thinking very well. [laughs]

Kat: I know that, but my point is that I think Sirius… and obviously, he does take a lot of the blame, and he puts a lot of weight on himself, like you said, Rosie. He feels terrible about this. And I think that he is totally just in doing that because I think he has a big part on Peter going into hiding for so long and the events of later on happening. I think a lot of that falls on Sirius’s shoulders and because of the bad decisions that he made back when Harry was a kid.

Rosie: So Sirius to me is the character of the four that has grown up the least since we see them in “Snape’s Worst Memory.” So he’s still very reckless. He’s still very impulsive. He’s still very much trying to prove himself as the good Black insofar as being his own person rather than who is expected of him. So yeah, he is very rash, he doesn’t think, and yes, he definitely should’ve sent a message. But if anyone [were] going to be in this situation and think, “I’d better send a message to say it wasn’t me,” that would be Remus. That is not something that Sirius would ever think to do. He is very much an “act before you think” kind of character.

Kat: Okay, when I was saying “send a message,” I wasn’t necessarily saying he should send a message about his own innocence, but he should send some sort of message like, “We need to find Peter Pettigrew immediately because he put all of this into action.”

Rosie: But he thinks he can do that himself.

Kat: I know, which is so arrogant, and that’s… I can’t…

Rosie: And that is Sirius Black. [laughs]

Kat: That is my biggest beef with Sirius…

Rosie: This is why Lily didn’t like him when they were children. [laughs]

Kat: I know. You just gave me this wonderful… Okay, so we can’t answer this question. It’s a total AU, what-if, because… Yeah. I was going to say, “Would Harry get along with Lily as a teenager?” But I don’t know how much Harry would be like Sirius.

Amy: I think he would be even more like Sirius and James if he [weren’t] an orphan.

Kat: He probably would be, wouldn’t he? Yeah. I feel like there would be some weird relationship there.

Rosie: I always saw Ron as having slightly more of Sirius’s qualities.

Kat: Really?

Eleanor: Yeah, I can see that.

Rosie: I think they’re both action characters rather than thinking characters.

Amy: I think when he’s younger, in the fifth book, where he’s like, “I’ve got to go save Sirius!” That type of thing, that is his… But by the seventh book, he’s matured enough to not go after the wand. So I think Harry develops, whereas – exactly what you’re saying – Sirius does not develop. He goes to Azkaban and has arrested development. [laughs] Basically.

Rosie: And I think that Harry has a lot of Lily in him as well, despite not growing up with them. He has a lot of heart and a lot of thought, and over the years, Hermione’s influence on him does actually sink in, and he does think, “Oh, I’d better research something a bit more before I act” toward the end of the books.

Eleanor: Also, I think Harry does often come from a place where he’s caring about other people, but I think Sirius is much more coming from a place of “I want to prove myself.”

Kat: For sure. [laughs] It’s funny that you mention, Rosie, that Harry has a lot of Lily in him, because he actually really does.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: And the next thing I really want to talk about…

Rosie: Moving on. [laughs]

Kat: … is the blood protection. And this is obviously a thing that is prevalent through the entire series. A lot of the things we’ll be talking about today influence other events, but the blood protection is love. It is the thread that weaves every other story and Harry Potter together. So the first thing I thought about today when I was rereading some key scenes… and my favorite chapter of all time, throughout the entire series, is “The Lost Prophecy” from Order of the Phoneix, Chapter 37. And I reread that today. And Dumbledore is talking about that night and all of the events surrounding it – everything that we’re talking about here – and he just says that he needed to enact the blood protection, basically, because Lily had sacrificed herself for Harry. How did he know that? I read it and reread it and read it again and again and again, and there’s no evidence that shows Dumbledore would have known exactly what went down at the house.

Eleanor: But he would, because otherwise, how would Harry be alive? He knows that Snape loves Lily. He knows that would have been the option that would’ve been given.

Amy: Oh, that makes sense.

Kat: Yeah, I mean, is that convincing enough evidence? I don’t…

Eleanor: I think Harry being alive is very convincing evidence.

[Eleanor and Rosie laugh]

Eleanor: Something has to happen. There has to be an explanation. He would’ve come up with that.

Kat: But how…? I mean, okay, Lily could have killed Voldemort. It could have rebounded off of Lily and not Harry, so why…? I still don’t understand how it comes to that conclusion.

Rosie: I have a theory. It’s not a very nice theory, unfortunately.

Kat: Oh, it’s okay. We don’t need nice theories on this show.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: Dumbledore is a very powerful Legilimens. He can look into people’s memories, including little babies [who] have just witnessed the deaths of their parents. And we know that Harry relives that moment again and again and again in his dreams. Maybe he lives that in his dreams so much because it was brought to the forefront of his mind and… Yeah, so that moment has been framed, almost, as a memory that has been watched. Almost like it’s a SKYBOX or a TiVo box or whatever that said, “You! Watch this memory.” [laughs] So by Dumbledore accessing that memory, it becomes a recurring one.

Eleanor: I like that theory, but when would he have done it?

Rosie: On… Yeah, so as soon as he was given Harry, to confirm his idea, perhaps?

Eleanor: Okay, so before Hagrid turned up?

Rosie: Or once he was handed him. We only see it… That’s a very, very quick scene, but he could easily have snuck in a bit of magic in that conversation with McGonagall.

Kat: Yeah, presumably. So the timeline is, Hagrid picks up Harry and then sees McGonagall, either before or after that. It’s not known whether he sees McGonagall before or after. I’m pretty sure it’s after, but he doesn’t have Harry with him, so who knows where Harry is at that moment?

Rosie: Which wouldn’t make sense with it after.

Kat: Right, but I’m pretty sure Hagrid… I’d have to find the clip again, but I’m pretty sure McGonagall mentions running into Hagrid.

Rosie: So if they’re all at school – because they live at Hogwarts, they are the teachers there – McGonagall and Hagrid could have run into each other at Hogwarts as Hagrid is heading out to go […] collect Harry on Dumbledore’s orders. Dumbledore has already left. We don’t know where he went, but McGonagall can’t find him and therefore has to go […] wait at Privet Drive as Hagrid goes to get Harry. But there is that entire day before Hagrid arrives with Harry at Privet Drive, which isn’t very clear what was happening.

Amy: So maybe during that day, Dumbledore was reading this poor baby’s mind.

[Amy and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: Because Godric’s Hollow is meant to be… Where was it meant to be? Somewhere in the Midlands? It’s not…

Kat: Yes, middle of the UK, yeah.

Rosie: Yeah, and then Privet Drive is just below London. It’s not too far away from London. So that would only be an hour or two hours’ motorbike flight without any additional powers, so it definitely wouldn’t have taken from the day before to sunset of November 1 to get Harry from Godric’s Hollow to Privet Drive. So either Harry was [sitting] in that rubble for a very long time, which is incredibly sad to think about, or he was somewhere else or Hagrid was looking after him in a café somewhere…

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: … waiting for the drop-off moment.

Kat: Okay, the book doesn’t specify. McGonagall says, “It’s true?” They’re dead. “After… all the people he’s killed…?” Blah, blah, blah. Dumbledore says, “We can only guess. We may never know.” And then Dumbledore goes on to say, “Hagrid’s late. I suppose it was he who told you I’d be here, by the way?”

“‘Yes,’ said Professor McGonagall. ‘And I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why you’re here, of all places?'”

He goes on. Dumbledore says, “Hagrid’s bringing him.” McGonagall says, “You think it – wise – to trust Hagrid with something as important as this?” And Dumbledore says, “I would trust Hagrid with my life.” Hagrid’s first words are, “Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir. Young Sirius Black lent it to me. I’ve got him, sir.” So that would imply that Hagrid saw McGonagall, got the motorbike, got Harry, [and] went there. But that could not have taken an entire day.

Rosie: Maybe Sirius went to Hogwarts to try [to] send a message and couldn’t find Dumbledore so then went to seek Peter. [laughs]

Kat: Yeah, I think you’re giving him too much credit.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: Okay, so I guess we’ve circled around and around and around this. I…

Rosie: There are missing hours in this story. We don’t know where Harry and Hagrid were, but I do think it’s a possibility, even in that scene that we do see with the three of them and the baby on Privet Drive’s steps, that Dumbledore could have easily confirmed his theory, at least in that moment.

Kat: Right, but wouldn’t he have already…? There have been a lot of theories about the fact that Dumbledore was setting up the blood magic during that time after he told Hagrid to go get Harry. So perhaps he didn’t know for sure, but he was setting it up to be ready and prepared for it, just in case. And then he just deduced that that’s what happened. I don’t [know].

Rosie: Maybe it was pre-agreed with Lily?

Kat: Maybe. And I don’t believe we’ve ever had confirmation about what happened to James’s and Lily’s wands, correct? So Dumbledore may have gone back. I wonder how long memories live inside of a dead person.

Rosie: That’s even creepier than my idea. [laughs]

Kat: [laughs] I know. I’m sorry.

Eleanor: That is creepy.

Kat: It’s a Halloween episode. We can be a little creepy.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: I don’t think he would have tampered with the bodies. I think that’s incredibly disrespectful.

Amy: But Snape, as he was dying, cried out a memory. I don’t know. That’s probably not the same.

Eleanor: Yeah, he’s still alive.

Rosie: Yeah. It’s film canon that Snape finds Lily’s body and is there crying over it. So Snape is also a very powerful Legilimens, and he could have found out what was happening from Harry in his crib at that moment and then gone to Dumbledore.

Kat: Does Snape go to the house in the book?

Rosie: It’s not confirmed in the book, but we see it in film canon, which we know Jo influenced.

Kat: Yeah. I won’t take it to heart unless there’s something in the book.

Rosie: [laughs] Is it mentioned in [the] Snape’s last memories scene?

Kat: I don’t believe so. I don’t believe he goes to the house.

Rosie: [reads]

“If she means so much to you, surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother in exchange for the son?”

“I have – I have asked him-“

“‘You disgust me,’ said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little.”

“I thought… you were going… to keep her… safe…”

“‘She and James put their faith in the wrong person. Rather like you, Severus. Weren’t you hoping that Lord Voldemort would spare her?’ […] ‘Her boy survives,’ said Dumbledore. […] ‘Her son lives. He has her eyes, precisely her eyes. You remember the shape and color of Lily Evans’s eyes, I am sure?'”

“DON’T! Gone… dead…”

“Is this remorse…?”

Kat: Yeah. There'[re] no mentions at all of him going to the house, so I don’t think that Snape would have anything to do with convincing Dumbledore that Lily had sacrificed herself.

Rosie: Yeah, in that scene, it doesn’t really make it clear what time of day it is. It doesn’t say whether Harry had already been taken to Privet Drive when Snape goes to see Dumbledore.

Kat: Although that may be a part of the missing 12 hours.

Rosie: It could be.

Kat: If Dumbledore is researching the blood magic and Snape shows up, that seems very plausible to me that he has that conversation with Snape at Hogwarts.

Rosie: And that could be the confirmation he needs of the blood magic as well – the fact that he actually did ask Voldemort to try [to] spare her. That could be the theory.

Kat: It could be. It could be. A little bit of redemption for Severus Snape, I suppose. I’ll throw him a bone. And I guess, since we’re talking about Snape, we’ll talk about this too. We mentioned that moment where Lord Voldemort offers to spare Lily. And did he really do that for Snape? Or do we think that he had some sort of alternate plans for her? And what I thought about today is, [Draco] Malfoy, when he first meets Harry, is trying to befriend him because, as Jo has come out and said on Pottermore, Malfoy has fed into the legend that Harry is going to be the next Dark wizard. He is going to be almighty and powerful, and that’s why Draco wants to be friends with him so bad. So was Voldemort perhaps having secret plans for Lily? Did he maybe want to…? Of course, he was relying on the prophecy mostly and wanted to destroy him. But if Lily had in fact decided to come to the Dark side, would Lord Voldemort have some sort of other plan for Harry, as opposed to trying to just defeat and kill him?

Eleanor: I think that rumor just came about afterward because he survived. I don’t really think before that.

Amy: Because the prophecy says he’s going to “defeat” the Dark Lord. So even if he could have been, let’s say, an even Darker wizard…

Rosie: Actually, it doesn’t say he is going to defeat the Dark Lord. It says he has the power to defeat the Dark Lord, which is…

Kat: To vanquish the Dark Lord, which is worse than defeat.

Rosie: It doesn’t necessarily say he will, but it says that he has the power. And therefore, Voldemort would be able to sway that power to his side if he really wanted to, but he didn’t interpret it in that way. [laughs] But an interesting thing about that is, Voldemort chose Harry because of how much he recognized himself in Harry. And we’ve talked about this before, but Snape is that generation in the middle. Snape is also a half-blood, he’s also a Slytherin, [and] he also had a dodgy relationship with his parents. If there is this trust between Voldemort and Snape, does Voldemort perhaps see himself reflected in Snape as well and therefore consider him one of his closest allies – or consider doing this favor for him – because he considers Snape to be like himself in some way?

Kat: Voldemort considers himself to be like Snape or the other way around?

Rosie: Yes, both. So Voldemort considers Snape to be like Voldemort, like Tom Riddle. And then, therefore, when Snape asks to spare Harry’s mother, you’ve got this mother link again. So you’ve got Voldemort and his mother and that connection; you’ve got Snape being half-blood and having a wizarding mother who… Did she die? Snape’s mother died relatively early, I think.

Kat: I don’t know if we have confirmation of that. I don’t believe she’s dead.

Rosie: No? Fair enough. Okay. But we’ve got someone asking to save a mother, basically, which is something that Voldemort would have wanted – or Tom Riddle would have wanted. He didn’t want his mother to have died and considers her weak and therefore would perhaps spare a mother.

Eleanor: I think you’re giving Voldemort too much credit.

[Kat and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: Probably. But he does hesitate; he does give her this choice. We know that for a fact.

Eleanor: Yeah, but I think he’d probably be using it as blackmail for Snape for however long. I think Voldemort thinks of purely in terms of “how or what can I get over someone?” He thinks Snape is going to be in debt to him forever for this. I think that’s motivation enough for me, but I like…

Amy: I think it’s just such a… Lord Voldemort does not understand love. To think that any mother would step aside and let him kill her son, he does not understand human compassion or nature or love or anything.

Kat: I can’t find a death date for Snape’s mother, so I would assume she’s alive.

Eleanor: That’s weird. I don’t know. Just thinking about Snape’s mom being alive…

Rosie: Yeah. The whole idea of him being alone in Spinner’s End in a Muggle place, I would assume that his parents have definitely at least died by his adulthood, certainly by this moment.

Kat: I think his father is dead.

Amy: It seems like all of the Marauders-era people [died], because James’s and Lily’s parents are both dead. You know what I mean?

Rosie: Yeah. They were just conveniently made to go away, basically.

Kat: Yeah, it was for convenience.

Rosie: [laughs] I think it does speak to Voldemort’s lack of a mother, Merope’s sacrifice for him in staying alive only as far as to get him to the orphanage and then leaving him… He sees that as a mother abandoning her child, and therefore, he doesn’t see why anyone’s mother would not abandon their children. And that’s why he thinks that Lily would step aside.

Kat: So then let’s flip the scenario because I thought about this today a lot as well while doing my research […]: What if James had died after Lily? Would he have had blood protection as well? Could he have possibly lived? If James was, say, upstairs with Harry and Lily was downstairs, and Voldemort said, “Get out of my way”?

Amy: I don’t think. But Voldemort wouldn’t have given James that option. He wouldn’t have said, “Get out of my way.” He would have just been like, “Avada Kedavra.”

Kat: Right. I know, but I’m saying, if he encountered Lily first and James second.

Amy: Oh, I see what you’re saying.

Rosie: I don’t think Lily’s… James doesn’t have Lily’s blood, so the blood protection wouldn’t work. It only works for Harry because they share DNA.

Eleanor: Yeah, but would James have survived? He might not have this blood protection, but he would still have Lily’s sacrifice.

Amy: Because doesn’t Harry protect everyone by dying?

Rosie: Oh yeah, Harry’s sacrifice, yeah. That bit’s still complicated at school. I don’t know. [laughs]

Amy: Right. So Lily could have protected James.

Eleanor: Yeah, that’s an interesting thought. Ahh! James could have survived. I hate this.

[Everyone laughs]

Kat: But could he have? I mean…

Rosie: But then why doesn’t James’s sacrifice…?

Eleanor: Oh, because he didn’t have the option. That’s the thing.

Kat: He didn’t have a choice.

Eleanor: Voldemort didn’t really give him the option.

Kat: Right. And it’s very clear that’s… yeah.

Rosie: So would he have given Lily the option if she had been the first person he encountered? Because surely, then James would go […] run to protect Lily.

Kat: But if you just imagine them reverse places, I always pictured – and I’m pretty sure the text supports this – that James was downstairs in the living room – encountered him first – and then Voldemort went upstairs, right?

Rosie: I think in that situation, Lily… So in the way it does play out, James is downstairs, [and] Lily is upstairs in the nursery. When you hear a door crash open downstairs… This is going to be… I don’t know. This sounds kind of gender stereotypical, and I apologize for that already: [laughs] Lily, as the mother, her first thought is, “Protect the child,” and therefore, she stays with him and would try [to] hide with him. If the roles were reversed and Lily [were] downstairs and James [were] upstairs, I think James’s impulse would be to leave the room and go downstairs and fight rather than trying to hide Harry.

Kat: So – and this isn’t a bad thing or anything – you think that his love for Lily is probably stronger than his love for Harry?

Rosie: Well, no. I think his way of protecting Harry and Lily would be to rush into the fight and try [to] stop Voldemort from getting up to him rather than through a more thought-out hide-the-baby situation.

Amy: Right. He would just be blasting in, ready to…

Rosie: Yeah, it’s the whole testosterone-laced-with-adrenaline go […] fight situation rather than…

Eleanor: But that doesn’t really matter. I mean, what matters is whether Lily had enough time to sacrifice herself before James got down the stairs. Probably, she would have, and therefore, James would have had the same protection that Harry does, and therefore, they would both still be alive.

Rosie: But Voldemort might not have given Lily the option if he could hear James running into the room because you would be able to hear someone running down the stairs.

Eleanor: Hmm. I guess it depends on how much he wants to blackmail Snape.

Kat: And I think that depends, too, on how stealthily James [would try] to come down the stairs because Voldemort didn’t necessarily know… I’m sure he assumed that they were both home, but for all we know, James had to run to get bread because you can’t conjure food out of nowhere. [laughs] So he had to go get bread for dinner, and so he had stepped out. He didn’t know exactly who was home. He was probably watching and probably had some sort of idea.

Rosie: Although they have all been in hiding for at least a week and probably haven’t left the house. They’ll probably have…

Kat: I’m sure somebody else brought them the bread.

Rosie: Owlpost. Just follow the owls. [laughs]

Amy: Could I take this a step further and say, “Would James have become a Horcrux? [laughs] If the spell had rebounded on James?”

Eleanor: That would be bizarre.

Amy: [laughs] Would James’s…? Walking around, speaking Parseltongue.

Rosie: So then the prophecy, “the child with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord,” does that refer to Voldemort’s original fall or his second fall? Because if it’s the “vanquishing Dark Lord” in that particular moment on Halloween, then that prophecy would not be fulfilled by James becoming the Horcrux. And he wouldn’t have marked him as his equal in terms of a physical mark. So the prophecy would be unfulfilled if James were the Horcrux. It had to be Harry in the situation.

Eleanor: But the other thing is, do prophecies have to be fulfilled? Because I thought that was one of the things that J.K. Rowling… The Hall of Prophecies… Half of them are not fulfilled.

Kat: Right. No, you’re right.

Eleanor: Just throwing that one out there.

Amy: It’s Cursed Child stuff too. That we’ll stay away [from].

[Eleanor laughs]

[Kat makes noise of disgust]

Rosie: But I think it’s the… because the prophecy is telling you that this series of events will happen and you can prevent that series of events from happening if you know what that series of events are and therefore, work to prevent it from happening. So it’s like intervening in a timeline, and that timeline is what has been predicted and recorded in the prophecy.

Kat: Unless you believe that prophecies are self-fulfilling. Then you should probably just ignore it and go [on] living your life.

Rosie: Yes. So whether it’s self-fulfilling or whether you have to intervene to change, they would have needed to know the order of events in order to prevent it, yeah? So no matter what order they arrived in, unless they had done something to say, “Okay, I have to be first in order to protect you both,” Harry would always have been marked because of that prophecy.”

Kat: Right. And I’m not sure, because nobody… And I’m pretty sure I read this today in an interview with Jo saying that this had never happened before. So they had no idea about blood protection or any of that. Dumbledore had only read something or had an inkling about it – I don’t remember her exact words – but this isn’t something that they could have ever possibly planned for or thought may have happened or any of that. And also…

Rosie: And I think that comes into the power of the Unforgivables, the fact that they are so rarely used. We see them so often in this book, but that’s only because […] we have this very, extreme situation. There wouldn’t be another situation where a mother would be able to put herself in front of a Killing Curse.

Kat: And this is totally off topic, but I’m so looking forward to Fantastic Beasts for that exact reason, is that there'[re] not going to be Avada Kedavras thrown around every five seconds. Just saying.

Rosie: Hopefully, if they’ve done it right. [laughs]

Kat: Hopefully. Right, exactly. So then… Okay, so we brought up the Horcrux, and that’s definitely something that I think we need to talk about and the “accidental” Horcrux. And first off, can we really even truly call it a Horcrux? I know that that’s the word that’s used because it’s easy and it’s simple, but let’s define a Horcrux and then decide if what Harry is fits that definition.

Rosie: So a Horcrux is a section of someone’s soul that is residing within a vessel in order to keep it alive.

Kat: Okay, so in that respect, Harry is a Horcrux. However, you have to make a Horcrux by a murder, and Jo has said there is a spell and a certain order of events – she won’t tell us what, which is good. Nobody needs to know – that actually contains it in the vessel and makes it a Horcrux. So if you include all of that, Harry is not a Horcrux.

Amy: Does she say that it has to be done after the murder? Could the murder be the thing that seals it? Say there’s a spell that is done before the murder. That’s how I’ve always envisioned it, that whatever terrible thing you’re supposed to do happens before the murder, and then the murder takes place. So Voldemort would have had that ready to go, if that makes sense.

Kat: We could certainly assume that; however, he would have wanted the murder of Harry to be the one that seals the Horcrux, and then the only two people that actually died are James and Lily because Voldemort did not die. He didn’t die; he lost his body, but he didn’t die. So there really wasn’t a murder that Voldemort would have wanted to use because the two of them weren’t significant enough. That has been said.

Rosie: So we know that the creation of a Horcrux is quite an involved process; it’s not just about a murder. It sounds like there’s a ritual or something that needs to go with it. So I had always assumed that Voldemort intended to make a Horcrux that night and therefore had done all of that ritual and had it all prepared, and all that was waiting was for this final…

Kat: The murder and the sealing, right.

Rosie: Yeah, the splitting of the soul and therefore putting it into the vessel. The splitting of the soul happens that night because of deaths, because of murders. I don’t think it’s necessarily something you get to choose. Perhaps, symbolically, yes, it would have been the murder of Harry, and then he would have physically chosen to put that piece of soul into a vessel, and it would have been after that moment, so it would have symbolically worked. But the soul was already split that night, and therefore, he had a piece of soul that was already split, and therefore, when the body died, it latched on – thanks to the Horcrux ritual – to the vessel. It wouldn’t necessarily have been Harry, but that was the [closest] available vessel to it, so the nearest thing.

Eleanor: Yeah, I thought the idea was, with a Horcrux, that every time you killed someone, your soul does split, but the only thing with a Horcrux is that your soul can’t go back together again because you actually take that part out of yourself. But any act of murder is going to damage it.

Rosie: Yeah, so that was the preparation bit; [it] was, “I have created this nice shiny email bit ready for the soul attachment.”

[Eleanor and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: “The attachment is prepared when you murder someone that night, and you then choose to click send, but because the AK rebounded, he misclicked, and it fired anyway.”

[Amy, Eleanor, and Rosie laugh]

Rosie: How’s that for a metaphor?

[Eleanor and Rosie laugh]

Kat: So I don’t disagree with any of that. I do think that there [were] preparations done before, and I do think that, with the “murder and the rebounding of the curse,” the piece of soul split, and it stuck. I mean, that is confirmed, that has happened, but… Okay, so if there were preparations done ahead of time, Voldemort would have had an object, and I know that we have no idea what this object is, but it’s the assumption that it was significant to him, quite possibly something of Gryffindor’s that he found that nobody knew about, or something relating to Harry or something else from his past. We don’t exactly know what. Wouldn’t that have been with him, and wouldn’t that have been prepared to receive the piece of soul?

Rosie: Unless he could have done the murder and then returned to his wherever to create the Horcrux itself.

Kat: And dragged the piece of broken soul behind you? [laughs]

Rosie: Well, it’s still inside of him. His soul is split, yes, but it’s still part of him until he chooses to put it somewhere. The only reason why it shattered and did its own thing was because his body was destroyed. So the ghostly part that remained of him that went to Albania, and that went and found Quirrell eventually, had no physical form with which to actually place that other fractured piece of soul within something. So the Horcrux ritual, whatever it was, did that for him and attached it to the nearest thing, which in this case was Harry.

Kat: So let me play devil’s advocate for a minute and say… Just let’s pretend he had it with him because I feel like if he didn’t have it with him, he would have gone back to get it once he had a body or sent Wormtail to get it eventually, and we probably would have learned about it like, “Oh, this was meant to be for you” or something.

Amy: Did he make Nagini before or after?

Kat and Rosie: After.

Rosie: Yeah, but he hasn’t met Nagini by this point.

Eleanor: But okay, I have a weird question. Can you make wands into Horcruxes?

Rosie: I don’t see why not. So I think you have to create a receptacle that can house a piece of soul, and that is part of the ritual. So if he did have an intended object that he has created this receptacle aspect of, he would either need to have that with him or have it somewhere that he would later put that piece of soul into. That’s why it latches onto Harry because a human body already has the ability to hold a piece of soul because everyone has a soul, and that’s why it latches onto Harry. So in order for a wand to be a Horcrux or for any item to be a Horcrux, you would need to create this soul connection to it. So yes, a wand should be able to as long as you’ve chosen for it to house it.

Eleanor: I don’t know. That’s my theory if we’re looking for the receptacle.

Rosie: His own wand? I don’t see why not.

Eleanor: I don’t know. I think that’s…

Kat: I think Ollivander would probably buy into that theory and agree with you. I don’t know how likely it is because it’s easy for a wand to be… Okay, not “easy,” but it’s possible for a wand to be taken from its owner. So I don’t know how likely…

Rosie: I don’t think Voldemort would ever consider that of himself. [laughs]

Kat: I know that, but I do think that he would think about the safekeeping of an object.

Rosie: But equally his diary? The fact that he left the ring in the old house? And this would be something he keeps with him as well, so I mean, if this was to be his final Horcrux and he wanted it to be nearby so that if he ever [were] killed [and] that piece of soul was nearby, his wand would be the perfect choice because then if he is killed, his nearest piece of soul is in his hand. So essentially, he could start rejoining himself straight away if you can do that. Presumably, that’s how Horcruxes work, is that you can take those pieces of the soul and become them, eventually.

Eleanor: Yeah, and also, he’s just not very… I mean, as I think Dumbledore says, the diary… He’s very cavalier about his Horcruxes. It’s really bizarre.

Amy: Well, isn’t the reason that his body is not a thing during this, the reason why he didn’t die from the rebounding was because of his Horcruxes, right?

Rosie: Yes. They are grounding him to Earth. They keep him…

Amy: So in that way, the murder of himself… That was kind of my theory, was the murder of himself was the reason why a Horcrux was made, if that makes sense. Because the only reason he didn’t die was because he already had Horcruxes. [laughs]

Kat: Right, but he didn’t die; therefore, he wasn’t murdered. Only his body was killed.

Rosie: Yeah, because his piece of soul that lived on was not actually killed.

Kat: And in the Harry Potter universe, to die, your body has to die and your soul.

Rosie: Yeah, so every single piece of your soul has to be killed in order to die.

Kat: So nothing… Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, and it’s a little bit of a weird circle, kind of like time. [laughs]

Rosie: I guess it’s kind of like a purgatory aspect, isn’t it? You cannot die while you are fractured. But you also cannot live. Neither can live while the other survives.

Kat: Aww.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Okay, so last thing here, and we’ve kind of already touched on it, but I think it deserves a much deeper conversation, and it is that missing 12-24 hours, depending on how the timeline works out. And I really want to talk about where we think a few key characters were. Obviously, we know where Sirius was, and we’ve discussed this. He was getting framed for the murder of the Muggles and being carted off to Azkaban by Cornelius Fudge. However – and this struck me big today as I was rereading chapters – it wasn’t mentioned on the news that there was a big gas explosion, because Vernon watches the news that morning. And you feel like that probably would have been on the news.

Rosie: I’ve always seen that as happening simultaneously to Harry being dropped off. So Hagrid has borrowed the motorcycle and has been going to Privet Drive as Sirius is tracking down Peter, and he doesn’t find Peter until after Harry is handed over.

Amy: Because I feel like McGonagall and Dumbledore would have been like, “Oh, yeah, Sirius. That… Can’t believe he did that,” because…

Rosie: Yeah. It will take him a while to actually find Peter and to attack him. So Peter’s supposed death would be November 1, 2, or 3.

Kat: Wait, so you think that…? But it was definitely during the day that it happened.

Rosie: Yeah, so when Harry is handed over to the Dursleys, Sirius hasn’t found Peter yet. He is looking for Peter. And he tracked him down either probably November 2. Yeah. So once Harry is actually already safe at Privet Drive, Hagrid goes to try [to] return the bike and can’t find Sirius because he is searching for Peter.

Kat: So it takes him an entire day and a half to find Pettigrew?

Rosie: Well, yeah, why not?

Eleanor: I don’t see any problem with that.

Kat: I don’t know if I believe that.

Amy: It’s not like they’re texting.

Rosie: He doesn’t know where he is because he’s on the run.

Kat: Because if Sirius is that impulsive and… I guess…

Rosie: But Peter will know that Sirius is looking for him as well. And they’ve all been hiding from Voldemort for a while.

Kat: I suppose.

Rosie: Peter is not going to go back to his house. Sirius has already looked for him there as well.

Kat: [laughs] I don’t know. Peter might be that stupid.

[Rosie laughs]

Eleanor: No, he can’t be that dumb.

Amy: It’s almost amazing that Sirius found him at all, if you think of it like that.

Eleanor: I think… Well, I mean, wasn’t he in a rat form?

Kat: That he was waiting for Sirius to find him and for that exact scene to play out? Because he needed to set Sirius up for that. Otherwise, Sirius is just going to say, “Here’s what happened.” And they’re going to look into his brain, and they are going to look at his memories, and say, “Okay. Pettigrew is a fugitive. Let’s find him.” And so…

Rosie: Yeah. In which case, Peter would have wanted maximum impact, in which case he would have waited for the day. He would have waited for Sirius to find him.

Kat: I disagree. I think that he would have set himself up way out in the open and Sirius would have found him immediately. I think that Pettigrew would have wanted to nip that in the bud and get it taken care of ASAP.

Rosie: But if it doesn’t make a scene, then it’s Sirius’s word against Peter’s. He wants the maximum impact. He wants Sirius to definitely go down for it and no one to check, so he needs to kill as many Muggles as possible. He needs to make it a massive event.

Kat: No, I agree with that, but what I mean is that I don’t think he would have been hiding for two days. I think that he would have found a spot ASAP and been there and set some clues so that Sirius could find him incredibly easily. And that it wouldn’t have taken more than a couple of hours.

Eleanor: I don’t know. I think Peter wouldn’t have…

Rosie: In which case it would have happened concurrently with Harry being handed over. So it would have been [the] evening of November 1.

Amy: I think it could go either way.

Eleanor: I mean, possibly, but it does take time to think. Peter wouldn’t have immediately been like, “Oh, Voldemort is dead. This is what I have to do. This is what’s going to happen. Okay, I need to figure this out.”

Rosie: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. He didn’t know what…

Eleanor: It would take a little bit of time to figure that out. I think taking a day to figure that out is not unreasonable.

Rosie: And if the plan had worked and Voldemort had survived, he wouldn’t necessarily have needed to be killed. Sirius would have been taken down. Voldemort would have been powered even further, and he would… The fight would go on. Peter could then go onto Voldemort’s side; he wouldn’t need to be the double-crosser anymore. Necessarily.

Kat: I guess, just for me, I’m thinking about the person we know Pettigrew is; he’s self-serving, he always has another backup plan, he always has something else in his back pocket that serves himself, and I…

Rosie: Yeah, so I think his plan would have been to go into rat form and go into hiding. He wouldn’t necessarily have needed to do anything else. Sirius could have said, “Yeah, it was Peter,” and Peter could just become someone else or becomes a rat for a long time until Voldemort makes it safe to be himself again. I don’t think he was intending to get caught, but this, the murder of the Muggles, would have been his backup plan in case he was tracked down. And that’s what happened.

Eleanor: I think Sirius is getting close. He realized what he needed to do, and that’s when he decided on the mass murder. Yeah, I don’t think that Peter just came up with that off his own bat. I think he would have been under pressure.

Kat: I guess I’m giving Pettigrew the benefit of the doubt here because I do think that he would have come up with that. Because I see him as the Mundungus of the group and somebody who always has something else up his sleeve, and that is…

Rosie: He’s much more nervous that Mundungus, I would have thought.

Kat: That is true, and that’s mostly why I believe that he would have a plan like that because 1. He wouldn’t want his name sullied. Even if he [were] going into cover or whatever, he wouldn’t want himself to be associated with Voldemort in any way, shape, or form, so I think he would have wanted his name cleared and Sirius to take the 1000% of the fall.

Rosie: I don’t know. I think if he [were] going to betray his friends, and if he really believed that Voldemort was going to go into power, he wouldn’t mind being associated with him.

Eleanor: That all makes sense.

Rosie: By this point, he’s gone too far.

Eleanor: Yeah, but there’s no way he would have foreseen Voldemort was going to… well, not die, but be vanquished or whatever.

Rosie: Exactly, so he wouldn’t have needed to hide his name.

Eleanor: That’s why the time’s in there, because he has to have time to figure out what to do next, which may have been…

Kat: I still really think that he had a backup plan.

Eleanor: Yeah, but I just don’t think it’s as cut and dry as, “I’m going to frame Sirius for the murder of 14 Muggles.”

Kat: I suppose we could argue about it all day, but…

[Amy laughs]

Kat: … we’ll get to hear what the listeners think and see how they feel about the whole situation. So then the next person I wanted to touch on was Hagrid. Because all we know that he does is, he sees McGonagall, and he picks up Harry, and he flies. That’s it. Is that really all he does? Like Rosie said, does he take him to a cafe and they have lunch?

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Does Hagrid, perhaps, take Harry to get medical care?

Rosie: Maybe. Maybe they go to St. Mungo’s for the day.

Amy: I mean, I could see him taking him to Dumbledore.

Kat: But wouldn’t there be some sort of record? Dumbledore doesn’t see Harry until that evening. That’s been confirmed. Because he says, “Meet me at Privet Drive” later that evening.

Rosie: Yeah, so Hagrid and Dumbledore have arranged a time, because Dumbledore says, “Hagrid’s late.” So Hagrid knows that he has to be with Harry at Privet Drive at 7 o’clock, whenever it is. So it depends on when he goes to get Harry, and for all we know, they don’t go to the scene of wherever it is until the morning. They don’t actually know it’s happened until…

Kat: No, because it says that Dumbledore set up a charm, and he knows immediately what happened,6 and he sends Hagrid immediately. So Hagrid goes…

Rosie: So that would suggest that Hagrid goes straight away at night.

Kat: Yeah, the attack happens around midnight, and Hagrid goes immediately.

Rosie: Do we…? And… but we know McGonagall watches Vernon all day and that Dumbledore arrives in the early evening because the lights are coming on. It’s getting dark, so it has to be around 7 o’clock. So yeah, so Hagrid, presumably, has 18 hours to fill with Harry if he’s gone to fetch him right away.

Amy: If it’s around midnight, doesn’t Voldemort almost kill a little kid out trick-or-treating right before? I feel like it would have been even earlier in the evening, which just makes more time. [laughs]

Kat: But no, you’re right. I don’t know if that happens immediately before he goes in there, but I do remember him having a commentary about that moment. “No, no need,” he says. Perhaps he sits there and watches them for a while.

[Amy laughs]

Kat: I know; he’s a jerk. So then, if we think of St. Mungo’s, there would be some sort of record if Harry had gone there on that evening.

Rosie: Unfortunately, we don’t have access to the wizarding medical records today. [laughs]

Eleanor: I mean, Hagrid might have just been trying to calm Harry down. Harry could have been going apeshit for the last 12 hours. I mean, little kids are crazy like that.

Rosie: Equally, Hagrid could have been trying to calm himself down. He was Lily and James’s friend. He would need some time.

Kat: And we’re also assuming that Hagrid had Harry all day, which we don’t necessarily know is true. We assume that it’s true, and it’s probably true, but we don’t know.

Eleanor: Well, where else would he go?

Rosie: Hagrid could go […] get Harry, bring him to Dumbledore [at] Hogwarts, and then Dumbledore has to leave, so says, “Look after Harry. Bring him to Privet Drive at 7 o’clock.” [laughs] And therefore, Hagrid has to come from Scotland all the way down to London on a motorbike. [laughs] Nah, that wouldn’t work. [laughs]

Kat: No, I think especially because…

Rosie: Because of the motorbike, Hagrid has to have come from Godric’s Hollow with the baby to go to Privet Drive. There was no meeting up with Dumbledore in between because otherwise, Dumbledore wouldn’t say, “Where did you get the motorbike?” [laughs]

Eleanor: Yeah. Did they go to any of the crazy celebratory parties on the way down? I feel like that’s a very Hagrid thing to do.

[Kat and Rosie laughs]

Kat: Yeah. Hagrid stopped and had a few pints.

Amy: Yeah, I could see Hagrid doing that. But with the baby? Just lifting [him] up. “It’s Harry Potter day!”

Kat: Right. “This is Harry Potter!” Yeah.

Rosie: I think he would have known that he would needed to have kept him secret.

Kat: Yeah, it was a Dumbledore mission, and Hagrid respects Dumbledore above all else, so…

Rosie: Maybe it just… If they are in Scotland, and yes, Hagrid is sent to go […] get Harry straight away, but getting from Scotland to Godric’s Hollow, when you’re Hagrid, might take a while.

Kat: Maybe he didn’t fly the whole way. Maybe…

Rosie: Well, he wouldn’t get the motorbike until he gets to Godric’s Hollow., so he would need to…

Amy: Oh, and he can’t use magic. He’d have to be taking a train or something.

Rosie: Yeah. Or if he’s using a Thestral, then he would have no need of a motorbike.

Kat: I think you’ve uncovered it, Rosie. Although Hagrid doesn’t…

Rosie: It just takes him a while to get to Godric’s Hollow in the first place.

Kat: I’m pretty sure Hagrid says he doesn’t ride the Thestrals, right?

Rosie: Yes, because he’s a [half-]giant. So that wouldn’t work. [laughs] There is… I mean, Hagrid manages to disappear on Harry in King’s Cross, because Harry turns around, and he’s not there at one point when he’s asking for where 9 3/4 is. So Hagrid does have the ability to disappear, but I don’t think he would know how to Apparate because he was expelled before that lesson would have been taught to him.

Kat: Although I have a feeling he knows quite a bit of illegal magic.

Rosie: Yeah, but I don’t think he would be able to transport himself particularly quickly.

Kat: So then Rosie has uncovered it. That day, Hagrid spent on the train.

Rosie: [laughs] Potentially, yeah.

Kat: From Scotland to Godric’s Hollow, which is probably – what? – six to eight hours? I’m sure that’s definitely what happened. He used the map of…

[Amy laughs]

Kat: … on Dumbledore’s knee of the Underground and figured out [laughs] how to get there and whatever.

Rosie: So yeah, whatever particularity, I think it would have taken him a while to actually get to Godric’s Hollow. So I think it could have well been dawn, at least, by the time he got there. And that would be when Sirius turned up as well and saw what was going on. I don’t know. I imagine that Sirius and Hagrid would have gone there around the same time because otherwise, Sirius would have run off even before Hagrid got the chance to meet him.

Kat: Yeah, but it has been said that Sirius was there immediately after.

Amy: Maybe Sirius stayed with Harry until somebody came and got him, maybe?

Kat: But Sirius would have just taken Harry if he got there first.

Amy: Right, you’re right.

Kat: You know he would have. He would have just taken him.

Rosie: Yeah, as godfather, he would have definitely stepped up.

Amy: And I think he said that, too, that he tried to convince Hagrid to let him…

Eleanor: Yeah, “Let me take him.”

Kat: I do believe so.

Rosie: Let him have him, yeah. But Hagrid had to take him to Dumbledore. And that’s why he gave him the bike because Sirius wanted…

Kat: He said, “I don’t need this anymore” because he knew he was going to go […] kill Pettigrew so much.

Amy: Go commit the murder you were imprisoned for. [laughs]

Kat: Yeah, exactly. So let’s wrap up with Dumbledore.

Eleanor: Definitely partying.

Kat: Besides [laughs] partying, yeah. Getting drunk on that mulled wine, yeah.

Rosie: So it depends on how many of the theories Dumbledore was starting at that moment. So he has to try [to] work out what happened to Voldemort, because there is, supposedly, no dead body left behind. He has to work out…

Kat: Do you think he goes to the house?

Rosie: I think he’s starting to think about Horcruxes. And he’s trying to think about how Voldemort would have survived, because he is certain Voldemort will return. So it may be that he starts out on his journey of collecting memories and things on that day.

Kat: I think he probably visits the house. I think he probably goes to see what happened.

Rosie: In which case, why send Hagrid?

Kat: Because he can’t be burdened with a baby.

Amy: What a big douche. So he just let Harry sit there in the rubble for 12 hours? [laughs]

Kat: I think he goes after Hagrid. I don’t think he goes immediately after him. But I think, at some point, he sees Hagrid, he says, “Go get the baby, he does some research, he pulls a Gandalf and goes to the library for 12 years and looks up things about the ring and then goes and acts on it.

Rosie: See? I don’t think Dumbledore likes Godric’s Hollow.

Eleanor: Oh, right. He might not have gone.

Kat: No, I don’t either.

Rosie: I don’t think he has been there since his sister died.

Kat: It’s a good point.

Rosie: And I don’t think he would go back there.

Eleanor: I don’t know.

Kat: Don’t you think he’d have to?

Eleanor: I think from sheer curiosity, he would have to go back. He would need to know… especially if there was any chance that he would be able to find a Horcrux there. So he doesn’t know exactly what’s happened by that point.

Amy: He doesn’t know about Horcruxes until Harry’s second year.

Rosie: He doesn’t know about… No, he’s just starting on his theory. I don’t think he would be able to… He was not seeking Horcruxes at that moment.

Eleanor: Aww, I don’t mean seeking them, but there’s definitely… I mean, the point… There would be evidence. There would be something possibly there to go [on]. He knows there’s a mystery.

Rosie: Yeah, but I don’t think he would visit the house on the day. I don’t think he would find anything in that scene that would particularly help him in any respect. I think he, in terms of what he is trying to achieve in this moment, which is securing Harry’s safety and making sure that things are in motion to bring about… I don’t know.

Kat: I do think he already had a theory about Horcruxes and had them in the back of his mind because every time he saw Tom Riddle, he looked so deteriorated, if you remember that from all the memories before. So I do think that that was already in the back of his mind, and then when this happened, he moved forward on that theory and tried to figure out… because, like Rosie said, he said, “Voldemort will be back.” He knew Voldemort would be back, and I’m pretty sure it’s because he suspected Horcruxes the whole time.

Rosie: And I do think that conversation between Snape and Dumbledore, about Lily’s death, happens during that 24 hours. I think it happens at Hogwarts during the day.

Eleanor: Yeah, that’s true.

Kat: Most definitely. Because Dumbledore would be at Hogwarts.

Rosie: Yeah. Dumbledore is probably doing research at Hogwarts, yeah. I think that’s where he is until seven o’ clock.

Amy: And he’s doing the blood protection magic too.

Kat: Yes. And writing letters to Petunia. Got to get that handwriting perfect.

Amy: “Remember [my] last.”

Rosie: I still get hung up on this whole “blood protection” thing because if Harry manages to protect people at Hogwarts because he says he died for them in that final battle, he didn’t do any blood protection magic or anything to do that, so is it just [that] Dumbledore needs to do something to prolong it, to make it last until he turns 17? Or is that part…? I think he’s probably researching it. I don’t think he’s necessarily doing anything to influence it. I think it just already exists.

Amy: Well, maybe he had to do something to make it work with Petunia’s blood and not just Lily[‘s]. I don’t know.

Rosie: It’s too complicated; I don’t think Jo knows either. [laughs]

Kat: I think Jo knows.

Eleanor: But wasn’t the…? The protection was in Harry’s blood, so it was already there. It’s just that living with Petunia strengthens it. Yeah, so…

Rosie: So I think that Dumbledore is probably spending that day searching [through] very old books, trying to find out anything he could know about potential protective blood magic.

Kat: Well, almost two hours in, and I think we have done incredible justice to the events that happened 35 years ago on Halloween in 1981, and I hope that the listeners got some really wonderful things out of that, and I truly look forward to hearing your comments about everything we discussed. And you know how to do that over at alohomora.mugglenet.com. Leave them, and we’ll read them out on our recap episode next week. Ugh, this was good. I think this was good, and I’m really glad that this came along at a big anniversary. It’s exciting. I like when that happens.

Rosie: Yeah. So listeners, remember to raise your wands in memory of Lily and James on Halloween this Monday. And all that remains for us to do is thank our fabulous guest. Amy, thank you so much for being on. We hope you enjoyed discussing this momentous occasion with us.

Amy: Oh my gosh, I did so much! You made my dream come true. I loved it. Thank you, guys, soo much for having me.

Kat: Good. Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. Everybody give her a clap. Amy was a wonderful guest/

[Everyone claps]

Kat: Thank you, clap clap clap. All the listeners are clapping for you too, so…

Amy: Yay! I didn’t get to sing my parody. They should look up that. [laughs]

Kat: We’ll put it at the end of the episode.

Amy: Oh my gosh. Okay. [laughs]

Kat: Okay, perfect. And speaking of the end of the episode, we want to let you guys know that our next topic is going to be a big one. It’s very exciting, and we are really, super looking forward to it. We’ve been talking about doing this topic ever since we started talking about doing topics – I don’t know – about six months ago, and it is going to be disabilities in the wizarding world. And that will come out in two weeks from today, so definitely be on the lookout for that. It’s going to be a really good one. I think there’s a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot to talk about. It could probably be 12 episodes, but it’s going to be at least one for now.

Rosie: Yeah. And if you guys have a topic like disabilities in the wizarding world that you think we absolutely need to discuss, please, please, please go to the topic submit page on the main site and suggest what it should be. If you have a set of Apple headphones and a microphone, you’re all set You can join us on your chosen topic, and you can help us discuss the fantastic detail of the wizarding world. No extra fancy equipment needed – just your brains and your mouths and something to record your ideas. [laughs]

Kat: And in the meantime, if you want to keep in touch with us, you can find us on Twitter at @AlohomoraMN [or on Facebook at] facebook.com/openthedumbledore. Of course, our website is alohomora.mugglenet.com. And don’t forget that you can always send us an owl over on audioBoom. It’s in the right-hand menu over at our website, alohomora.mugglenet.com. Keep your message under 60 seconds, and you could hear yourself on the show.

Rosie: And thank you again, one last time, to our fabulous Patreon sponsor for today’s episode. That was Ayesha Hawkins. Thank you so much. You guys as well could sponsor us over on Patreon. It’s patreon.com/alohomora. You can sponsor us for as low as $1 a month, and there are some fantastic perks on there that you can check out, including our next fantastic perk, which is actually Michael doing one of his amazing readings of a Harry Potter extract of your choice, I believe. It is $15 a month, and it is incredibly cool. Michael is fantastic. If he could read the books to me, I would listen to them over and over again. [laughs] I will pay for that perk.

Kat: I went to visit him in Austin last month, in Texas, and we went to a bookstore, and no joke, we sat there for 45 minutes, and I made him read Harry Potter to me.

[Rosie laughs]

Kat: Not like I made him and twisted his arm, but that’s all we did, is sat there and read Harry Potter.

Rosie: I listened to his “[The] Tale of [the] Three Brothers” so many times.

Amy: He needs to do all of those extra books because Jim Dale hasn’t done them, so he could just go do them. Yeah.

Rosie: This is true, yeah. [laughs]

Kat: He could. But in the meantime, you guys can all go over there and get that perk, and it will be a fun little Google Hangout, and Michael will read to you for… We’re not exactly sure how long. It’s going to be up to Michael because it’s his time, but I know that I, personally, will definitely be donating to that because I want to be there. I want to be there. Yep.

Rosie: So all that remains for us to say is that I am Rosie Morris.

[Show music begins]

Eleanor: I am Eleanor Harrison-Dengate.

Kat: And I am Kat Miller. Thank you for listening to Episode 205 of Alohomora!

Rosie: Open the 24-hour-long Dumbledore. [laughs]

[Show music continues]

Kat: So there is a crazy theory too – and I definitely want to bring this up and talk about this – and this was before… I think it was right after Goblet that this theory became a really big thing. Obviously, because we see the Priori Incantatem scene, and the theory is that James and Lily were actually killed with Lord Voldemort’s wand by somebody else after Lord Voldemort tried to kill Harry, and the reason that theory was about is because, in the graveyard scene, we don’t see the [Killing Curse] that attempted to kill Harry. And I thought that was a super interesting theory to talk about and see how we thought that could play out. Jo has since debunked it and confirmed that they were definitely killed first. Like, “Sorry, sorry.” But I thought it was interesting enough to talk about because it’s a fun, alternate universe to theorize what could’ve happened if they were killed after and who would have killed them with Voldemort’s wand because that’s crazy. So it wouldn’t’ve been Wormtail.

Eleanor: Snape?

Rosie: It’s fun, but I think it’s just completely unlikely, so I wouldn’t have any theories because it wouldn’t’ve happened. [laughs]

Amy: It was Delphi. [laughs] I’m just kidding.

[Amy and Rosie laugh]

Kat: Oh, God.

Rosie: Yeah, it was Delphi. [laughs]

Amy: With the Time-Turner. I don’t know. Because that wouldn’t’ve made sense either.