SPEAKERS
Michael Boothby, Grace Ball, Christina Kann
 
Christina Kann (voiceover)  00:02
"They trudged up the misty field between long rows of tents. Most looked almost ordinary. Their owners had clearly tried to make them as Muggle-like as possible but had slipped up by adding chimneys or bell poles or weather vanes. However, here and there was a tent so obviously magical that Harry could hardly be surprised that Mr. Roberts was getting suspicious. Halfway up the field stood an extravagant confection of striped silk like a miniature palace with several live peacocks tethered at the entrance; a little farther on, they passed a tent that had three floors and several turrets; and a short way beyond that was a tent that had a front garden attached, complete with birdbath sundial and fountain."
 
Christina Kann (voiceover)  01:03
What's up, Pott-heads? Welcome to The Restricted Section. It's a show in which a bunch of nerds with potty mouths reread the Harry Potter series for the umpteenth time and discuss how the story and its themes have stayed with a generation into adulthood. Thank you for being here today. If you haven't done the reading, don't worry, we did it for you. Here's what we're talking about today.
 
Christina Kann (voiceover)  01:23
Chapter Seven: Bagman and Crouch. In this chapter, the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione settle into their campsite. We get to see more of the greater wizarding community in this one chapter than in literally all of the previous books combined. We also get to meet Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, and Barty Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation. The day wears on until finally it's time! It's time to go to the Quidditch World Cup. Tune in next week for the game.
 
Christina Kann  02:00
Welcome to The Restricted Section, where old men wear flowing, flowery night gowns to get a healthy breeze around their privates sometimes! I'm joined today by my friend Grace! Say hello to the listeners, Grace.
 
Grace Ball  02:13
Hello, listeners. I am pleased as punch to be here.
 
Christina Kann  02:17
Yes. And our special guest today is none other than Michael Boothby from the Movie Night Crew! Say hello to the listeners, Michael.
 
Michael Boothby  02:26
Hello, listeners. Thank you for listening to me on this other podcasts on the network.
 
Christina Kann  02:33
Thank you for joining us. Can you tell us a little bit about your very Harry history? When did you get into the books? When did you get in the movies? Who helped you along the way?
 
Michael Boothby  02:44
Reading Harry Potter was like one of my favorite experiences as a kid. Growing up, I always loved reading. I read Lord of the Rings when I was probably in like third grade or so, you know. And so I'd always loved reading, and Harry Potter was like, obviously one of my favorites. I still remember when the books were coming out. I remember when Goblet of Fire came out, and we went to the store and got the book and you'd be up all night just like reading it, tearing through the pages -- which, like, people probably don't do at all anymore, right? Like what's a book anymore? Right?
 
Christina Kann  03:21
We're the wrong people for that.
 
Michael Boothby  03:24
Well, yeah, I don't know Zoomers. I don't know. Everything's on the screen now. And we didn't grow up with screens; we grew up with books and Nintendo 64.
 
Christina Kann  03:33
It's true, and it's also true that definitely I don't think any books are nearly as anticipated and savored as these books were in their day.
 
Michael Boothby  03:42
Oh, it was nuts. I mean, I think the only thing I can really kind of compare it to now is when Game of Thrones was on TV. Even though I'd already kind of read the books until it got to the point where they would surpass the books, which never happened with Harry Potter, thank God. But it's that same kind of energy, right? When the books came out, it was such a big deal. I was awful, actually. I was really awful because when Order of the Phoenix came out -- I remember I spent like the next few days reading the books -- and I end up spoiling that Sirius Black dies to my sister. And she still does not forgive me for that. And I get it.
 
Grace Ball  04:27
That's a deep wound.
 
Christina Kann  04:27
Yeah, that's pretty rough.
 
Michael Boothby  04:29
I was being a stupid little boy.
 
Christina Kann  04:33
We all have Harry Potter drama and trauma. Yeah. So Michael, what Hogwarts house are you, if you had to pick one or a couple?
 
Michael Boothby  04:43
Oh, I think a few months ago you sent me the the link to the quiz. I'd never done it before. I think I was a Hufflepuff.
 
Christina Kann  04:55
Yay! I lovingly accept you into House Hufflepuff.
 
Michael Boothby  04:59
Awesome, thanks.
 
Christina Kann  05:00
That tracks. You're very like friendship driven, very easy to get along with.
 
Grace Ball  05:06
Yeah, a very welcoming person
 
Michael Boothby  05:08
Yeah, I think so. The other one that might have been me is Ravenclaw. That's more kind of like intelligent, really brainy, and cunning, right?
 
Christina Kann  05:23
That would have been, I think, my second guess for you is Ravenclaw because of your interest in the arts and stuff. I'll allow it. We love a Ravenpuff on this show. Our guest last week was Ravenpuff also, our friend Anna. It's a bit of like a Luna Lovegood vibe, and honestly, Michael, I see that for you.
 
Michael Boothby  05:42
Yeah, definitely. When I think of Luna Lovegood, I'm like, "That's the person who I want to be friends with." Like, she's so weird, like really out there, but so just like kind hearted, means well, loves her friends, you know?
 
Christina Kann  05:59
Yeah, something that you and Luna Lovegood have in common is that I really do feel like I could kind of say pretty much anything to you, and you'd be like, "Cool! Yeah, that's an interesting perspective. I'd love to talk about that."
 
Michael Boothby  06:10
Definitely.
 
Grace Ball  06:11
Just zero judgment.
 
Christina Kann  06:12
Yeah. Yeah, zero judgment zone
 
Michael Boothby  06:14
Definitely. I'm definitely that kind of guy who -- I mean, I pride myself on encouraging other people to be comfortable expressing themselves. I mean, you know, my background is in performing and teaching improv, and that's what it is. I'm always just trying to yes-and my friends and life in general, you know? It's more fun that way.
 
Christina Kann  06:36
Yeah. Oh my gosh, absolutely. And actually just a little bit of podcast lore for the listeners, we know Michael because he met Brooke while they were both traveling in New Zealand, which I think is so cool.
 
Michael Boothby  06:49
Oh yeah.
 
Christina Kann  06:50
And then you guys both ended up back here in Richmond.
 
Michael Boothby  06:53
Yeah, yeah, we did. I mean, she was from here, you know? It was funny cuz my sisters moved here probably like six years ago now. And I would come and visit them for like holidays and stuff, and I would go and meet up with Brooke and get coffee and stuff, and we'd talk about life in Chicago and all of that. So it was so cool when I finally ended up here. I'm like, "Hey dude, I'm moving to Richmond." She was like, "Okay, cool. Come meet my friends." You know?
 
Christina Kann  07:20
Did you talk about life in Chicago just because it interested you? Or did you live in Chicago?
 
Michael Boothby  07:25
I lived in Chicago. Yeah. When I came back from New Zealand, I was like living back with my parents in Florida for like, probably only a month. And then it was like, "I'm going to Chicago" because I wanted to perform. I mean, I wanted to like be on SNL and all that. Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  07:42
And living with parents in Florida is a vibe.
 
Michael Boothby  07:46
It is a vibe. I actually did an activity earlier that made me feel like I still live with my parents, which was watching the local news at six and then watching NBC Nightly News at 6:30. I did that tonight, and I'm like, "Whoa, are my parents here? What's going on?" Because I would never do that. I don't ever watch the news. And I did tonight. It was obviously so many horrible things. You know, there's nothing good on the news.
 
Christina Kann  08:14
Yes, right. It's not great for self-care to watch the news.
 
Michael Boothby  08:18
No, you know, and they're not telling you anything that you don't already know. It's like, oh, like a school shooting. And even the newscasters at this point are like, "I can't believe this keeps happening. But it happened again." God, dang it. Really?
 
Grace Ball  08:34
Yeah. Definitely doom and gloom.
 
Michael Boothby  08:36
Yeah America being America, which is why we read books about wizards.
 
Christina Kann  08:42
Right! Yes, absolutely. Let's enter that fantasy land. But we're gonna start with an email! That's not very fantastical. Okay. It has been a while, I think, since we've read an email from our beloved friend Mats. But Mats has sent us an email. He actually sent this a couple of weeks ago and I was like, "I'm going to save it for this chapter." This is a little bit of a spoiler alert for what happens later in this chapter, even though we're all spoilers all the time. Here's this email from Mats. Mats says, "Did you know that Ludo Bagman canonically owns half an eel farm? In Goblet of Fire chapter seven Bagman and Crouch--" which is the chapter we're covering today-- "Ludo bagman reveals that, 'little Agatha Tim's has put up half shares in her eel farm on a week long match'--" Betting that the World Cup will take a week to play out. "Which we know did not happen, as a certain Bulgarian seeker decided that he was going to catch the Snitch early despite his team being down by a very manageable amount of points. And no professional athlete in the world could ever make that decision, especially not in the World Cup final. Okay, I'm done. (I'm totally not still mad at this about this. Why are you asking?) Anyway, Krum catching the Snitch early made sure that Ludo Bagman won his bet and gained half an eel farm. Not 100% sure if I call that a win necessarily, but that could just be me. I will never not find it funny that Ludo Bagman owns half an eel farm." Mats keeps saying the phrase "half an eel farm" because it is extremely ridiculous.
 
Christina Kann  08:55
I think that's important. It is only half.
 
Christina Kann  09:59
"What does he do? Did he just retire from his ministry job to become an eel farmer full time? I like to picture bagman walking up to those goblins with whom he was betting trying to bribe them with a bag of eels."
 
Michael Boothby  10:34
Oh my gosh.
 
Grace Ball  10:35
Oh my god. Wow, love that.
 
Christina Kann  10:41
They mention that bet in this chapter.
 
Michael Boothby  10:43
I'm trying to find it because I remember when I was rereading it, I was like, "This is kind of wild."
 
Christina Kann  10:49
It is wild!
 
Michael Boothby  10:49
This is something that as a kid like I didn't really get it, but now that I've actually like traded stocks -- I've done a little bit of gambling -- I'm like, "Whoa, what's going on here?"
 
Grace Ball  11:01
I'd take that bet.
 
Michael Boothby  11:04
I think honestly my favorite part of this chapter was when the guy's like, "Who wants to get some bets?" and some people are like, "Meh," and then Fred is just like, "Yo, here's all the money we have." They're like, "Oh, Ireland will win but Krum's gonna catch the Snitch," and then he's like, "Oh, like that would ever happen. I'll give you a good odds." I forget if that's what does happen. I feel like maybe it does. I don't know.
 
Grace Ball  11:29
It does.
 
Michael Boothby  11:29
Okay, is this how Fred and George got the money to start their shop? In this crazy bet?
 
Christina Kann  11:35
*singing to Hamilton tune* Just you wait, just you wait. Better read along! *end singing* Anyway, thank you so much, Mats, for that email. Thank you for really highlighting this thing that I think we all have passed over in reading several times before, and we might have you been passed over in today's conversation but it is super ridiculous and it deserves to be underlined.
 
Grace Ball  11:53
I agree completely.
 
Michael Boothby  11:54
I love that.
 
Grace Ball  11:55
And doesn't Bagman like kind of go away because he owes all of these people money and stuff?
 
Christina Kann  12:03
He goes away to the farm.
 
Grace Ball  12:03
He goes he goes on the eel instead of on the lam. That was a terrible joke I take it all back.
 
Christina Kann  12:14
Yeah, I was gonna say that they sent him to a farm upstate.
 
Michael Boothby  12:19
Is that what happens?
 
Christina Kann  12:21
Isn't that a euphemism for putting down your dog?
 
Grace Ball  12:23
Yes. But what does an eel farmer do? I mean, I guess you can sell eel on the market.
 
Christina Kann  12:35
Eels live in the water. Just as a reminder to everyone, they're aquatic creatures.
 
Grace Ball  12:39
Yes.
 
Christina Kann  12:40
And one time I visited my friend who lives in Alaska. She is a psychiatrist, I think, in Alaska, in Sitka, which is an island on the southern coast. And her boyfriend at the time worked for a salmon hatchery, basically a salmon farm. They would like raise -- they would like, egg up -- like, grow -- grow eel -- no! salmon -- I'm getting really turned around now. They would grow salmon eggs and then like release the salmon into the ocean, and then the salmon would come back to mate, because they go back to mate where they were born, and they would harvest all the salmon and it was incredibly metal -- and by "metal" I mean there were metal baseball bats that they would use to club these salmons over the head. It was extreme. So that's what I picture, this eel farm, but even more metal because they are electrical.
 
Michael Boothby  13:37
Do they club them with like magical spell clubs?
 
Christina Kann  13:42
Like anti electric clubs.
 
Michael Boothby  13:44
Yeah.
 
Grace Ball  13:45
I cannot picture Ludo bagman doing that, I'm sorry.
 
Christina Kann  13:48
Wasn't he a beater? Just saying.
 
Grace Ball  13:50
Oh my god, wait. You're right. 100%.
 
Michael Boothby  13:51
He definitely could! Oh he's definitely clubbing those eels.
 
Grace Ball  13:53
I just felt like in that moment he was too silly to be doing that, but you're right, he does have a history of clubbing.
 
Michael Boothby  13:59
Maybe this was always just like a passion of his, you know? Even like back when he was a beater he was just by the ocean one day and it just kind of became his side hustle. And then he slowly was working his way to getting a whole eel farm and just he never made it.
 
Christina Kann  14:20
After Ludo Bagman runs away in shame after he can't pay his debts, I imagine like a "Where is he now??" and it's just "You can find me in da club," and it's him like on the rocky coast with like an eel bashing club slash beater bat.
 
Michael Boothby  14:37
This sounds like a very specific like Robot Chicken sketch, What Happened to Ludo Bagman?
 
Christina Kann  14:46
Robot Chicken freaks me out, but that is a weirdly flattering compliment on a joke. I'm like, "Okay, so it's uncomfortable, but like pretty funny."
 
Michael Boothby  14:54
I think so.
 
Christina Kann  14:57
So this chapter starts with they just took the portkey two chapters ago, so like not the last chapter and not the last chapter. The chapter before that. Brooke was on, and I was complaining about how we have all these buildup chapters in the beginning. Brooke made a very funny joke about how, much like a flan, we are now perfectly set. It was really good. But I just want to point out that it is now like several chapters later, and we are still setting. The flan has over set.
 
Grace Ball  15:27
Over proved!
 
Christina Kann  15:30
I'm gonna isolate that sound clip. I'm gonna make it my alarm.
 
Grace Ball  15:36
You're running late, Christina, you're overproved!
 
Christina Kann  15:41
So they've all arrived on a stretch of misty moor. I can just picture Liz Bennett declining marriage proposal on this misty moor.
 
Grace Ball  15:52
Absolutely.
 
Michael Boothby  15:53
I think I've been camping in this place, you know? Not that place, but I think I've definitely pitched a tent in some misty field for some festival.
 
Christina Kann  16:02
The festival vibes in this are so good. I really was like relating to this chapter a lot because Sean and I have been to a lot of music festivals, and it's the exact same energy. It sounds so fun. Okay, but we'll get there.
 
Michael Boothby  16:17
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  16:19
There are two wizards standing there to welcome them. They're dressed very poorly in muggle incognito. They should have just worn wizard outfits because it's like, "Oh, that person is wearing a strange outfit, but at least they literally know what an outfit is."
 
Grace Ball  16:36
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  16:36
You know what I mean? Yeah, so they direct the Weasleys in the Diggorys to their respective campsites. And they go to the campsite and the campsite manager, Mr. Roberts--
 
Grace Ball  16:48
This guy.
 
Christina Kann  16:49
My man. I respect the hell out of him. This man's a Ravenclaw. He's like, "Something's not right here. I swear to god."
 
Michael Boothby  16:57
Yeah, yeah, he's a very suspicious Muggle.
 
Grace Ball  17:02
As he should be. People are not subtle here.
 
Michael Boothby  17:05
Yeah, he was like, "I've done a lot of festivals in my day, but is the magic seems too real at this one."
 
Grace Ball  17:13
Mr. Roberts is like, "I am super high right now but still really weird."
 
Christina Kann  17:19
So he asks for them to pay and Harry's helping Arthur count out muggle money.
 
Michael Boothby  17:25
I love this part. I love that part so much. I love Mr. Weasley just like being like, "How do muggle? What do I do?"
 
Christina Kann  17:36
But you know how to, like, count, right? Like these have numbers on them.
 
Michael Boothby  17:39
Yeah! That's what I was saying. Even Harry was like, "There's a five on there."
 
Christina Kann  17:45
Harry probably has never held muggle money either, real money. Maybe like learning about it in school.
 
Michael Boothby  17:52
You don't think you don't think that he just -- I don't know. You think the dursleys gave him an allowance? Probably not.
 
Christina Kann  18:01
Hard no.
 
Michael Boothby  18:02
Some pennies.
 
Christina Kann  18:03
He's been saving rogue coins from over the years and now he has like 10 muggle dollars.
 
Michael Boothby  18:07
Ones that he's found in the vacuum over the years.
 
Christina Kann  18:12
Mr. Roberts is like, "All these people are really weird. They seem to know each other." It really is like someone's having a rave and the property owner doesn't know, you know? It's like, "I've seen so many asses today. This is not a family reunion." A wizard Apparates into the scene, and he obliviates Mr. Roberts, clearing his memory, and he complains that he needs 10 obliviations -- he needs his memory wiped 10 times a day to be happy. First of all, I would argue he's not happy, and second of all, that's like hourly.
 
Grace Ball  18:46
Yeah, and I feel like at some point that must cause some kind of damage, right?
 
Michael Boothby  18:51
Do people like get addicted to this? Is this like wizard drugs? Just obliviating each other, you know?
 
Christina Kann  18:57
Ooh! That's fun.
 
Michael Boothby  19:03
Wasn't it the muggle that was getting obliviated, right? Because everyone kept doing magic stuff, and he's like, "Wait a minute," and he forgets, and he's like, "Wait a minute," and it keeps coming back. It was so funny that my sister was watching Men in Black last night; that's what this reminded me of. They just keep like flashing him with the memory eraser, but it's a spell, but I was like, "This poor guy."
 
Christina Kann  19:25
Have either of y'all watched Doctor Who?
 
Grace Ball  19:28
No I haven't. I'm so sorry.
 
Christina Kann  19:29
Okay, well, I'm gonna tell this story anyway, for the listeners. It's brief. I think I've even mentioned this before because it's kind of stuck with me. I think the scariest creatures that they come across in Doctor Who, they're called the Silence. And they're these creatures that -- I don't remember -- they're bad for some reason. Murdery, they're gonna murder you, it's bad. I don't really remember. But when you're looking at them, cool. There they are. But as soon as you turn away, you completely forget that they exist. And so they're always trying all these things to desperately remember that they've seen one of these creatures. So they start by like, every time they see one they do a tally mark on themselves. And so they'll walk into this room and be like, "Oh, cool, okay, clear." And then they'll like, look down and there's 15 tally marks on their hand and they're like, "Oh my Jesus Christ. They're somewhere around me."
 
Grace Ball  20:25
That's even scarier though! You have the evidence of it.
 
Christina Kann  20:28
Yes. And then they're like, "Oh, shit, it's right there. I'm gonna go tell--" And then they turn and they're like, "Oh, nothing, nothing's wrong." And it like becomes such an issue that they like upgrade and they put little -- I don't know -- alien future magic -- they put little voice recorders in their hands. So every time they see one, they record while they're watching it, so it gets scarier. They'll like see that the light in their hand is beeping and they'll play back a message of themselves that they don't remember. It's just like, "They're everywhere. They're all around us!"
 
Grace Ball  20:59
Just like heavy breathing.
 
Christina Kann  21:00
"There's no way out." And they're like, "What the fuck?" Oh my gosh, so anyway, that's the kind of day Mr. Roberts is having.
 
Grace Ball  21:07
He is not okay.
 
Michael Boothby  21:09
No.
 
Christina Kann  21:10
He needs a notebook to write things down.
 
Michael Boothby  21:14
Then it becomes like a Christopher Nolan film. After that weekend, he's like, "What does it mean? I knew this meant something." Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  21:24
They go into the camp site, and it really is like, festival season! You see all your friends and no one has to wear work clothes and asses out, dicks out, tits out, beers out. I haven't been to a festival since before COVID, and I miss it obviously. So most of the campers have tried to emulate muggle tents and campsites, and some of them have failed. Some haven't even tried: "an extravagant confection of striped silk like a miniature palace with several live peacocks tethered at the entrance." Literally is that the Malfoys?
 
Grace Ball  22:08
I mean, I think it must be.
 
Christina Kann  22:11
Who else would have peacocks?
 
Grace Ball  22:12
Exactly.
 
Michael Boothby  22:13
Live peacocks.
 
Christina Kann  22:16
Better than dead peacocks.
 
Michael Boothby  22:18
Yeah, you're right.
 
Christina Kann  22:22
I guess the alternative would be like a stone peacock, like the lion columns that flank the New York library.
 
Michael Boothby  22:28
Oh my god. Do those exist? Now I want that: a stone peacock? That's so cool.
 
Grace Ball  22:34
It's definitely a power move.
 
Christina Kann  22:35
Yes.
 
Michael Boothby  22:36
In my in the middle of my condo, I'm gettinga stone peacock.
 
Christina Kann  22:40
The trick is to like have stone peacocks on the outside and then live peacocks on the inside, so they've already seen the stone ones. They're not expecting like more peacocks inside, and it escalates.
 
Michael Boothby  22:52
Guys, you know live peacocks are pretty scary. Have you guys ever  been around live peacocks?
 
Christina Kann  22:57
Um, wait. Yes. And who -- Why? Why was I talking about this like yesterday?
 
Michael Boothby  23:03
I don't know.
 
Christina Kann  23:04
I was talking to somebody about peacocks because whoever was was like "All zoos do that." Because if the zoo has a peacock, the peacock just go wild. Yeah, they're terrifying.
 
Michael Boothby  23:13
I've seen peacocks before, but not at a zoo. I went camping once with my best friend and his dad when I was a kid living in Florida, and we just went to this campsite and you woke up and there was just a bunch of peacocks.
 
Christina Kann  23:26
No!
 
Grace Ball  23:27
Mikey, I'm not unconvinced that you've actually been to the Quidditch World Cup. I think you were there. Are you Mr. Roberts?
 
Christina Kann  23:42
Oh, wait, what are you writing down in my notebook there? Your momento notebook?
 
Michael Boothby  23:48
Yeah right. When you guys hit me with the spell after the podcast.
 
Christina Kann  23:56
Okay, so they reach their camp spot. Magic is technically not allowed on the muggle campsite. I mean, you can do magic subtly, I think, and make your life a lot easier, but Arthur is very excited to put up the tents manually.
 
Michael Boothby  24:12
That was in my notes. I literally put that in my notes. I have three notes, and they're all very short, and that was one of them. Page 78: Mr. Weasley being overexcited using a mallet. I just love that. It's so funny.
 
Christina Kann  24:25
I love him.
 
Michael Boothby  24:26
He's so adorable. He's got such a big heart, but he's so stupid sometimes.
 
Christina Kann  24:34
He's a man of simple pleasures.
 
Michael Boothby  24:35
Yeah, for sure.
 
Christina Kann  24:36
He's easily entertained.
 
Grace Ball  24:38
He's so earnest and so endearing. I'm just like, "Hw could you ever be mad at this dude?"
 
Christina Kann  24:44
For sure. Well, Molly Weasley makes it happen.
 
Grace Ball  24:46
Weasley is an exception.
 
Christina Kann  24:48
Being married to someone so incredibly mild does have its drawbacks, especially, I'm sure, when you're trying to raise seven children. Add that to the list of reasons Sean and I can't have kids. He's too mild. I can't do all of the disciplining.
 
Michael Boothby  25:03
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  25:04
I just think it's funny because if you're going to start -- Arthur Weasley has never done anything without magic in his life, and you don't start with assembling tents. That is like starting a video game on expert level. Why don't you just try it out first? Do something a little easier. Maybe make yourself a pot of coffee, you know what I mean?
 
Grace Ball  25:23
Yes, maybe try to boil some water.
 
Christina Kann  25:26
Yeah, I think coffee is a medium level, intermediate. There's a lot of components.
 
Grace Ball  25:32
Yeah, definitely not building a whole tent -- well, two tents, right?
 
Michael Boothby  25:36
Two tents, yeah, there's two tents.
 
Christina Kann  25:40
I'm a muggle. I've assembled a lot of tents in my life, and every single one is a fucking pain in the ass.
 
Michael Boothby  25:45
I don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy it. My last memory of going to a festival -- we got there late, and it was already dark, and we had to put the tents up in the dark. Not fun. Not great.
 
Christina Kann  25:58
Sean and I have a pop up tent now for that reason. We take our eight-person pop-up tend to every festival. But the first time we had that tent, we didn't really know how it was. It was also my first festival ever, and we went there right after work, and we got there when it was pitch black, and I super super super don't have night vision. I know that humans generally don't have night vision, but me in particular. It had rained so much that the whole thing was just like a muddy swamp. We were trying to find a spot to pitch our tent in the darkness, and I could barely even walk in the mud, and my Uggs were slipping and sliding everywhere, and I was having an actual meltdown. I was sobbing hysterically. Sean just found the first patch of grass, and was like, "We're camping here! Okay? We're camping here." And the people next to us was like three dudes camping in a tent, and they had been there for hours; they were incredibly shit faced. And when they saw me crying, they all ran over, and they were like, "Oh my god, are you okay? Come here!" and they walked me over to their fire, and they sat me down their chair, and they handed me like a hot dog and a beer. They were like, "We got this!" None of them had shirts on. They were all like screaming. But they were like, "We got this!" and they just put our tent together for us.
 
Michael Boothby  27:05
Wow!
 
Grace Ball  27:06
That is beautiful.
 
Michael Boothby  27:06
See, that's what I miss about festivals is just that neighborly, just people helping people. You just don't see that often in just like society, you know? When there's sidewalks and houses -- I don't know. This whole thing, you know? When you get away from that and it's just like people expressing themselves and being cool.
 
Christina Kann  27:32
It's literally so nice.
 
Michael Boothby  27:33
It's so great, yeah.
 
Christina Kann  27:35
It's a place where you can just trust everyone, kind of.
 
Michael Boothby  27:38
Now I want to go to a festival. I'm sad, there was some yoga festival that my friends went to here. I want to go to a yoga festival and teach a comedy class. Now you're like the funny guy at this yoga festival with just yoga teachers and breathwork and stuff. I love it.
 
Christina Kann  27:57
That's juxtaposition.
 
Michael Boothby  27:58
Hey, and that's comedy, baby!
 
Christina Kann  28:01
It's true. It's true. Arthur looks to Harry and Hermione for guidance with this tent, but Harry has never been camping before. Hermione probably just logics that shit, you know? She might have been camping before, actually. Her parents could be outdoors people. I never went camping as a kid, but some people's parents go camping, I'm sure.
 
Michael Boothby  28:25
I was a boy scout, but you know, I was the worst one. I didn't want to learn anything or like tie knots. I just wanted to like, build the swords out of the tree bark or whatever, and you know, have a fight in the woods and go exploring.
 
Christina Kann  28:40
What else is there to do in the woods?
 
Michael Boothby  28:43
I guess like just surviving, but like that wasn't my goal. Like, I don't care. I'm not gonna survive in the woods by myself. That sounds awful.
 
Christina Kann  28:51
Well, I was in Girl Scouts, and the tone was just like a little different. I remember one time there was a thunderstorm warning, and they woke us all up in a panic in the middle of the night to like race us home to escape the thunderstorm. My friend Anna was so upset that she barfed in the car.
 
Michael Boothby  29:07
Oh my god. She was so upset that she threw up?
 
Christina Kann  29:11
They really were panicking about the thunderstorm. They were like, "Leave everything! Abandon everything!" It was surely not that big of a deal, but they were super alarmed.
 
29:22
Yeah, that's extreme. Who gets that worked up about just rain?
 
Grace Ball  29:29
So you guys were presumably outside?
 
Christina Kann  29:31
Yes.
 
Grace Ball  29:32
And so they were freaking out.
 
Christina Kann  29:34
We were outside and they were freaking out.
 
Grace Ball  29:37
That's crazy.
 
Michael Boothby  29:37
See, I remember going on a long backpacking hike. It was probably my first backpacking hike as a child. And we were in Orlando, and we went really out there. We made the tents, and at night these raging thunderstorms came in. I remember being in the tent with my friend and his dad, and the wind was blowing. I was using my sleeping bag to absorb the water at the bottom of the tent, and it was so scary, but at the same time, as a kid, I thought it was so exciting. I was like, "This is so cool! His dad's actually concerned for safety and is going outside and doing dad things to keep us safe. Good thing he's here, man. I would have no idea what to do. I don't know what to do right now. I'm gonna stay in the tent."
 
Christina Kann  30:32
I'm pretty sure my dad has never done dad things to keep me safe. That's not really his vibe, you know?
 
Michael Boothby  30:38
Yeah, yeah, no, it was a rare thing for me to witness, but I'm glad it happened. It was a really cool experience.
 
Christina Kann  30:47
When I was 16, I took my boyfriend at the time camping at this park near our house for his birthday so that we could have sex without anyone's parents being mad.
 
Grace Ball  30:56
Nice.
 
Christina Kann  30:57
But it started thunderstorming at like 10 o'clock at night. The tent was flooded, everything was flooded. It was so wet, but we were not leaving. This was like the only $25 I'd ever had to rent this campsite. We were never gonna get a chance to be alone ever again.
 
Grace Ball  31:17
This is it!
 
Christina Kann  31:19
This is the same guy for whom I went into the woods and got chiggers all down my backside because we had sex in the woods.
 
Grace Ball  31:25
Okay, I wasn't sure if this was the same story or a different one.
 
Christina Kann  31:29
Different story.
 
Grace Ball  31:30
Two separate rendezvous.
 
Michael Boothby  31:33
Man, you guys are you guys are having sex at 16? That's so cool, man. All I wanted to do when I was 16 was have sex, and I didn't lose my virginity till I was 19, till I had graduated high school.
 
Christina Kann  31:48
That's just not that bad.
 
Michael Boothby  31:50
Even now, 30 year old me, I wish 16 year old me could have the sex that I have now -- because I don't care anymore! I'm 30! I don't care anymore.
 
Christina Kann  32:02
I see, you wanted to have more chance to appreciate it before you got jaded. I do understand that.
 
Michael Boothby  32:07
It was so exciting then, too. It was the only thing I wanted and it was not happening. It was not gonna happen. I had no chance.
 
Christina Kann  32:15
I read all these YA novels where people are so excited to just like touch each other. Wow, I remember that but I don't think there's any going back.
 
Michael Boothby  32:27
Yeah, oh my god.
 
Christina Kann  32:30
Oh dear. How did we get here? You know how we got here it they "finish erecting the tent" are my exact notes.
 
Grace Ball  32:39
How dare you say "erect" at this time?
 
Michael Boothby  32:42
Nice. Very nice transition.
 
Christina Kann  32:46
And they finish the tents and they go inside, and it's bigger on the inside. That's another Doctor Who joke for you.
 
Michael Boothby  32:54
I'd love that, though. It's one of my favorite things of the Harry Potter universe -- and also Hermione's infinite bag of stuff. I just love that there's this thing that looks small on the outside, and you walk in and it's like, "It's a three bedroom." I'm pretty sure Mr. Weasley says, "Well, it's not the biggest one, you know, but we'll make do." And Harry's just like, "What the fuck? This is insane."
 
Christina Kann  33:23
That's the thing: with Harry, it doesn't matter if it's big or small. It's just the novelty of this kind of magic is is all he needs to be stoked about this. Honestly, they could probably sleep in the open grass and he'd be stoked just to be here. He hasn't done a lot of fun stuff in his life. So they need water for the kettle. It is probably, what, like, 7 am right now? It's really early.
 
Michael Boothby  33:47
It's pretty early because yeah, people are like waking up. When they first get there, I feel like no one's even up yet.
 
Christina Kann  33:54
Usually when I go camping, it's a wake up with the sun thing. It's usually like 6:30 or 7 just organically.
 
Grace Ball  34:01
Yeah, like an eel farmer or something.
 
Christina Kann  34:06
So Ron and Harry and Hermione set out to find like the spigot that is marked on their campsite map, so they get to stroll through. At the festivals I go to, I call this a preliminary walkabout, just to see where stuff is. See if you see any familiar faces. Don't even worry about setting up camp. Yeah, like just go. We'll do this later. We have all day. Yeah, people are starting to wake up. Harry's never seen wizard children before. And the book doesn't say this, but I feel like he's probably a little like sadly nostalgic. What's the opposite of nostalgic? Like, "I wish I had had that," you know?
 
Michael Boothby  34:44
Jealous? I mean, it's not jealous but it kind of is.
 
Grace Ball  34:48
A little envious, maybe.
 
Michael Boothby  34:49
Envious! I think that's the word. He easily could have had that with his parents. Yeah, they would have brought him to the Quidditch Festival and let him get a little too crazy on a mini broom while the other wizards are like, "Tame your kids!" I love that. They're like, "These are bad parents!" like they're all like judging each other or whatever.
 
Christina Kann  35:13
Oh my god, this just like flashed me back to when I was a kid and all the adult couples in my family were not divorced yet. They're all divorced now. But you know, I would go to the Outer Banks with my whole family, and somehow we would fit eight children and six aunts and uncles and Grandma, we'd all fit in the same house. And every night -- I know this now, and at the time I just didn't even clock it -- but every night, all the grownups would get shit-faced drunk, and we would just like run wild on the beach. And I just picture that for James and Lily and the Marauders, just like getting drunk as shit. And they're like, "Fuck, we have a baby. We're 22." Yeah, going buckwild on a toy broom. It's a lovely little image.
 
Grace Ball  36:02
I love that.
 
Michael Boothby  36:02
Oh, poor Harry.
 
Christina Kann  36:04
But it never was!
 
Michael Boothby  36:05
It was never meant to be.
 
Christina Kann  36:07
There's a baby who's prodding the slug with a wand.
 
Grace Ball  36:14
Kevin!
 
Christina Kann  36:14
Is his name Kevin?
 
Grace Ball  36:16
Yeah, his name's Kevin.
 
Christina Kann  36:17
Oh my god, that makes me so happy, for some reason, that his name is Kevin.
 
Michael Boothby  36:21
The little baby -- he has a name?
 
Grace Ball  36:24
Yeah, his name is Kevin.
 
Christina Kann  36:25
I don't know why I didn't retain that either.
 
Grace Ball  36:28
I just thought it was so random and funny.
 
Michael Boothby  36:30
I have to look this up. I have to see it with my own eyes. Little Kevin?
 
Grace Ball  36:37
Yep. This is just a reminder to me -- and I know we've talked about it before with the Weasleys having seven kids -- but just like how much of a nightmare it would be to be a parent of wizards. They're just crazy. They're just like stealing your wand and like doing a bunch of shenanigans.
 
Christina Kann  36:57
It's true. And honestly, not to always make everything about my kittens, but it's similar, I think. With the kittens it's like, "How did you jump so far? Like how are you this? How do you have this much energy? This is bananas. This is unfathomable to me." And I feel like it'd be the same thing with a kid. "Whoa, you're defying gravity, the laws of physics. Get it together. This is really wild right now."
 
Michael Boothby  37:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
 
Christina Kann  37:25
 Slugs. "You bust slug!"
 
Michael Boothby  37:28
I just read read a part that like I think I didn't register when I was reading it earlier. All the wizards are waking up, but I love that "while a group of middle aged American witches set gossiping happily beneath a spangled banner stretched between their tents that read 'the Salem Witches Institute.'" I love that. I love that so much. And they're like, "Harry caught snatches of conversation in strange languages from the inside of tents they passed." It's so funny. It's such a festival! There's just so many people and he's so excited. That's one thing I came back to, the moment Harry has this moment where he's like, "I never thought that there were wizards outside of Hogwarts," and it really dawns on him. I love the international aspect of the Goblet of Fire, right? Who doesn't want the wizard Olympics, right?
 
Christina Kann  38:22
Totally. There's probably a lot to look at, even more so than that like muggle music festival.
 
Michael Boothby  38:30
Right! And there's already so much there.
 
Christina Kann  38:35
They get to the Ireland camping section, which is all decked out in green. They next find the Bulgaria section, where Victor Krum's poster is everywhere. They run into Seamus and Dean, obviously in the Ireland section. His name's Seamus. He's in the Ireland section.
 
Michael Boothby  38:53
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  38:54
I always like read the chapter and listen to it also. I just listen to random videos on YouTube of people reading it. And I discovered one today, a reader who was just like a regular person -- they didn't appear to be an actor on a stage -- but they did different voices for every single character in this chapter, including different accents, and they were very well done accents. So I'm gonna link that in the show notes because it was honestly an incredible performance. It was this person and supposedly their partner, and the partner was just sitting there for 50 minutes of reading, just listening pleasantly, while their partner really committed to this elaborate -- they were doing so many voices! Anyway, it's linked in the show notes. It's really incredible.
 
Grace Ball  39:46
Yeah, that's like a one man show. That's awesome.
 
Christina Kann  39:48
Yeah, it was serious. They finally get to the water tap. They're waiting in line. Cue Archie and his nightgown. I love that man.
 
Grace Ball  39:58
Yep.
 
Christina Kann  39:59
Honestly, more power to him because he's refusing to put on -- the point of wearing muggle clothes is to not be suspicious. But the nightgown is a little conspicuous for any person to be wearing like during the day in public.
 
Grace Ball  40:21
It sounds cute though.
 
Christina Kann  40:24
It does sound cute and probably really comfy.
 
Grace Ball  40:26
Yeah!
 
Christina Kann  40:27
And airy, I guess.
 
Grace Ball  40:30
Mhm, in all the right places.
 
Christina Kann  40:34
That's why I want to buy Sean a kilt, I think, which is just a skirt. I think it would probably be so liberating for people who just wear pants every day to just throw on a skirt and see what happens. See what happens.
 
Grace Ball  40:48
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  40:50
See, this is the kind of stuff that we lose in the movies. Hermione dissolves into a fit of giggles -- specifically Hermione.
 
Michael Boothby  40:55
I love that.
 
Christina Kann  40:56
Ron and Harry are okay, but Hermione loses her shit. I don't know why.
 
Grace Ball  41:01
She's probably like, "I have that nightgown."
 
Michael Boothby  41:08
It's some inside joke she has with herself that no one else would get.
 
Christina Kann  41:15
Only children things: inside joke with myself.
 
Michael Boothby  41:18
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  41:21
They get the water, they walk back to camp. After all this, Harry finally -- I think it's been like an hour and a half -- Harry finally is like, "You know, wow. There's other schools out there."
 
Grace Ball  41:35
Way to go, Harry.
 
Michael Boothby  41:36
He has that kind of introspective moment.
 
Christina Kann  41:41
He's not a Ravenclaw.
 
Grace Ball  41:42
How has he not had that yet? But whatever.
 
Michael Boothby  41:45
I get it though. If it's your first time going to a festival, there's so much happening externally that it's not until you walk back to your tent for the first time and are sitting there and lying back. You're like, "Huh, how do I feel?" You know? I don't know.
 
Christina Kann  42:03
The reflection.
 
Michael Boothby  42:04
Right, yeah. You can't really reflect when you're meeting all these crazy people and doing tasks. You're so focused on just what's happening.
 
Christina Kann  42:13
It's true. The one festival that Sean and I have been to the most, we camp half a mile away from the event site? And it's like straight up a mountain the entire half mile. It is a good little reflection time because you're just going straight up. I feel so powerful after like three days of just walking up a mountain.
 
Michael Boothby  42:38
My gosh, if I went to that festival and camped where you guys camped, after day one, I'd be like, "I guess I'm going, bye! It's enough exercise for me."
 
Christina Kann  42:49
They do have like a bus, which is fun, but I prefer to walk.
 
Michael Boothby  42:53
Okay.
 
Christina Kann  42:53
Hey, good to see everybody.
 
Grace Ball  42:55
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  42:55
Everybody's all lit. But it's like in the dark. So it's like A Midsummer Night's Dream. Just like all these fairies in the dark.
 
Grace Ball  43:02
You can't do your walkabout from a bus.
 
Christina Kann  43:05
Exactly. So back at the campsite, they got off the bus. Arthur has been really enthusiastically failing to light his fire with matches.
 
Grace Ball  43:27
And then the one he lights, he's surprised that he lit it, and it goes out or whatever.
 
Christina Kann  43:32
Don't tell me you've never done that.
 
Grace Ball  43:34
I have certainly done that. Definitely.
 
Christina Kann  43:38
Sometimes it's scary.
 
Grace Ball  43:39
That's why I love that part! I'm like, "Wow, that's relatable."
 
Christina Kann  43:42
That's the most muggle shit! Finally Hermione's like, "Let me show you how to do a match." And then while the fire gets hot, they just kind of sit and watch people go past. I also relate to this, honestly; this is a festival vibe -- or even kind of going anywhere vibe, the people-watching. Arthur's keeping a running commentary of the ministry and other important people who pass them by. They start cooking breakfast. Charlie, Bill, and Percy arrive. I want to know -- what were they talking about this whole time before they got here? They had to walk from somewhere -- what what did the three of them talk about?
 
Michael Boothby  44:24
Yeah. That's a very good question.
 
Grace Ball  44:26
I seriously don't know.
 
Michael Boothby  44:27
That's so interesting. If this was a Game of Thrones book, we would just cut back to this long conversation about nothing.
 
Grace Ball  44:35
I feel like Bill and Charlie probably talked a lot, and then Percy had weird, awkward interjections.
 
Christina Kann  44:45
I mean, Bill and Charlie are really nice. They're both really nice. And so I feel like they're probably trying to ask him questions.
 
Michael Boothby  44:51
Yeah, right.
 
Grace Ball  44:52
That's true. They were probably trying to engage him.
 
Michael Boothby  44:58
What's, um -- what's Percy's deal? Is he just like really anxious or he have like a social like disorder or something? I don't know.
 
Christina Kann  45:08
I think that he really is just like kind of a classic Ravenclaw, like an Amy Santiago from Brooklyn 99. We did that bonus episode recently. A Hermione whose fatal flaw is that they're too Hermione. You know what I mean? You're so like perfectionistic and studious that it's the worst thing about you.
 
Michael Boothby  45:32
He's insufferable, which is why I love when he gets roasted by Barty Crouch.
 
Christina Kann  45:42
He really has no business being a Gryffindor. That is a fucking Ravenclaw.
 
Michael Boothby  45:47
Yeah.
 
Michael Boothby  45:48
Yeah, you're right. He's just an overthinker. I don't know. He's not even that brave, really. I mean, he's just kind of doing his job.
 
Christina Kann  46:01
He does brave thing ever, and it's saying sorry for a mistake and coming back, you know?
 
Grace Ball  46:07
Yeah, right.
 
Michael Boothby  46:08
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  46:10
I mean it's brave, but you had to fuck up a lot to get there.
 
Michael Boothby  46:13
Yeah. 100%.
 
Christina Kann  46:16
So Ludo Bagman shows up. He's wearing his old Quidditch robes, which look like a bee. He is boyishly handsome. I've always had a hard time envisioning this character in my head, maybe because they took him out of the movies. I don't have that to fall back on.
 
Michael Boothby  46:41
That's a shame. Maybe that's what happened. Maybe the casting director looked at that and was like, "Fuck this. Who? What does this mean? What does this person look like?"
 
Christina Kann  46:51
I mean, I understand his existence actually doesn't matter to the plotline. He serves as a red herring, pretty much, and there's just not really time for that in the films. But I wonder who y'all would cast in the movie to play Ludo Bagman?
 
Michael Boothby  47:09
I don't even know.
 
Grace Ball  47:12
Oh, no.
 
Michael Boothby  47:13
He's like older but boyish? Like I don't know what that means.
 
Christina Kann  47:16
What about the dad from Modern Family? What's that guy's name?
 
Grace Ball  47:20
His name in Modern Family is Phil.
 
Christina Kann  47:22
Right.
 
Michael Boothby  47:24
Yeah, I could see that. Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  47:26
A little full of himself but like not even remotely threatening.
 
Michael Boothby  47:31
I could see that, no, I could see that.
 
Grace Ball  47:33
I definitely can't think of a better one.
 
Christina Kann  47:37
Who's really un-disarming? He's just like so genial.
 
Grace Ball  47:45
Just like not a care in the world.
 
Christina Kann  47:47
Yeah, doesn't have to be a British person.
 
Michael Boothby  47:50
Actually, he would have been way too old at the time, but honestly Gene Wilder as like a cameo.
 
Christina Kann  47:57
Oh, that's fun!
 
Michael Boothby  47:58
He'd just be really eccentric. I don't know.
 
Christina Kann  48:02
Um, Reddit says -- and I think this is a great point -- Reddit says that if Kenneth Branagh had not already portrayed Lockhart, he probably would have made a good Ludo Bagman. I think that what they're saying is that he's really good at putting on airs and blowing hot air. Airs and air.
 
Grace Ball  48:20
Yeah, I like that.
 
Christina Kann  48:22
Owen Wilson.
 
Grace Ball  48:24
Wow. I mean, I didn't mean to say "wow" like that.
 
Christina Kann  48:31
We also got Paul Rudd.
 
Michael Boothby  48:37
Yeah, I mean, he is 50 and does look very young, in fairness.
 
Christina Kann  48:43
Yeah. Also, Jeff Bridges is the last recommendation on this Reddit thread.
 
Michael Boothby  48:47
I could see that.
 
Grace Ball  48:48
Interesting.
 
Michael Boothby  48:49
I can see that.
 
Grace Ball  48:50
Yeah, I think those are good options. I like Owen Wilson for the part myself.
 
Christina Kann  48:54
I do too. Tell us who you would cast as Ludo Bagman. Shoot us an email at restrictedsectionpod@gmail.com or hit us up on our socials, because we would love to know. I'm sure we will talk about this in our Discord server. As a reminder, you can join our Discord server for supporting us on Patreon for $1 a month. Ludo Bagman is "plainly in a state of wild excitement." Wow, hard same. I can like feel that.
 
Grace Ball  49:32
It really resonates with you, doesn't it?
 
Christina Kann  49:36
Grace, tell me if I'm wrong, if you don't feel this way, but as I was reading this, and all of the ministry employees who are complaining to each other, they're all running at 100 miles per hour, and they're all really stressed. This reminds me the RVA Booklovers' Festival that we throw together.
 
Michael Boothby  50:06
You guys throw a book festival?
 
Christina Kann  50:09
We do, Michael. That was before your time. We do host an annual book festival through our RVA Booklovers.
 
Michael Boothby  50:17
I want to come. Who comes to that?
 
Grace Ball  50:20
Just like all the booklovers.
 
Michael Boothby  50:23
I'm gonna come show my book at it. Can I sponsor it? Can I get a booth?
 
Christina Kann  50:33
You can get a Boothby booth.
 
Grace Ball  50:38
Yeah, but it is similar vibes to that, Christina. Just like complete chaos but we're all so excited.
 
Christina Kann  50:46
Yeah, they're like servers who are super weeded at the dinner hour, but there's that one person who is always crushing, it always gets great tips, never drops anything, never forgets anything, and they're having a great time, and everyone else is like "Hey, fuck you. They just sat me three six stops in a row."
 
Michael Boothby  51:07
Mmm.
 
Grace Ball  51:07
Ugh, flashbacks.
 
Christina Kann  51:08
Yeah, I write these notes ahead of time and then I make myself laugh later. I wrote, "I go limitless when I'm hosting too." Have you guys seen limitless?
 
Grace Ball  51:22
No. Wow. Failing you left and right.
 
Christina Kann  51:25
It's Bradley Cooper--
 
Michael Boothby  51:27
No, I have seen that.
 
Christina Kann  51:28
Yeah, it's basically about cocaine. It's a made-up drug but--
 
Michael Boothby  51:32
I thought it was about Adderall.
 
Christina Kann  51:34
No, it's a made-up drug, but it is just straight up cocaine because you take it and you're like, "Oh, I'm perfect now. I can do everything. I got everything." You see things in slow motion and in four dimensions. So I get it. That's how I go when I'm hosting too. I'm like, "My anxiety is so high that my brain is so crisp and clear right now." Ludo Bagman asks Arthur to bet on the game, and he bets a galleon.
 
Michael Boothby  52:02
How much is a galleon? Is that like, what is that?
 
Michael Boothby  52:05
10 or 20 bucks?
 
Grace Ball  52:08
In season one, Andrew had a whole conversion chart or something?
 
Christina Kann  52:14
Oh my god. I think it is at least $10.
 
Michael Boothby  52:27
Okay. 10, 20 bucks. Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  52:28
Yeah. Okay, the twins offer to bet 37 galleons and some change. And a fake wand.
 
Michael Boothby  52:37
The fake wand!
 
Christina Kann  52:38
The prank wand.
 
Michael Boothby  52:39
I love the prank wand so much.
 
Grace Ball  52:42
That's everything that they have.
 
Christina Kann  52:44
Yeah, it is.
 
Michael Boothby  52:46
They did a true YOLO on this rare outcome of this game. I love this whole part that turns into sports betting. It literally just turns into an ad for like DraftKings.
 
Christina Kann  53:00
They're trying ostensibly to get startup money for their business.
 
Michael Boothby  53:06
Yeah, I respect the hell out of it, man.
 
Christina Kann  53:09
I do too. It's risky, but they probably don't have any other options, especially with their mother acting the way she's been acting, which I don't approve of.
 
Grace Ball  53:17
Yeah, they're like, "We're all in." But not a great dude to go all in with.
 
Christina Kann  53:22
Right. Yeah, I think they just trust him because he's a ministry official. And Arthur Weasley has brought a lot of trustworthy ministry officials into their life before, you know? But Ludo's just not that way.
 
Grace Ball  53:35
And technically, Ludo did come through with the tickets to the World Cup.
 
Michael Boothby  53:41
Right, and they're box tickets too. These aren't in the crowd. This is up in the box, right? He's announcing the whole event, right? He's VIP.
 
Christina Kann  53:54
Andrew hypothesized last episode that Cornelius Fudge made sure -- or even Bagman, just the ministry -- ensured that Arthur Weasley invited Harry to this game as a brag because the other country's ministry officials are also sitting in the box. So it's like a brag you know? We got Harry Potter.
 
Grace Ball  54:14
Yeah.
 
Michael Boothby  54:15
 Right. It's good PR for the ministry.
 
Christina Kann  54:18
Yeah, yeah. So the twins bet that Ireland will win the game but Krum will get the Snitch. Just like pretend you don't know what happens next. Why would anyone make this bet?
 
Michael Boothby  54:30
Because the odds -- that's why, as soon as they made that, Bagman was like, "Oh, those are crazy odds." So they would probably, if they won, would get like 1000 to one odds or something. So just like crazy money.
 
Christina Kann  54:44
That's true.
 
Grace Ball  54:45
There's a lot of betting going on, and I feel like this is a pretty unique bet. You know?
 
Michael Boothby  54:52
It is. Yeah, there's not many people taking that bet. This is the scene that I want to see, is the scene of Fred and George twinning out one night doing their investment research. They're like, "Well, here's the stats on the players, and Krum this and that, here's the score." I feel like they did their homework, you know? They stayed up pretty late, probably. They're comedians, they're jokers. They're pretty smart guys.
 
Christina Kann  55:14
One of them's the math guy and one of them's the ideas guy.
 
Michael Boothby  55:17
Right, so yeah, the idea guy was like, "What if this?" and the math guy's like, "Let me crunch the numbers," and they're like, "Let's do it."
 
Christina Kann  55:23
Fred is the ideas guy and George is the numbers guy. I believe that because typically, if you look closely, Fred is usually a slightly more of a loose cannon and George is usually slightly more level-headed and like... modest... is a weird word to say for the twins. But you know what I mean?
 
Michael Boothby  55:43
I resonate with the twins, being a twin myself, you know?
 
Christina Kann  55:46
Oh yeah! Oh, my God! Grace is a twin too!
 
Michael Boothby  55:50
Yeah, I think we've had a conversation--
 
Grace Ball  55:52
I think we have talked about this before. That's pretty cool.
 
Michael Boothby  55:54
I hope we keep forgetting and every time, we go, "Really?"
 
Grace Ball  55:57
Yes. It's fun every time.
 
Michael Boothby  55:59
So good.
 
Christina Kann  56:00
Grace, you have like a dude twin and you have a gal twin?
 
Michael Boothby  56:05
Yeah, yeah. Opposite sides of fraternal twinship.
 
Christina Kann  56:10
Yeah, it's easy for people to forget that you guys have twins because there's not another person in the world who looks exactly like you.
 
Grace Ball  56:16
That's true.
 
Christina Kann  56:18
Although you look a lot like your sister, Tabitha.
 
Grace Ball  56:21
Yeah. Whenever people hear that there are twins in the family, they assume that I'm twins with my older sister, but joke's on you.
 
Christina Kann  56:29
Poor William.
 
Michael Boothby  56:32
My friends get really upset when they find out my twin sister also doesn't have a mustache. They're like, "We thought you guys were twins. What's this? What's this going on?" I've had to have that conversation so many times over the years, like we're fraternal. People don't know what that means.
 
Grace Ball  56:52
I still remember one of my sixth grade teachers asked if we were identical, and she knew that we were male and female or whatever. So I was like, "Huh, you're an educator. Feels like you should not be asking me that question right now."
 
Michael Boothby  57:08
You should know this. You should know this question.
 
Grace Ball  57:10
Yeah.
 
Michael Boothby  57:11
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  57:12
And you can't say to your teacher, "Yikes, you're an educator. You should know this."
 
Grace Ball  57:15
Yeah. And you know, and I did anyway. No, I'm kidding.
 
Michael Boothby  57:18
I wish! That'd be so badass.
 
Christina Kann  57:20
A Ravenclaw would never. I corrected a teacher once. I was in college, and he was straight-up wrong in my area of expertise. And I really trusted him. I had a big ole brain crush on this professor, you know? When it's like, "You're not that cute, but you're so smart and your interests delight me." And he took it so nicely. He was like, "Thank you so much for correcting me. Oh my god. I would love to read more."
 
Grace Ball  57:43
Oh my God. That's the perfect reaction.
 
Christina Kann  57:46
I know.
 
Michael Boothby  57:46
I love the supportive teacher.
 
Christina Kann  57:50
Um, so the opposite of support is: Arthur Weasley asks Ludo Bagman if he's heard about Bertha Jorkins, who is missing. Ludo Bagman says he has heard "not a dicky bird."
 
Michael Boothby  58:05
Weird phrase, honestly, pretty weird phrase.
 
Christina Kann  58:08
It's British dad talk. Grandpa said this, and it's weird now
 
Michael Boothby  58:13
As an American, hate it.
 
Grace Ball  58:16
Yeah, not a fan.
 
Christina Kann  58:20
Ludo Bagman firmly believes that Bertha Jorkins is stupid and got lost of her own stupidity and will find her way home safe and confused eventually, and that it's not really his problem.
 
Michael Boothby  58:33
Who is this again? Who is this lady?
 
Christina Kann  58:35
Bertha Jorkins is a character who never has any screen time, so to speak, in the books.
 
Michael Boothby  58:41
That's a great name.
 
Christina Kann  58:43
Bertha Jorkins. Yeah, she's my bitch. She gets kidnapped. She goes on vacation and gets kidnapped by Voldemort. And she is the source of information that leads him to develop his entire plan to come back to power. Yeah. They should have looked for her sooner because then maybe they would have been able to get ahead of this in some way. But they don't.
 
Michael Boothby  59:05
I love how the Ministry of Magic, like any government agency, at the end of the day is just so incompetent.
 
Grace Ball  59:13
Yep!
 
Michael Boothby  59:14
It's like so much bureaucracy that nothing gets done.
 
Christina Kann  59:19
Yes. And I think you can see that really exemplified in this chapter, particularly with the difference between Barty Crouch and Ludo Bagman. Obviously these two men are gonna have a hard time working together. Barty Crouch Sr. shows up. He's stiff, upright, uptight dressing--
 
Michael Boothby  59:39
He speaks 250 languages!
 
Christina Kann  59:42
That is-- I just-- Two is really hard. Two languages is really hard.
 
Michael Boothby  59:47
This guy's like brilliant.
 
Christina Kann  59:50
Our American is showing. But also, I don't think that most people speak 250 languages. I think maybe like three is a good number to aspire to.
 
Michael Boothby  59:58
I know someone who speaks seven.
 
Christina Kann  1:00:01
That's pretty strong.
 
Michael Boothby  1:00:02
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
 
Christina Kann  1:00:05
Percy offers Barty Crouch a cup of tea. Crouch calls him Weatherby, which is an ongoing joke, and also, I think, a crucial plot point later.
 
Michael Boothby  1:00:15
I love it. "Thanks, Weatherby," and then yeah Fred and George are just like "Time to troll."
 
Grace Ball  1:00:23
It's heartbreaking and satisfying at the same time.
 
Christina Kann  1:00:26
Right. Yes, exactly. There is some discourse about flying carpets.
 
Michael Boothby  1:00:34
That was in my notes. That was my last note I put.
 
Christina Kann  1:00:38
Your last of three notes?
 
Michael Boothby  1:00:40
My last of my three notes was ban on flying carpets.
 
Christina Kann  1:00:44
Right, yes.
 
Michael Boothby  1:00:45
Because even Harry was like, "Wait a minute. What?" Yeah.
 
Grace Ball  1:00:55
Arthur says something about how they're muggle artifacts, carpets are muggle artifacts. But like, what the fuck is a broom, my man?
 
Christina Kann  1:01:12
Maybe with the magical community invented brooms back in the day.
 
Grace Ball  1:01:18
Okay, I see. So it started with them.
 
Christina Kann  1:01:21
That would be ridiculous, if it was invented for magical purposes before house cleaning purposes.
 
Grace Ball  1:01:26
And then muggles were like, "Wait a second!"
 
Christina Kann  1:01:29
Why did I ever think of tying some kind of sex on a bear stack?
 
Michael Boothby  1:01:35
Did they talk about why they banned the carpets? I forget why they were justifying it.
 
Grace Ball  1:01:45
I think it's racism.
 
Michael Boothby  1:01:45
Is it? Or did it become too cliche? People were like, "No, guys, no more carpets. It's too obvious."
 
Grace Ball  1:01:54
Carpets have saturated the market.
 
Christina Kann  1:01:57
I think there's a couple of reasons that you would ban magic carpets. First of all: safety. Is there seatbelts on these are your babies just rolling off the sides?
 
Grace Ball  1:02:08
I guess, but I'm trying to figure out: how is it different than a broom? Like how is it any less safe?
 
Michael Boothby  1:02:13
I have to find the dialogue.
 
Christina Kann  1:02:15
Good point, but I guess maybe like one person rides a broom kind of like a motorcycle?
 
Grace Ball  1:02:20
Right. Where you could put like a family on a carpet.
 
Christina Kann  1:02:23
Yeah, and the baby just rolls off. It could be a misuse of muggle artifacts argument.
 
Michael Boothby  1:02:32
I do love the dialog here. I do love this. "'I've been wanting a word with you too, Arthur,' said Mr. Crouch, his sharp eyes falling upon Mr. Weasley. 'Ali Bashir is on the warpath. He wants a word with you about your embargo on flying carpets.' Mr. Weasley heaved a deep sigh," like "This fucking thing again." I love this so much: "I sent him an owl about that last week." He's like "I sent the email!" "'If I told him once, I was told him 100 times: carpets are defined as a muggle artifact by the Registry of Prescribed Charmable Objects. But will he listen?' 'I doubt it,' said Mr. Crouch, accepting a cup from Percy. 'He's desperate to export here.'" He's like, "This guy's trying to make some money selling these carpets to the good wizards of Great Britain."
 
Christina Kann  1:03:32
It's funny that Ludo Bagman and Barty Crouch are such foils. They're in such juxtaposition to each other. But obviously Arthur Weasley is the happy medium between the two. He gets his job done, he takes it seriously, he's worried about it. But he also is very genial and mild and doesn't want to bother anybody. Ludo Bagman refers to some big secret thing at Hogwarts. We've heard this before. What's the big secret thing? I don't know.
 
Michael Boothby  1:04:02
Is it the Goblet of Fire?
 
Christina Kann  1:04:12
Barty Crouch insists that they need to go speak with the Bulgarians, and he makes Bagman leave with him. The afternoon wears on, people are getting excited for the headliner -- I mean the --
 
Michael Boothby  1:04:26
The main event!
 
Christina Kann  1:04:27
The main event. Salespeople are popping up all around to sell merch. I just love it so much.
 
Michael Boothby  1:04:35
The merch tents pop up, yeah.
 
Christina Kann  1:04:36
Yes! Harry buys some cool fancy omnioculars.
 
Michael Boothby  1:04:42
It's like glasses that just give you a smartphone app overview of the game. It lets you know who the players are. It's like watching the broadcast TV version of the game.
 
Christina Kann  1:04:55
Oh, cool.
 
Grace Ball  1:04:56
Yeah, they are very cool.
 
Michael Boothby  1:05:00
And they were expensive, right? Weren't they like 10 galleons or something? And Harry's like, "Guys, I'm balling." He's like, "My parents are dead, guys. It's on me. You're my friends. I did nothing for this money." Ron's like, "Oh I couldn't," but then Harry's like, "Don't worry, I'm just not buying you a Christmas gift for the next eight years," and Ron's like, "Lol, okay bro." They're so cool about it.
 
Christina Kann  1:05:26
It's wild that Harry's in a position to drop, just on a whim, the same amount of money that Fred and George just bet, which must be their life savings combined.
 
Michael Boothby  1:05:38
Money is not an issue for Harry. Harry's got a trust fund.
 
Christina Kann  1:05:42
This chapter uses the phrase "small fortune." Ron has always been mad that Harry inherited a small fortune and he was stupid rich. But, you know, that's Ron. That's Ron's problem.
 
Michael Boothby  1:05:51
Right. Yeah, it's Ron being insecure, right? Which is fair, but Harry's not showy with his money at all. He really uses it to help himself and help his friends. You know?
 
Christina Kann  1:06:02
Yeah, it's true.
 
Michael Boothby  1:06:04
Like he's a good friend here, right? You're going to the festival and there's like some cool shirt, and your friend's like, "I'm gonna buy you that $50 shirt. Why? Cuz I know you love that band."
 
Grace Ball  1:06:13
Yeah, it's not like he's doing it to brag. He's doing it because he wants them to have this.
 
Michael Boothby  1:06:18
He just wants to enjoy the game with his friends and all the have the app experience.
 
Christina Kann  1:06:24
It's like when you're like, "Let's go out for drinks," and your friend is like, "Oh, I'm trying not to spend money right now." It's like, "Dude, I will buy you a drink. I want to just go get a drink with you. That's so much more valuable than your $6 beer or whatever."
 
Michael Boothby  1:06:36
100%.
 
Christina Kann  1:06:38
Get you best friends who drink $2 beers. Shoutout to Emily. We went out for Emily's birthday dinner, and I was like, "Don't worry, babe. We'll treat," and Sean was like, "We're gonna treat??" and I was like, "Her meal is like $10. That's five beers and one appetizer."
 
Michael Boothby  1:06:54
I can see Sean saying that.
 
Christina Kann  1:06:58
So then a gong sounds off in the woods, and it's time to go!
 
Grace Ball  1:07:03
Yeah!
 
Christina Kann  1:07:05
It's exciting.
 
Michael Boothby  1:07:06
I wanted to play like a sample of a gong sound right there.
 
clip  1:07:10
*gong sound*
 
Christina Kann  1:07:12
So that's that! We're going to the World Cup. The next chapter is going to be exciting in a different way. This chapter had some really good world building in it that I really enjoyed, and even though plot-wise, it's dull, nothing's happening, it is still really a nice tone to set before we go into the World Cup. It's kind of getting our guard down so that when shit hits the fan that night with all the Death Eaters, it catches the reader off guard too.
 
Michael Boothby  1:07:44
It's a really good misdirection. This chapter is like comedic, it's like family sitcom vibes. You know?
 
Christina Kann  1:07:51
And like bureaucratic also.
 
Michael Boothby  1:07:53
Right! It's like also like the Office. There's these bureaucrats finally letting loose at the festival.
 
Grace Ball  1:08:03
Also, you see so much more of the wizarding community at large.
 
Michael Boothby  1:08:09
This is the fourth book. Isn't this the first one where they did like things outside of Hogwarts, before Hogwarts?
 
Christina Kann  1:08:15
Yes.
 
Michael Boothby  1:08:16
So it's also that too. As a reader, it's the first time you're like, "Oh whoa, we're out in the world. What does that look like?"
 
Christina Kann  1:08:23
In Book Three, Harry spends two weeks living in Diagon Alley, so it's like baby steps into the world-building.
 
Michael Boothby  1:08:29
Before the book?
 
Christina Kann  1:08:31
Yeah.
 
Michael Boothby  1:08:31
Really? I don't remember that.
 
Christina Kann  1:08:35
He blows up his aunt and takes the Knight Bus.
 
Michael Boothby  1:08:40
Oh yeah! Right, he does have that.
 
Christina Kann  1:08:42
So we get two weeks of him eating ice cream and studying and shopping, which sounds great.
 
Michael Boothby  1:08:49
Being rich and renting AirBnBs and going out for nice meals and studying. He's living the dream.
 
Grace Ball  1:08:56
Treat yo self.
 
clip  1:08:57
Clothes? Treat yourself. Fragrances? Treat yourself. Massages? Treat yourself. Mimosas? Treat yourself.
 
Christina Kann  1:09:04
Well, any last words about this chapter? Anything we didn't bring up? Mike, did we read all three of your notes?
 
Michael Boothby  1:09:09
No, no, there's one more and we definitely have to go back to it because this is my middle note. I just wrote "page 86: the accidental magic reversal squad." I love that. I was watching Men in Black last night, and it's like the scene where they go to the morgue, and there's the alien bodies and the little alien speaks to the lady. and they flash her, and then there's a whole team coming in to wipe the whole place down. This is the wizarding version of that. I would be on that. If I was a wizard, I'd love that job. You're like, "Where are we going today? What happened? No shit. They did what? All right fuck yeah. Okay." You know, that'd be a pretty fun job. I love the names of all the departments that like go into this chapter. They're almost like these little punch lines, right? And they're all really clever.
 
Christina Kann  1:10:05
The word "accidental" is funny because in our legal system and our government, doing things by accident doesn't really absolve you of anything.
 
Michael Boothby  1:10:16
That's how you get sued, right? I like that there's no lawyers in the wizarding world. Apparently.
 
Christina Kann  1:10:23
We always say that there's only three careers in Hogwarts. It's teacher, government or entrepreneur. And I'm gonna be the wizarding world's first lawyer. That's my job. That's my path.
 
Michael Boothby  1:10:37
No, don't do it. No!
 
Christina Kann  1:10:40
I'd be a great lawyer.
 
Grace Ball  1:10:41
I think if anyone could do it, it would be you.
 
Christina Kann  1:10:43
I'd be a great magical lawyer.
 
Michael Boothby  1:10:45
Imagine the magic small claims court. That'd be another funny Robot Chicken sketch, right?
 
Christina Kann  1:10:54
Or even a show like the Office.
 
Michael Boothby  1:10:57
Right! Hey, hey, Warner Brothers. You want you want a hot comedy based in the Harry Potter universe that no one's expecting? Hire me, Michael Boothby.
 
Christina Kann  1:11:09
That would be amazing.
 
Michael Boothby  1:11:11
I would write the shit out of that.
 
Christina Kann  1:11:15
Grace, any last words about the chapter?
 
Grace Ball  1:11:17
Wow. Um, no, I think we did a great job. Good job, everybody.
 
Christina Kann  1:11:21
Yeah, I think so too. This was a very fun episode, and it's time to move on to our plugs. I would love to start by plugging our Patreon! This month's bonus episode will sort Brooklyn 99 characters into Hogwarts houses. That's a lot of fun. That's our $5 a month tier. But honestly, for as little as $1 a month, you can join us on our Discord server, where me, Grace, and Michael hang out with the rest of our really awesome community. So it's a great place to be. Come join us! Linked in the show notes. Um, Grace?
 
Grace Ball  1:11:58
Yes.
 
Christina Kann  1:11:58
Do you want people to find you on the internet?
 
Grace Ball  1:12:00
No. It's mostly because I'm boring. I don't do anything.
 
Christina Kann  1:12:06
Find her on the Discord.
 
Grace Ball  1:12:07
Yeah, I'm on the Discord! Head over there, folks.
 
Christina Kann  1:12:11
What do you have that you've been reading, watching, playing, listening to, etc. lately that you have to recommend?
 
Grace Ball  1:12:18
I have kind of been watching a show sporadically, and I just finished it last night. It's called Maniac. I don't know if you guys have seen it. It's been out for a couple years.
 
Christina Kann  1:12:28
Yeah! With Jonah, uh--
 
Grace Ball  1:12:31
Jonah Hill and Emma Stone.
 
Christina Kann  1:12:33
Yes, I did watch that.
 
Grace Ball  1:12:36
You did watch it?
 
Christina Kann  1:12:37
Yeah.
 
Grace Ball  1:12:38
Oh, cool. Okay, nice. But basically, for anyone who hasn't seen it, the story jumps between Emma's and Jonah's characters while they're participating in a pharmaceutical trial, and basically, the intention of the trial is to find a way to replace talk therapy. During a lot of it, the two characters are put into a dream state to get to, you know, their deeper issues or whatever. So they keep popping up in each other's dreams, which is really interesting. But because a lot of the show is made up of their dreams, there's a lot of genre hopping happening, which is cool! Yeah, it's definitely got some weird parts, some stuff that's really far out there, but overall, I finished it, I thought it was really well done, and I recommend giving it a watch.
 
Christina Kann  1:13:30
Yeah, I support this plug. Michael, where can people find you on the internet?
 
Michael Boothby  1:13:36
Sweet! Yeah, guys, I'm on Facebook, unfortunately, still. You could find me there. You can find me on Instagram @itsmichaelboothby -- or is it? Send me a follow request and you'll find out. Beyond that, I have a SoundCloud as well. I've got some music online. Unfortunately I had to stop recording because I got a noise violation here in my sister's apartment, but I'm moving to a condo soon, and we'll be producing and recording more music. So if you want to check that out, check that out. I'm also on the Discord as well, so definitely join that amazing community. You know, I pop in there a few times a day and just see see what's going on. Sometimes I just read it but sometimes I like to chime in as well. I like to lurk. I'm a big big lurker.
 
Christina Kann  1:14:29
So what have you been reading, watching, listening to, playing, etc. lately that you think that the listeners of our podcast would enjoy?
 
Michael Boothby  1:14:40
I don't think this series even needs any more endorsement than it's already getting. But I've been watching the Squid Game on Netflix. It's amazing. I mean, I was watching the nightly news earlier today for the first time in forever, and even at the very end, they did a whole thing interviewing Netflix. They were like, "This might be the biggest show we've ever had. It's been like tremendously successful." I've had a blast watching it too. At the very first episode, I didn't know that it was dubbed, so the whole time, I was like, "It's not matching up. Why is it not matching up? What's going on here?" And then I realized after, oh it's dubbed. That's become  a big thing of contention online. People have been like, "Oh, the dubs are so bad. Watching with subtitles is bad too!" Just fucking watch it. Whichever one. Honestly, the dubs are not bad. I watched it with the dubs. I started that way. Six episodes in, I'm like, "Maybe I should be a purist and watch it in Korean with subtitles," and then I did it for five minutes and was like, "No, I want to go back to the voices. I want the experience of watching it."
 
Christina Kann  1:15:46
My problem is that I can't just like sit and be still and watch TV. I have to be able to look away from the TV for a couple seconds.
 
Michael Boothby  1:15:56
That's how I felt too, because I like to move around during -- especially if I'm bingeing, you know, I like to work out a little bit or my body some. If I'm watching four one-hour episodes, you know, gotta move. Gotta move. So, yeah, Squid Game's been dope. Games. If any you guys played video games, I highly recommend The Forest on PlayStation 4 or 5? I mean, I think it's probably another shit too. But it's a fun survival game. You crash in the forest, there's some cannibals. I played it with my best childhood friend who still lives in Orlando, and we've been catching up through video games recently. We've been playing that game. I had this moment where I'm just like chopping wood in the game. Just cutting down trees. I'm doing like all the things that I couldn't do, like building a tent, in this virtual world, but like, it's very zen. While just talking to my best friend about like, whatever. But also role playing a little bit. You know? It's fun.
 
Christina Kann  1:17:01
Oh, I love that.
 
Michael Boothby  1:17:02
Check it out. Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  1:17:03
Hell yeah. Well, thank you for that. I've been your host, Christina. You can follow me on Instagram @christinathekann. You can follow me on twitter @christina_kann and you can follow me on TikTok @sproutsprivatestash. Recently, I've been watching Only Murders in the Building, which has been plugged on this podcast before. It's really excellent. I've also been listening to 5-4 Podcast, which is about the Supreme Court, which Andrew plugged on this podcast, and that's really excellent also. What I would love to plug today is The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin. It's a really lovely YA romance about nature magic. It's really nice. It's got some thoughtful commentary about climate change, and a pretty good love story. And it's about like, witchy shit. So it's good to read for the Halloween season. So that's The Nature of Witches by Rachel Griffin. Well, Michael, thank you so much for joining us.
 
Michael Boothby  1:18:07
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I would love to do this again. Honestly, reading that chapter earlier was such a joy. It was so amazing. And it's cool to be able to talk to people about Harry Potter, right? Because it's kind of an old thing. But it still has such a special place in my heart. But I'd love to come back.
 
Christina Kann  1:18:29
Absolutely. Yeah, we'd love to have you back. And you can also hear Michael every Sunday on the Movie Night Crew! All right, gang. I gotta go finish reading The International Language of Gambling before this book tries to collect its debts. Bye!
 
Christina Kann (voiceover)  1:18:52
The Restricted Section is a member of the Movie Night Crew Network, which features other amazing podcasts such as its namesake, the Movie Night Crew, which is an extra chaotic podcast featuring the gang just shooting the shit about whatever movie they just watched.
 
Christina Kann (voiceover)  1:20:02
The Restricted Section was created by me, Christina Kann, based on the book series by JK Rowling. All music by Ryan Kann. Logo by Michael Hardison. Support us on patreon.com/therestrictedsection. For as little as $1 a month, you can gain access to our Discord community server, which is a really happy place to be. And there are other rewards as well, such as bonus episodes and Zoom happy hour hangouts. Be sure to follow us on Instagram @restrictedsectionpod, on Twitter @restrictedpod, and on Facebook @restrictedsectionpod. Also feel free to shoot us an email at restrictedsectionpod@gmail.com to share your thoughts, feelings, complaints, conspiracy theories, or even lavish praise.
 
Christina Kann  1:20:48
There are certain people who can be trusted with the notes, and certain people who can't, and Grace is the kind of person who can be trusted.

Christina Kann (voiceover)  00:02
"With difficulty owing to their bulky backpacks, the nine of them crowded around the old boot held out by Amos Diggory. They all stood there in a tight circle as a chill breeze swept over the hilltop. Nobody spoke. It suddenly occurred to Harry how odd this would look if a Muggle were to walk up here now -- nine people, two of them grown men, clutching this manky old boot in the semi-darkness, waiting."
 
Christina Kann (voiceover)  00:47
What's up Pott-heads? Welcome to The Restricted Section, the show in which a bunch of nerds with potty mouths reread the Harry Potter series for the umpteenth time and discuss the way that the story and its themes have stayed with a generation into adulthood. Thank you for being here. If you haven't done the reading, don't worry, we did it for you. Here's what we're talking about today.
 
Christina Kann (voiceover)  01:07
Chapter Six: The Portkey. Honestly, this whole chapter is summed up by the title. They find, use, and discard the portkey in this one, gang. We're really just learning: what is a portkey? Maybe that will come up again in a moment of crisis. I'm not sure. We get to meet Amos and Cedric Diggory along the way! "Extremely handsome Cedric," that's a direct quote. And now we're all at the Quidditch World Cup.
 
Christina Kann  01:40
Welcome to The Restricted Section, where old and moldy boots are very valuable. I am delighted to be joined by my dear friend today, Andrew! Say hello to the listeners, Andrew.
 
Andrew  01:54
Hello, listeners. I'm a little concerned that I'm your friend today. I thought I was your friend most days.
 
Christina Kann  02:01
Wow, that's a good point. Clarity of language.
 
Andrew  02:05
It hurts, okay?
 
Christina Kann  02:06
You got to put commas in places to make it clear what words are grouped together. And I am so excited that our special guest today is friend of the pod Anna! Say hello to the listeners, Anna.
 
Anna  02:18
Hello!
 
Christina Kann  02:19
Hey, every time I say hello to the listeners, I hear Leila in the back of my head because she one time she sang, "Hello to the listeners, Lelia." But she sings that a lot better than me. But anyway, that's what my head does when I say "Say hello to the listeners." Anna, we're so glad you're here. Why don't you start by telling us a little bit about your Harry Potter history. When, how did you get into it?
 
Anna  02:44
The first memory I have is listening to the audiobook in third grade of Prisoner of Azkaban.
 
Christina Kann (voiceover)  02:51
Oh, would you look at the time? What time is it? It's correction o'clock. All right, Anna didn't even listen to this audio book in third grade, it was fifth grade. Okay, don't get it twisted. Don't go telling people Anna listened to this in third grade, because it's not true, snd you're gonna look like a damn fool.
 
Anna  03:09
I'm sure I read the first two before that. But that's the first memory I have of it. And I wasn't cool enough to go to any midnight book releases. So I didn't actually finish the series until probably 10 years ago. I picked it back up and read the whole thing. I'd seen the movies. And yeah, so I started back up about 10 years ago. And then I read it every year, at least once, if not twice, usually in fall/winter.
 
Christina Kann  03:45
Yes. I tend to read this series -- obviously not anymore because we're reading it very slowly over the course of like 10 years -- but I usually read Harry Potter once every two to three years, and I always start reading it around like October/November, right as I'm starting to spiral into that winter depression. It's like, "Quickly, quickly, something!"
 
Anna  04:05
Bring the joy, bring the joy!
 
Christina Kann  04:07
Yes. Awesome. Well, what Hogwarts house are you?
 
Anna  04:12
I like to call myself a Ravenpuff.
 
Christina Kann  04:16
I love Raymond.
 
Anna  04:18
Me too. Every time I take the test, depending on the day or month or whatever, I get either one. It's about 50/50. So I like to claim both.
 
Christina Kann  04:31
Wow, I love that. Yeah, we're here today to talk about Goblet of Fire chapter six, the Portkey. That's what happens in this chapter.
 
Andrew  04:42
It is a very descriptive title.
 
Christina Kann  04:45
Yeah, and we're done! That's it. Thanks for joining me today, gang.
 
Anna  04:52
Kay bye!
 
Christina Kann  04:52
Okay, so we wake up. It's the World Cup. Let's go. Wait, wait, wait, hold on. Why does Ron get to bring two friends to the World Cup and no one else gets to bring anybody?
 
Anna  05:05
Yeah, that's the question. I'm sure it's because their tickets are free, and Harry basically lives there, and it seems like Hermione basically lives there every summer to so works out.
 
Andrew  05:16
I always thought that it was not by accident that they ended up there. I always figured that Fudge wanted Potter in that box. He wanted him in the press box to show him off. Like, "That's right. We got Harry Potter on top of everything else here." You know, he's like the trophy.
 
Christina Kann  05:36
That tracks. Here's my question. Why bring Hermione? Who doesn't give even one single shit?
 
Andrew  05:46
If you're going to try and fandangle your way to get Harry to show up, you don't want him to be suspicious, right?
 
Christina Kann (voiceover)  05:53
Did you know it's actually against the law for any podcast editor to permit one of their episodes to say "don't be suspicious" without including the following audio clip?
 
clip  06:06
*Don't be suspicious clip*
 
Andrew  06:10
You don't want it to be obvious that you're just bringing Harry Potter to bring Harry Potter so you're like, "Yeah, bring your whole family! By the way, doesn't your son like the two people? like he has two friends? Not just one, two friends? Why doesn't he bring both of those friends?"
 
Anna  06:24
Bring the spare.
 
Christina Kann  06:26
One of them's muggle born, how good for like muggle relations!
 
Andrew  06:30
Right? It's a perfect picture.
 
Christina Kann  06:34
Here's who I would have brought. I think obviously Harry gets to come. He's an orphan. He's never had a single joy in his life. Bring Harry. Bring Lee Jordan, because then two of your kids get to have their best friend there -- like two additional kids. And Lee Jordan loves Quidditch.
 
Andrew  06:52
Maybe the Weasleys know their children very well. And they also know what's going to go on in the future. Ron was actually -- his friend was Hermione. He doesn't know, but his friend was Hermione, and Ginny's friend was Harry, okay? Molly knows her kids, okay? This woman knows her children. Dhe knew already how the world was going to work out. Your plan actually did happen, Christina. What I'm telling you is, that did happen. It just doesn't look as obvious.
 
Christina Kann  07:20
You know that the second Ron Weasley brought her Miami Granger into the Weasley household, Molly and Arthur were like, "We have to make this happen. This is his only hope."
 
Andrew  07:33
This is the only chance he has! Please God let her find him endearing.
 
Christina Kann  07:40
Get ready for the longest slow burn of your life, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Okay, so everyone wakes up at the ass-crack of dawn except for Percy, Charlie, and Bill. They get to Apparate later, and we get a nice little rundown like, what is Apparation? We've never really addressed it before but I get the feeling that's gonna come up in this book.
 
Andrew  08:01
My copy -- I have the big illustrated one -- Apparate is capitalized every time.
 
Christina Kann  08:07
It is in every edition.
 
Andrew  08:09
Really? I have never noticed that before.
 
Christina Kann  08:12
I'm pretty sure. What about you Anna?
 
Anna  08:13
I think so. I'm looking -- Yep, Apparating is capitalized.
 
Christina Kann  08:18
That bitch loves to capitalize some words. She will capitalize anything.
 
Anna  08:24
It's true.
 
Christina Kann  08:25
I'm trying to make a "she'll capitalize on blank blank blank" joke but I can't really pull it together.
 
Anna  08:30
Well she's continuing to capitalize on this series, so.
 
Christina Kann  08:34
That's true. I can't emphasize this enough: buy her books secondhand.
 
Andrew  08:39
Or pirate it!
 
Christina Kann  08:40
We don't -- wink -- condone -- wink -- pirating -- wink -- unless -- wink -- you're on -- wink -- a boat! In last week's episode, we were wondering if Bill Weasley was a straight-up pirate because he was like, "Gringotts doesn't care what I do as long as I bring home all the treasure," and he has one earring and dragon leather boots. That's pirate shit.
 
Anna  09:05
For sure.
 
Christina Kann  09:05
And the alternative is that he's just stealing treasure for Britain, which I don't like that.
 
Anna  09:11
I feel like that's kind of what's happening because he he lives in Egypt, he goes in the tombs, he gets the treasure from the dead wizards out of the tombs. I mean, sounds like it.
 
Christina Kann  09:24
He could have, I guess, specialized in wizard banking because he works for Gringotts, but I like to think that he specialized in wizard anthropology and history. So maybe he's helping with the treasure?
 
Anna  09:37
Yeah, and like charms and stuff.
 
Christina Kann  09:40
Oh, yeah, he's a charm breaker too. Oh, he's just so -- "there's no other word for it -- cool." So we're talking about Apparation. Harry starts asking questions, so we have to learn what splinching is. Thanks, Harry.
 
Andrew  09:55
Everyone else, when you first read this as a child, thought of it as something comical, right?
 
Christina Kann  10:01
Well he says in the paragraph, he's like "A leg in an eyeball sitting on the ground."
 
Andrew  10:06
Right, but it's not a gory leg and eyeball. I thought of like a cartoonish, like a well-rounded leg that has no gore.
 
Christina Kann  10:15
Like a prop.
 
Andrew  10:16
Yeah, it doesn't even look like it was ever attached to anyone. It's just a perfectly rounded hip into leg.
 
Christina Kann  10:23
A Barbie like pulled out of its socket.
 
Andrew  10:25
Yes. Exactly.
 
Christina Kann  10:28
I mean, first they have to like do this to you. They have to give it to you in a comical way because it's the first time you're even hearing of it. And then it escalates. Oh, it escalates. That's one of like the hardest things for me to read in this whole series, when Ron gets splinched in the last book.
 
Andrew  10:47
Wait, what?
 
Anna  10:50
All spoilers all the time!
 
Christina Kann  10:52
He gets splinched, and like, it's bad. The amount of splinched that he gets in the movies is less.
 
Andrew  11:00
On the scale of one to splinch, he is a solid splinch.
 
Christina Kann  11:08
Mr. Weasley is just so happy to explain anything. He's probably like, "Harry, this is super boring, but I would love to ask you about plugs. The electrical kind."
 
Andrew  11:19
You know, my favorites.
 
Christina Kann  11:22
Mrs. Weasley interrupts in the middle of a sentence because she catches a glimpse of something in George's pocket. I guess I got yelled at as a kid or something because I had a visceral response to this. When George gets snapped at, I was like, "Oh shit, it was me. Oh my god, I'm in trouble. She found it." It's like that split second of like, "Do I lie? Is there any way out?"
 
Andrew  11:49
Is there any way I could possibly lie? Let's be honest. If you're a certain age, like a certain level of teenager, at least in my case, it wasn't "Will I lie?" It's "Is there any way I could feasibly get away with a lie?" Like is there any possibility whatsoever that a lie could work? And if there is, I'm probably going to try and lie.
 
Christina Kann  12:10
Also if there's no chance, I probably was still gonna lie. I lied a LOT as a kid. I was a master liar. I lied constantly.
 
Andrew  12:18
And now I only lie to myself about how happy I am.
 
Christina Kann  12:24
Now I have gone way too far in the other direction. I should try being a little less honest sometimes. Yeah, so they have their little candies, their Weasleys -- pause -- Wizarding -- pause -- Wheezes. Wait, shit. Is there an -ing on that word? Wait. I thought it was "Wizard Wheezes" but my notes say "wizarding," so now I have to check everything. Okay, my book says "Weasleys Wizard Wheezes," so good for me.
 
Anna  13:03
Killin' it.
 
Christina Kann  13:05
I just took the picture of the chapter title where I spelled out "Weasleys Wizard Wheezes" for the Instagram today cuz whoa, spoiler alert: we recorded this exactly one week ago. And I was worried that I had spelled it wrong, but I didn't. Everything's fine. Hey, don't even worry about it. Everything's fine.
 
Andrew  13:23
We're all good. Everything's okay. Why are we all panicking? You're the only one panicking. No!
 
Christina Kann  13:29
Well, Mrs. Weasley and the twins, I think, are panicking also, at each other. Molly is accio-ing all of the treats out of the hiding spots on their clothes, like some pretty elaborate hiding spots.
 
Andrew  13:43
Yeah.
 
Anna  13:44
Yeah, they had to like sewed into their jackets.
 
Andrew  13:47
Here's the thing that does disappoint me -- and I don't know whether I'm disappointed or if this is just proof of how awesome Molly Weasley is. But if anyone is going to fully evade getting their entire stash caught, it's the Weasley twins, right?
 
Christina Kann  14:03
Mm hmm.
 
Andrew  14:05
I'll be honest, I might be showing the fact that I haven't read this book in quite a while, but I don't remember them having any when they get to the World Cup.
 
Christina Kann  14:13
Presumably, with all the information we have, no, they don't get any of their candies there.
 
Andrew  14:20
I'm honestly surprised. Is that just how good Molly Weasley is? Or did the did the twins misstep here?
 
Christina Kann  14:28
I think Molly is that good. And I think probably her accio spell is incredibly good. "Give me that! How did you get that? Hand that to me right now! Stop fighting over this toy. Give it to me." You know, slash, "Wow, that the garden is really far away and I really only need like one basil leaf. So I'm just gonna go ahead and accio that!"
 
Andrew  14:51
I would be the laziest wizard ever. Ever.
 
Christina Kann  14:54
I know.
 
Andrew  14:56
I would use technology and then use magic to bridge the gap of laziness that technology still requires you to overcome. Walking the fridge, if your phone is across the room, no, I'm not standing up. What? No! I'm a wizard, and I was muggle born. I am sitting down the rest of my life, thank you very much. I have earned that. I have studied the two worlds. I know the way to combine them. This is my future. I embrace it. I am Wall-E.
 
Christina Kann  15:31
I was exactly about to say that. Well, good for you, Andrew.
 
Andrew  15:36
That would be my goal: to float around on my throne and enjoy life to the fullest.
 
Christina Kann  15:43
I hope you get to achieve that someday. I hope you win the lottery.
 
Andrew  15:48
Tonight. Yay.
 
Christina Kann  15:50
Yeah, well, this time next week, we'll know. Wow, Andrew, what if you're rich by the time this comes out?
 
Andrew  15:55
Oh, you wouldn't know. I'd be the only one to know for a while.
 
Christina Kann  15:58
Please pay off my house. You can hang out here anytime you want to. So Molly Weasley, mad as hell, throws away all of their candy. I do think that is very rude. And I hope she goes back into the trashcan afterwards and puts them in like a little jar for them later. I don't think it is okay at all to completely destroy your child's creative products. You know?
 
Andrew  16:26
I think those are kind of a health and safety hazard. I think the bigger problem is don't just throw them away; if you're going to dispose of them, incinerate them. If something accidentally eats one of those things, it's dead.
 
Christina Kann  16:40
What I would probably do is take them and try to figure out exactly what they were and see if I could help make them safer at all. I think just telling your kids, "Fuck you. You don't get to do this thing that's your dream, you're pursuing. We're not talking about it. Just straight-up, fuck you." I think that is a bad parenting move. You know?
 
Andrew  17:05
I've gotten to the point where I try not to judge parents. I just don't know. I don't know, and on top of that, I'm to the point now that I'm pretty much decided I don't think I'm ever gonna have kids, so like--
 
Christina Kann  17:17
I'm kind of like the opposite of you, where this is how I would act and maybe that makes me a bad parent. So thank God I'm not gonna have kids. I think I would be -- I was gonna say "a hardass" but I guess not as much of a hard ass as Malia easily.
 
Anna  17:34
Molly is super excited about grades; that's her thing. She wants them to have good grades so they can get a good job, but I don't think she's quite computing that all they really want to do is own a shop and do their own stuff. And so I think that's hard for her to come to terms with.
 
Christina Kann  17:52
Yeah, and Bill and Percy set a really high bar. We've don't really know about Charlie's grades. Any thoughts about what kind of grades Charlie probably got in school?
 
Anna  18:06
He probably did. Well, I mean, at least in Care of Magical Creatures, for sure.
 
Christina Kann  18:10
True.
 
Andrew  18:11
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  18:12
He actually got a good care of magical creatures education with what's-their-face -- the last teacher who was there before.
 
Andrew  18:21
Grubby-Plank?
 
Christina Kann  18:23
I think it's Grubbly-Plank. Yeah, I feel like he probably got like, not excellent grades but nothing for a parent to fuss at, you know?
 
Andrew  18:32
He probably was able to get away with it too, because Percy would have been killing it from a young age in the grades department. So he just got that middle child syndrome, where he just--
 
Christina Kann  18:40
Yeah, they're like, "Two out of our three kids are doing pretty well. Let's not worry about the middle one. Don't worry."
 
Andrew  18:45
Wasn't he the Quidditch captain though? So he still had his own accomplishments.
 
Christina Kann  18:50
Was Charlie captain?
 
Andrew  18:51
I believe so.
 
Anna  18:53
Yeah, I think so.
 
Christina Kann  18:55
I believe you! Yeah, you're right. I believed you but I still -- I don't want to give the listeners false information. This is my job, okay?
 
Andrew  19:05
You do realize you just cursed us, and at some point in this episode, we are going to give false information. It might have already happened!
 
Christina Kann  19:12
Oh god! I told you, I got over the lying thing! So they all set out into the dark early morning. I can like almost feel this scene, walking through the white grass before the sun comes out.
 
Andrew  19:30
It's quite possibly one of my favorite times of year, when you still get the fog in the morning and the dew, but it's still cold and crisp. It hasn't frozen over the fog or the dew yet, but it's still like right on that edge. Gosh.
 
Christina Kann  19:49
It kind of gives me like traumatic flashbacks also to going to high school at like six o'clock in the morning or whatever. It's either super exciting or like "aw, fuck, school."
 
Andrew  20:02
So I didn't realize how much of Harry Potter was trauma linked to you.
 
Christina Kann  20:06
Wow hmm interesting. Well, I guess if you spend like 25% of your life indulging in one specific media series, then probably a lot of trauma gets linked to it. And a lot of joy. That fun trauma. Man, this whole chapter is like kind of an info dump. Harry's like, "How does everyone even get to the World Cup?" So Arthur's just cheerfully explaining portkeys and he's like, "It's a logistical nightmare."
 
Andrew  20:39
Are you telling me that the international Quidditch community can't get together and just create a permanent place for the Quidditch World Cup? Like I understand it's supposed to be analogous to the regular World Cup, but the difference is that you don't have to hide the regular World Cup from everyone. You don't have to hide the Olympics. In fact, you do quite the opposite. So if you're going to do that, it only makes sense to have -- off in the middle of like the sea, an artificial island that only--
 
Christina Kann  21:13
Like Azkaban but for Quidditch!
 
Andrew  21:15
Exactly! Quidditch-kaban!
 
Christina Kann  21:18
That would be so cool. It's in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle. Oh my god.
 
Anna  21:23
That's perfect. No one goes there.
 
Andrew  21:26
That's why it's the Bermuda Triangle.
 
Christina Kann  21:29
Andrew, the last time you're on an episode, we also talked about the Bermuda Triangle. We talked about Bermuda specifically, actually, not the triangle. So they're climbing this big ass hill. It's called Stoatshead Hill. STOAT. Okay, this is the first time in my life that I've read this series knowing what a stoat is. As a reminder, it's like a weasel, basically, and Hagrid eats them. So they all spread out looking for this portkey, but they don't even know what it is because a portkey's always a piece of garbage or something nobody wants to touch.
 
Anna  22:26
Yeah, here's my question. They say they do that so that muggles won't pick it up. But what about people that pick up litter? I pick up litter when I see it in the park?
 
Christina Kann  22:36
Yeah, I do too.
 
Anna  22:36
What if I'm accidentally portkeyed?
 
Christina Kann  22:39
This is from a shittier time and shittier place, I think. It's like the country of Britain. And it was the mid to late 90s.
 
Andrew  22:53
The British countryside in '94. '95?
 
Christina Kann  22:56
I'm trying to remember if Mike in the last episode said exactly what year it is because he tends to know for his elaborate pop culture references, you know? But I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think I would actually get swept away by a portkey. Slash I think I would also desperately not be able to find a portkey I was looking for.
 
Andrew  23:16
Well, and that's the real sad truth is that in this day and age like portkeys could not work this way because people would be just picking up everything. Just walking along, there's nothing but trash. What could it be? Is it the cigarette carton? Is it the empty Monster Energy drink that is just like sitting --? What could it be? It's literally impossible to tell.
 
Christina Kann  23:39
Yeah, I think that it's like not unreasonable that Arthur should have been able to find out what this portkey looks like ahead of time. The ministry put it here, right?
 
Andrew  23:51
If you're going to the effort to put 200 across Great Britain, couldn't you also like keep track of what each one is? Or is a third column on the spreadsheet just too much?
 
Christina Kann  24:04
Or a map. Just imagine a little map of Britain with little stamps of the little items. That would be adorable and user friendly, easy to read.
 
Anna  24:15
And what if you miss your portkey? Do you take the Knight Bus? What do you do? And why is the Knight Bus not a possible option?
 
Christina Kann  24:22
Ooh, it probably is. But honestly, the Weasleys probably don't fuck with the Knight Bus. That seems like a bit of more of a desperate situation. I would probably end up taking the Knight Bus. "You know, there's a bus for only $20 from here to the Quidditch World Cup?"
 
Anna  24:38
Yeah, why would you take muggle transportation if you can take the Knight Bus?
 
Andrew  24:42
Why would you touch an old boot if you could just take the Knight Bus?
 
Anna  24:47
It probably smells.
 
Christina Kann  24:49
Well, so does the bus.
 
Anna  24:53
Touche.
 
Christina Kann  24:56
I just think there's just a lot of alternatives that could have happened here. I think Arthur, if they had missed the portkey, I think he probably would have just called somebody to come make a new one -- or he might even be able to make one himself. It's a simple spell that Dumbledore does eventually.
 
Andrew  25:15
It's literally "portus." Wow, clever.
 
Anna  25:23
Then Mad-Eye Moody says something about it's not worth their life creating one unauthorized, so I feel there's a big plot hole where Dumbledore can do it willy nilly, but somebody else goes to try and do it, and there's a notification in the ministry.
 
Christina Kann  25:39
Dumbledore, though. He can apparate all willy nilly. He can do a lot of things all willy nilly. He needs to put his willy away, honestly.
 
Anna  25:50
No one needs to see that.
 
Christina Kann  25:53
No one needs to see that. They don't find the portkey. There's a shout, though, from someone who has found it. It's Amos Diggory!
 
Andrew  26:04
How big is this hilltop?
 
Christina Kann  26:07
Dude, it's like a British moor. It could be like a really big hill.
 
Andrew  26:11
It's more like a plateau. Cuz it says that they don't see them, and Amos calls from across the hill. I don't know.
 
Christina Kann  26:20
Maybe there's a lot of trees, but then that would be like an extra hard for the portkey situation.
 
Andrew  26:25
Yeah! "By the way, good luck looking through the woods, nerd. Go get your moldy boot out of the woods." Everything about this is starting to sound insulting. "We're gonna make you get up real early. You gotta climb a fucking hill."
 
Christina Kann  26:49
Well, the Lovegoods have been there for two weeks already or whatever because they had the shitty tickets.
 
Anna  26:54
Yeah.
 
Andrew  26:56
I know anything about Luna Lovegood, she digs camping. I don't know why, but that just screams Luna Lovegood to me.
 
Christina Kann  27:04
Yeah that's the thing with chapters like this. Upon reading this, there's kind of nothing going on. But there's always something going on. There's always shit to pick apart. This portkey business makes absolutely no sense.
 
Andrew  27:18
Once again, it's one of the things that the illustrious author of this series chose to do many times. It's like they had an idea of how many things they wanted to put in the book, like how many references, and then they just dumped in as much as possible. We'll get these chapters where it's like books worth of future shit that's all just jammed into one chapter.
 
Christina Kann  27:39
It's poor writing. I know we say this all the time, but when I read this book, I usually barrel through it, so I don't clock these short, inconsequential chapters because they all blur together in this nice little montage of recap and worldbuilding and Molly Weasley's cooking. But reading it chapter by chapter, this is just buildup. This is just walking up a hill.
 
Andrew  28:09
It's kind of funny because I've had the same effect with reading them slowly and like over the course of years as opposed to days.
 
Christina Kann  28:18
It's been years!
 
Andrew  28:20
It really does kind of point out is how good the first few movies were especially, because the first few movies have this episodic feel of these times, right? And when you read the books, especially this one, it's like summer, fall, winter, resolution, right? That's the way that a lot of these books in the series go is that you have the summer shit, then you have the fall is where the problem is introduced, then you have the winter, where everything goes mad and they have a little time by themselves, and then you get to the resolution at the end in the spring.
 
Christina Kann  28:56
Yeah, actually this setup kind of fucked me up. I expect the same from other series. Like I recently read the Percy Jackson series, and I was like, "Okay well a lot of this takes place at Camp Half-blood, so I guess every book starts in the summertime, at Camp Half-blood and then goes through the school year, and then we start the next book at the next summer at Camp Half-blood." Not at all. This book takes three weeks; this book takes six months; and then in the next book, you're four years older. That's dramatic, but it's more whiplash going around to these different books than I've come to expect from reading Harry Potter.
 
Andrew  29:36
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  29:37
So Amos Diggory has a moldy old boot on each foot, and then he's also holding one. Also there'd Cedric, "extremely handsome," which as a reminder, the narrator definitely is like, pretty much Harry. So...
 
Anna  29:57
Harry's like, "Hey, he's hot. Way hotter than Malfoy."
 
Christina Kann  30:01
I think that makes sense, because the way that he's like, "Dude, honestly there's no other way to describe Bill. He's cool. He's a cool dude. I'm 14. This guy is cool." I feel like Harry looks to Cedric and he's like, "I got nothing. You're extremely handsome."
 
Andrew  30:18
Cedric is the ultimate good boy, and that's what Harry wants to be is, is an ultimate level. Good boy. He's like, "You look very handsome and look very attractive to everyone. Clearly everyone would be into you."
 
Christina Kann  30:32
Man, I just haven't found my perfect Cedric. Obviously Robert Pattinson no longer does it for me because it's just not right. The Cedric from Puffs was very good. If you haven't seen that, Anna, I definitely recommend it. But he wasn't this suave, extremely handsome -- he's a bit gawky and kind of Puffy. You know? This Cedric in the books is just like stoic, chiseled, you know? Kind of Kocoum. Catch me bringing up Kocoum at every turn because I married him basically. *singing* Steady as the beating drum. *end singing* So Arthur introduces everyone and we get the classic, "Harry? Harry Potter?" And he's like, Yeah, no, it's me.
 
Andrew  31:25
By Merlin's Beard!
 
Christina Kann  31:28
Something that is hard when you're writing a secondary world fantasy or a fantasy like this, where it's a whole subculture that's pretty out of touch with our culture is writing language, writing slang, including profanities and stuff like swearing. And so I really like the way that they do swearing in these books. There's the stuff that the dads say, like "Merlin's beard" is a dad/grandpa thing to say.
 
Andrew  31:57
They like made their own -- and I only learned this word the other day, so I might be using it wrong -- neo-logo-ism.
 
Christina Kann  32:05
I think it's neologism.
 
Andrew  32:17
Neologism. Yeah. Which is a cool word I only learned recently. They did a really good job of creating that, right?
 
Christina Kann  32:26
"A newly coined word or expression."
 
Andrew  32:29
Yeah, so it's anything that's brand new slang that isn't established slang yet to like Coke instead of Coca Cola. Right?
 
Christina Kann  32:40
I see. Yes. By Merlin's beard. I was like, "What the fuck were we talking about? How did we get here?" By Merlin's beard! Amos Diggory is bragging about how Cedric beat Harry at Quidditch the year before. I love Amos Diggory. I love a ride or die. He's obviously a Hufflepuff too, because he's loyal as hell. But yeah, you don't like brag to a bunch of kids about how they lost.
 
Anna  33:06
Especially cuz it wasn't even Harry's fault. He almost died.
 
Andrew  33:12
And the way that he words it too. "If one can hold on to their broom and the other one can't." Okay, that is a vast oversimplification of the situation at hand.
 
Christina Kann  33:23
Yeah.
 
Anna  33:24
it kind of gave me alumni dad vibes where he's like, "Yeah, my kid's on the football team. And this is what you're gonna remember forever, because it's what I remember forever because I peaked in high school."
 
Christina Kann  33:35
Oooh! Got him. You're absolutely right.
 
Anna  33:43
Amos is kind of a douche and I don't feel he's very Puff. I mean, he's very loyal. But he's not very kind.
 
Christina Kann  33:50
Okay, okay. Is he maybe a Gryffindor?
 
Anna  34:00
I don't know, maybe.
 
Christina Kann  34:01
With his bravado.
 
Andrew  34:04
Maybe he's just the other side of Hufflepuff where he is very loyal. And it's not that he's trying to be a dick. It's just that he is so loyal to Cedric, and he's going to push that motive even though it might not come out, right or might not sound right.
 
Anna  34:26
Kinda like Ernie MacMillan.
 
Christina Kann  34:28
Oh my god, Ernie fuckin MacMillan. He's kind of like a frat boy Hufflepuff. Even a Hufflepuff in a frat is still gonna act a certain way, you know?
 
Andrew  34:42
Huffle-bro.
 
Andrew  34:42
Huffle-bro! Gnarly.
 
Andrew  34:46
Or a Puffle-bro.
 
Christina Kann  34:49
So it's time. "Oop, quickly, everyone. It's time right now. We didn't talk about it before. I didn't explain the concept to you. You have no idea what's going on. To me! Quickly. To me!" And everyone touches the portkey.
 
Andrew  35:08
How strongly do you think you must grasp said portkey?
 
Christina Kann  35:13
I think like skin to skin.
 
Andrew  35:15
You think just a fingertip would do?
 
Christina Kann  35:31
The fingertip is enough. He pokes it with the tip of his finger.
 
Anna  35:35
Yeah, I think Mr. Weasley even says, "It'll only take like touching it with your finger."
 
Andrew  35:41
I really should have paid more attention at the end of the chapter.
 
Anna  35:44
You really should have, Andrew.
 
Christina Kann  35:45
It spells it out!
 
Anna  35:46
Yeah, it does say says "You just need to touch the portkey; that's all. A finger will do."
 
Christina Kann  35:51
Thank you so much, Andrew. You're being a stand-in for the listener who doesn't know anything. And so that way we can explain everything.
 
Andrew  35:59
I do feel bad. I legitimately read this chapter twice, but nothing happens. And by the time I got to the end of it, I was just like, "ahhhh."
 
Christina Kann  36:09
Andrew, don't feel bad. One time in college, I was taking a world literature class. And it was like, pretty hard for me. Everything's translated. It's all poetry. I don't really fuck with poetry. And the teacher would do a quiz at the beginning of every class to make sure you had done the reading,pulling stuff from the poems, you had to answer these questions to verify that you had done the reading. And I would read them every time, several times. In fact, it escalated to reading them as many times as I physically could. And I was still failing these quizzes because none of it stuck in my brain at all. Because generally it was a really hard class for me. So I went to the teacher's office hours, and I was like, "Hey, I'm having a really hard time keeping any of this stuff. What do I do?" And she was like, "Honestly, read it more." And I was like, "Okay, well, I'm already reading each of these poems like five or six times," and she was like, "Read it more. I don't know. Remember it better?"
 
Andrew  37:01
Can you assign us better poems? Is that possible? Like, maybe don't give us crap? Just saying.
 
Christina Kann  37:08
There is one poem from that class that stuck with me like hell, and I've actually plugged it on this podcast before, but the name is escaping me right now.
 
Anna  37:16
That was my least favorite class.
 
Christina Kann  37:18
Absolutely. Me too. Well, and I had to take it twice.
 
Anna  37:24
Oh, no!
 
Christina Kann  37:24
I'm pretty sure I failed it twice, snd then I was just like, "I'll do something else. I don't know."
 
Andrew  37:28
I will find another path, god dammit.
 
Christina Kann  37:34
Oh, well, I don't remember the name of that poem. But...
 
Christina Kann (voiceover)  37:36
"If my heart were a wild bird" by 15th-century Turkish love poetry master Fuzuli. "If my heart were a wild bird, it would nest in your twisted curl / wherever I am, oh jinn, my love is by your side / I'm happy with my suffering / take your hand from the medicine that will cure me / Oh Doctor, do not heal me / the poison that destroys me is your cure / Don't be shy and pull your skirts from the hands of those fallen with love / Take care for the hands which holds your hem / if you suddenly emptied may pray evilly to the sky / The fragments of my shattered heart lay pierced on the spearpoints of your lashes / Go to sleep drunk on your own beauty / and mend my heart by the closing of your eyes / separation from you is death, beloved, the end of life itself / I am bewildered by others who live long apart from you / The wick of your spirit is twisted like the hyacinth curl of the beloved / Hey Fuzuli, you can't hope for release / until you burn like a candle with love's flame."
 
Christina Kann  38:39
So we're in the middle of a portkey! How did we get so distracted in the middle of a portkey?
 
Andrew  38:44
Love finds away.
 
Christina Kann  38:48
So Harry feels this pole like in his gut. And I thought that was interesting because, as I recently mentioned, I recently reread the Percy Jackson series for the first time, and that's also where magic grabs Percy, behind the belly button. Isn't that interesting?
 
Anna  39:04
I feel like that happens in a lot of books with magic, that it's in your gut. You have to like reach down into your gut and pull it up.
 
Christina Kann  39:13
That's so interesting.
 
Andrew  39:15
Not to totally take this off track, but when I was young, for whatever reason, when I read the word "naval," I thought it was like . . . behind your boob. So I always imagined like being pulled by your boob anywhere that you went.
 
Christina Kann  39:31
Shut the fuck up!
 
Andrew  39:35
I don't know why, but I misread it. I guess maybe I thought I read "nipple" or something. But for some reason, to this day, I hear "naval" in regards to a portkey, and I still think boob.
 
Anna  39:54
My tenders!
 
Christina Kann  39:57
Gods grant that none of us gets yanked by our boobs anywhere.
 
Anna  40:02
Thank the lord.
 
Andrew  40:04
That sounds like an old Greek punishment in Tartarus, being led by the breast around.
 
Anna  40:10
Is that why some people have three nipples?
 
Christina Kann  40:14
This is my punishment nipple!
 
Anna  40:21
Harry Styles has four!
 
Andrew  40:23
What?
 
Anna  40:24
Harry Styles has four. He must be in extra trouble.
 
Christina Kann  40:27
Does Harry Styles really have four nipples?
 
Anna  40:29
I think so.
 
Andrew  40:33
Same some for the rest of us.
 
Christina Kann  40:37
Obviously, I fact-checked this one, and here is what I learned from the article "Harry Styles Has Four Nipples and Here's the Scientific Reason Why," which was posted in LadBible earlier this year. He does have four nipples, they're tiny. They're cute. It's explained in this article that sometimes when human beings are developing, nipple cells just wander. So it's not uncommon to have extra nipples. It turns out Mark Wahlberg has three nipples. And that's the only other example this article gives. But um, but there you go. Four nipples. Double your pleasure.
 
Christina Kann  41:21
If you do have a third nipple that's exclusively for punishment, surely it's pierced, right?
 
Anna  41:26
Surely.
 
Andrew  41:28
It's not, it will be.
 
Christina Kann  41:33
We always spiral really hard right before the very last thing that happens in the chapter.
 
Andrew  41:40
How do we land this portkey?
 
Christina Kann  41:42
Yeah well, they land. They're here.
 
Andrew  41:44
Oh, we did it!
 
Anna  41:48
I feel like it sounds like maybe Cedric Diggory has taken a portkey before, because him, Mr. Diggory, and Mr. Weasley are still standing, and everybody else is on the ground.
 
Christina Kann  41:59
Oh, I wonder if it's an easy way to travel with kids. I don't know if floo powder costs money, but making a portkey is free. So maybe Amos Diggory got certified in portkey magic, or whatever, since you can't do it unless you're allowed to.
 
Anna  42:17
And he works for the ministry.
 
Christina Kann  42:19
Yeah, exactly. Maybe they have classes on the weekends.
 
Andrew  42:21
Yeah. It could also be the opposite though it could it be that it's a sign of prestige because you have the connections to get the portkey approved. Right?
 
Christina Kann  42:30
Oh, interesting.
 
Anna  42:31
Right.
 
Andrew  42:32
Maybe it's actually the elitist thing to take portkeys. "Amos Diggory grew up taking Cedric everywhere by portkey just because he could. No other reason."
 
Christina Kann  42:43
Just as a reminder, the Diggorys also live in Ottery St. Catchpole. So I don't know if there's a lot of wealth going on in that area. It just feels to me like a bunch of country families. Yeah, the Lovegoods as well. The Lovegoods and the Weasleys, those are both very British countryside, children running around bare feet in the garden. This place can't be real. Actually, what if I'm talking about a real place?
 
Andrew  43:18
Where the children famously run barefoot.
 
Christina Kann  43:21
The fact that Harry Potter came up first doesn't mean this isn't a real place. *gasps* It is! It is real.
 
Andrew  43:29
It's not Israel.
 
Christina Kann  43:32
it's located in Devon, England. Oh my god, wait, I need to look at photos.
 
Andrew  43:37
You know that this place, you could probably watch a graph of its tourism industry just jump right around 2004-2005.
 
Christina Kann  43:50
Wow, prank's on me because obviously all of the images of this place are just from Harry Potter in the Google image search. Okay, I'll do more research about that later. Um, anyway, we're here. We're at the Quidditch World Cup. Any last words about the chapter? Anything we didn't touch on? Anything we should touch a little bit more?
 
Andrew  44:10
That third nipple.
 
Anna  44:14
Always touch the third nipple.
 
Andrew  44:16
Always go for the third nipple. It's just good advice. Solid advice.
 
Christina Kann  44:22
Okay.
 
Andrew  44:22
No, I don't think there's anything.
 
Christina Kann  44:28
Okay, great. Well, let's move on to some plugs. I would like to start by plugging our Patreon. There's a lot of really dope stuff going on over there for patrons. The $5 a month tier gets you access to our monthly bonus episodes, which are -- no offense to the main feed -- but they're more fun and generally better. This month, our bonus episode we'll be sorting Brooklyn 99 characters into Hogwarts houses. So get ready for that. I'm freaking excited. I'm pretty torn about some of these characters.
 
Andrew  45:18
Oh no, I'm going to have to re-binge a bunch of Brooklyn 99 because it's actually been a while since I've watched it.
 
Christina Kann  45:25
I've been re-bingeing for this purpose, and it's a fucking delight. It's better the second time. Um, so anyway, join us on our Patreon, and for as little as $1 a month you can be part of our Discord community server, which is a really happy place to be. Andrew and Anna hang out there. So come join us. Andrew, what do you have to plug this week since you cannot be found on the internet?
 
Andrew  45:54
I've recently discovered the Apple TV show The Morning Show, and it is absolutely fantastic. It's Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell and bunch of other people. It's absolutely fascinating. Oh, what is her name? I can't remember. Witherspoon. Reese Witherspoon. That's it.
 
Christina Kann  46:20
Crushed it.
 
Andrew  46:21
10 points.
 
Christina Kann  46:23
But you have to split those points equally. 5 to each Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Yeah.
 
Andrew  46:29
Yeah, it's a great show. The first season is really well done. It's a really cool show. I highly recommend it.
 
Christina Kann  46:46
Hell yeah. Thank you so much -- which, I've realized, is what I always say after every single person's plug. Hell yeah. Thank you so much.
 
Andrew  46:54
Hell yeah. Thank you so much.
 
Christina Kann  46:57
Anna, do you want to be found on the internet?
 
Anna  47:01
You can find me in the Discord! I occasionally post there. And I mostly lurk and just like people's posts.
 
Christina Kann  47:11
And that's a really important role.
 
Anna  47:14
Yes, it is. And you can find me on Instagram, but my profile is private. So if I don't recognize who you are, I'm sorry.
 
Christina Kann  47:25
But what you are saying is if I already know, you find me on Instagram.
 
Anna  47:29
Yes.
 
Christina Kann  47:37
So what do you have to recommend that you've been watching, reading, listening to, etc lately that you think our listeners might enjoy?
 
Anna  47:44
I've been watching Only Murders in the Building on Hulu.
 
Christina Kann  47:49
That's next on my list. I haven't seen it yet.
 
Anna  47:51
It's so good. And the episode this week was told from like a deaf person's perspective. And I took sign language in high school and college, so I find that really fascinating and important. The whole episode is basically silent. When he's on the screen, you hear nothing, but if he's not in the scene, then you hear background noises but the characters don't speak. It's such a fun little romp. It's Selena Gomez and Martin Short and Steve Martin. Someone is murdered in their building, and they decided to start a podcast to figure out what happened. So yeah, it's really fun. I highly recommend it. I'm super loving it.
 
Christina Kann  48:40
Awesome. I'm really excited to check that one out. Personally, I've been your host Christina. I'm going to plug something that I've already plugged on this podcast. You should read The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle.
 
Anna  49:27
We've been talking about it a lot in the Discord, and it makes me want to read it so bad. So it's on my ever towering list of TBR.
 
Christina Kann  49:35
It is written by Stuart Turton. And it is one of the most unique, artful, surprising books I've ever read in my life. And I've read thousands of books. This book caught me off guard. It's pretty hard to do that. I'm not trying to brag; I'm just saying send me book recommendations that you think are gonna catch me off guard, please, for the love of God. And I'm recommending The Seven and a Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton. I fuckin love it and it's making its rounds because around the friend group because once you read it you can't stop talking about it. Well, Anna, thank you so much for joining us. I'm so happy to finally get you on the pod.
 
Anna  50:15
Thanks, me too. I'm glad to be here.
 
Christina Kann  50:17
And Andrew, my fearless co-pilot. I gotta go finish reading Just Get There! Off the Grid Portkey Creation before this book disappears without me. Bye.
 
Anna  50:39
Bye.

SPEAKERS
Mike, Brooke Matherly, Christina Kann
 
Christina Kann  00:02
"This had to be Charlie, who worked with dragons in Romania. Charlie was built like the twins: shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky. He had a broad, good-natured face, which was weather-beaten and so freckly that he almost looked tanned. His arms were muscular, and one of them had a large, shiny burn on it. Bill got to his feet, smiling, and also took Harry's hand. Bill came as something of a surprise. Harry knew that he had worked for the wizarding bank, Gringotts, and that Bill had been Head Boy at Hogwarts. Harry had always imagined Bill to be an older version of Percy: fussy about rule-breaking and fond of bossing everyone around. However, Bill was -- there was no other word for it -- cool. He was tall, with long hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. He was wearing an earring with what looked like a fang dangling from it. Bill's clothes would not have looked out of place at a rock concert, except that Harry recognized his boots to be made, not of leather, but of dragonhide." It's hot. They're both so hot.
 
Christina Kann  01:32
What's up, Pott-heads? Welcome to the Restricted Section, the show in which a bunch of nerds with potty mouth we read the Harry Potter series for the umpteenth time and discuss the way that the story and its themes have stayed with a generation into adulthood. Thank you for listening. If you haven't done the reading, don't worry, we did it for you. Here's what we're talking about this week.
 
Christina Kann  01:51
Chapter Five: Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Harry makes it safely to the Weasleys' house, but the twins are anything but safe when Molly learns that they fed a Ton-Tongue Toffee to Dudley Dursley. She's mad all day until finally the family sits down for a nice dinner before going to bed early because they all have to get up early for the Quidditch World Cup tomorrow. Did I mention that we get to meet Bill and Charlie? Because we do.
 
Christina Kann  02:22
Welcome to the Restricted Section, where we firmly condemn entrepreneurship of any kind! If you don't work for the government, we're not proud of you! I am delighted to be joined by my amazing friend -- I didn't pre-choose adjectives -- Brooke! Say hello to the listeners, Brooke.
 
Brooke Matherly  02:39
Hello. I am in fact a government employee, so it all works out!
 
Christina Kann  02:45
And we are delighted to be joined as well by Mike today! Say hello to the listeners, Mike.
 
Mike  02:49
Hello! I am a proud unemployed American.
 
Christina Kann  02:53
That deadbeat husband of yours.
 
Brooke Matherly  02:57
That's alright. I like being a sugar mama. It's a power dynamic that works well for me.
 
Mike  03:02
It's pretty kinky.
 
Christina Kann  03:03
Mike, it's been a hot minute since you've been on the podcast. How have you been?
 
Mike  03:07
I've been great. You know, just living in this semi-post-apopcalyptic world that we call America in 2021. You know, just waiting for the zombies to show up. Right?
 
Brooke Matherly  03:18
I don't mean to fully call you you out, but it's good that there's a point to it. You accidentally misspoke and said "apopcalyptic," and that would be such a great album name for like a pop album.
 
Mike  03:33
So here's another thing. I've been married to an English major. So that in its own right is trauma.
 
Christina Kann  03:41
I though you were gonna make an "apoplectic" joke.
 
Mike  03:45
...And anyways, she's friends with other English majors.
 
Christina Kann  03:50
It means like so mad that you like can barely talk, right?
 
Brooke Matherly  03:54
I don't know. You've out-vocabed me on that one.
 
Christina Kann  03:57
What? Apoplectic. I'm googling it. And it means "overcome with anger or extremely indignant," and you often see it like "I'm apoplectic with rage."
 
Brooke Matherly  04:09
Folks, she nailed it.
 
Mike  04:10
Damn, things I thought I would be doing with my Wednesday night.
 
Christina Kann  04:16
So we are here today to talk about the Goblet of Fire, Chapter Five: Weasleys' (pause) Wizard (pause) Wheezes. Crushed it.
 
Brooke Matherly  04:27
There is simply no way to say this any faster than you just said it right there.
 
Christina Kann  04:31
Just say www! ... dot weasleys wizarding wheezes dot com
 
Brooke Matherly  04:38
I have like a Reese's Piecies / Reese's Pieces moment with this, where I always think that it's Weasleys' Wizard Wheezies instead of wheezes.
 
Christina Kann  04:49
What does this name even mean?
 
Brooke Matherly  04:51
I think -- wheezes being like you're wheezing with laughter.
 
Christina Kann  04:56
Okay.
 
Brooke Matherly  04:57
So they're like wizarding jokes that will make you wheeze with laughter, and they're made by the aforementioned Weasleys.
 
Christina Kann  05:05
Right. I probably would have just called my company like Weasleys and left it at that because it's kind of cute by itself.
 
Brooke Matherly  05:12
But aren't they like an old magic family? Like, that's the thing, right? Like people would know.
 
Christina Kann  05:19
They could be a bank, or like a law firm. Weasley, Weasley, Weasley, and Weasley,
 
Brooke Matherly  05:24
Or a grocery store. Grocery stores be named everything.
 
Christina Kann  05:27
Oh, yeah, that's true.
 
Brooke Matherly  05:29
Like a Kroger is not inherently food-based.
 
Mike  05:33
Yeah, also, if you met somebody named Kroger, you want to just automatically be like, "Oh, of the Krogers."
 
Brooke Matherly  05:39
A grocery man, I see.
 
Christina Kann  05:42
A grocer indeed.
 
Mike  05:44
A fine American family, the Krogers.
 
Christina Kann  05:48
So the chapter starts with Harry flooing really hard into the Weasleys' kitchen. He's escaping the last chapter. He left Dudley with his tongue growing, Uncle Vernon throwing china, Aunt Petunia screaming in fear, and Arthur just trying to figure it out.
 
Brooke Matherly  06:09
I just love that as soon as he's out the fireplace, Fred's just like "DID HE EAT IT???" It's just like the most like boy prank moment of "Did it work?"
 
Christina Kann  06:23
Yeah, it definitely was premeditated, for sure, evidently. Fred explains that he and George invented these candies, and they've been looking for someone, anyone, to test them on.
 
Brooke Matherly  06:39
I'm surprised they didn't get any takers from within their family, to have your tongue grow up to a ton in weight out of your mouth.
 
Christina Kann  06:48
Yeah, maybe if I was like a parent, I would be like, "Okay, I can probably fix anything you might do to me," but like, maybe not though.
 
Brooke Matherly  06:57
But his parents are not supportive of this nonsense, right? It's not like when your daughter's like, "I want to be a hairdresser!" and you're like "Alright, you get to cut this section of hair." You know what I mean? Like, so that you can try it out or like you know, you let your three-year-old put makeup on you.
 
Christina Kann  07:17
That's temporary.
 
Brooke Matherly  07:18
Yeah, if this goes wrong, we're dealing with new magic.
 
Christina Kann  07:25
Well, it's true it's true, but also they've been trying it on themselves, so I feel like that would help persuade me. If you've done it on yourself like six times, and it's worked fine every time, I might try it.
 
Brooke Matherly  07:34
Maybe probably. I like to think that -- okay, they've been obviously making these all summer, and they've been looking for someone to try it out on. Does that mean that the twins have just been like up in the kitchen? Like just baking up a storm of toffees?
 
Christina Kann  07:52
Interesting. That's a good question.
 
Brooke Matherly  07:54
You can't magic food, right? That's one of the rules.
 
Christina Kann  07:59
If you have the ingredients, you could -- they could like be magic thing it in their -- Oh, I don't think they're allowed to do magic. But actually, they might be able to. I don't remember
 
Brooke Matherly  08:10
They can.
 
Christina Kann  08:11
They're not old enough, but I think we've talked before about how maybe kids who have magical parents can do magic at home because how can they tell it's not the parents?
 
Brooke Matherly  08:20
Right.
 
Christina Kann  08:20
But they could be using like a cauldron or something in their bedroom.
 
Brooke Matherly  08:25
I mean, we do here later in the chapter that people have been hearing bangs coming from their room for quite some time.
 
Christina Kann  08:32
Yeah, indeed. I guess that's when the potion doesn't quite work.
 
Brooke Matherly  08:40
My headcanon: The reason that Molly is so upset by this is because she has been working with the twins all summer to perfect a toffee recipe that she thought she was passing down to them as an important family recipe, only to find that they've been enchanting it to cause nonsense.
 
Christina Kann  08:54
Oh my god that's like if my grandma gave me her beloved family brownie recipe and I was like "Alright, I'm gonna put some weed in it, though!" She'd be like, "That is not what this recipe was intended for."
 
Brooke Matherly  09:06
100%
 
Christina Kann  09:09
My grandma used to give me $20 bills in college and say "Don't spend this on weed!" and I would feel like, "Well it's the only 20 I have on me, so I'm gonna spend it on weed for sure."
 
Brooke Matherly  09:18
You gave me cash! If you don't want it spent on weed, write a check!
 
Mike  09:23
Also, way to date yourself, cuz man, that's a simpler time. $20? Wow.
 
Christina Kann  09:32
I used to need a lot less weed to go on. Because of the post-apocalyptic America that we live in, as you mentioned previously.
 
Mike  09:41
Of course.
 
Christina Kann  09:41
So let's talk about how Fred and George given this candy to Dudley is bullying. This kid hasn't done anything malicious in like three books, honestly.
 
Brooke Matherly  09:51
I mean yes, but also no. He's got a lasting legacy of shittiness.
 
Mike  09:58
Yeah, I gotta I gotta stop that because I think the fact is we've all been reading this book very slowly, chapter by chapter -- what are we going on? Over a year now? Whereas a lot of us, when we first consumed these books, chugged through like 2, 3, 4, some of us like five books, all literally in one magical go. So in a lot of ways across the whole psyche of many readers, you get this aspect of "No, fuck him. I still remember him for the first book. He's a piece of shit." Whereas if you were to read it very slowly, yeah, you would be kind of like, "Why are they--? Come on! It's been a couple years now, guys. Let it go."
 
Christina Kann  10:38
Yeah, especially Fred and George, because they've never even met the kid. They don't know how skewed Harry's storytelling might be. They're older and they're magical.
 
Brooke Matherly  10:48
But they're also just like down to clown at a moment's notice. That is their entire character type. Fred and George are 100% of the people that you can call at three am because you're in prison in Alabama. And they're just like, "All right, we're coming."
 
Christina Kann  11:03
For the record, I would come for you in prison in Alabama if you needed me to.
 
Brooke Matherly  11:07
Thank you so much. I intend to never get imprisoned in Alabama.
 
Christina Kann  11:10
Well, not in Alabama!
 
Mike  11:12
For the record, I would not one because -- yeah, there's a lot of reasons. Going back to the Weasley brothers, I think this chapter is probably a really actually important chapter. And I know it might get overlooked because it's so short, and it's kind of like, you know, a little bit of fluff. But I think one of the reasons why this chapter is so important is because, in a lot of ways, Goblet of Fire is the first real deal adult, serious Harry Potter book. And I think for a lot of fans, it is that key, pivotal moment, where it's like, "Okay, we went from fun little adventures on the side, to now a coherent plot that will follow through for the rest of the series. And I think JK Rowling uses the Weasley brothers in a lot of ways like Shakespeare -- me and Brooke just saw Henry the Fifth. And I was thinking back--
 
Christina Kann  12:02
Ooh, my second-favorite Henry!
 
Mike  12:04
Yeah. And I keep thinking back -- there's this reoccurring theme with the soldiers that are just goofing off. And when you watch it, you're kind of like, "What's the point of this?" But they add a lighthearted moment, and they add a fun little distraction. Because in this book, we're dealing, finally, with the serious ramifications of magic, magic law, magical powers, magic can kill now. Here we see people enjoying magic as a child would enjoy magic: for fun, for laughter, for jokes. And they constantly remind us of that, and I think that's why it's on full display here. Yeah, they're doing all these things, but it's harmless. Like, look what they did to the Dursleys. But it's like "Ah, it's okay." Whereas everything else in this book, we see magic being used, and it's permanent. It can be like, you get hurt. But with the Weasley brothers, you're kind of like, "Hey, that was a fun little ride. Don't do it again."
 
Christina Kann  13:07
Later in the book, they turn Neville into a canary suddenly.
 
Mike  13:10
Also, that's why I would have a threesome with them.
 
Christina Kann  13:12
Oh.
 
Mike  13:13
Dude, you just feel like it'd be a good time. You feel like there'd be some jokin and even if there's something awkward that happened during it all, you know you could just laugh about it afterwards.
 
Brooke Matherly  13:22
I feel like friend George would play really upbeat music in the background and like dance when they're not directly involved, you know?
 
Christina Kann  13:28
Oh, yeah!
 
Mike  13:29
Yeah, I think having a threesome with those two would be pretty fantastic.
 
Christina Kann  13:36
The twins definitely like house music, I think, for what it's worth.
 
Mike  13:40
Oh, yeah.
 
Brooke Matherly  13:44
My number-one threesome pairing of the Weasley family gets introduced in this chapter.
 
Christina Kann  13:50
I was gonna say! Is this the best segue ever? Go ahead.
 
Brooke Matherly  13:54
Bill and Charlie are literally in the house!
 
Christina Kann  13:58
Yeah, they're in the house. Harry's never met them. Charlie is muscular and burned and hot, and Bill is tall and rock and roll and cool and hot.
 
Brooke Matherly  14:09
So here's the thing. The initial characterization that we get when we meet Charlie is probably some of my favorite character introduction that we get in this series. These are the two best introductions in the entire series.
 
Christina Kann  14:21
Yes! It paints such a picture for these characters that ultimately are pretty inconsequential.
 
Christina Kann  14:26
Yeah.
 
Brooke Matherly  14:26
The first time that Harry meets Charlie, he literally -- it's he holds out his hand to shake it, and it says that "Harry shook, feeling calluses and blisters under his fingers." To have that be the first thing you learn about a character, I'm just like, "Yes!" You get it immediately. This is a man that does hard shit. You know?
 
Brooke Matherly  14:28
You know, he's a little bit stockier. We get like the fact that, yeah, he's got recent burns on his hands. I do only just want to contest the fact that Bill -- to say that Bill is unmistakably cool is a very '90s conception of cool, because he is introduced as wearing a fang earing, his hair in a ponytail, and wearing dragonskin leather boots. I don't know how much rock and roll that is, as much as it is just like, Aerosmith, you know what I mean?
 
Mike  15:29
I always imagined him being Billy Idol except with red hair. You know? If you've ever seen press photos of Billy Idol, like '80s Billy Idol, you just expect him to be like, "With a Rebel Yell!"
 
Brooke Matherly  15:48
A single fang earring just reads as very Crocodile Dundee to me.
 
Christina Kann  15:52
I think he would rock it. I imagine him wearing almost like a -- Oh my God, I don't know the kind of jacket it is -- almost like a Victorian-era -- like a knee length dragon leather jacket or something very hip to tie the whole outfit together.
 
Brooke Matherly  16:10
See, I thought you were talking about a My Chemical Romance Black Parade jacket.
 
Christina Kann  16:14
Oh, yeah, like that! Just like that. Yeah. Um, so my notes that I wrote a long time ago encourage me to now initiate a detailed conversation about who you would fuck, and it reminds me to refer to our Twitter poll from July 28 and 29th of this year. So I went back in time on the Twitter. I asked on our Twitter: Who would you fuck? Bill or Charlie? And we got a whopping 23 votes. I think this is pretty much the hottest debate of this series, except for that it's so overwhelmingly skewed every time.
 
Brooke Matherly  16:52
Is it all Charlie?
 
Christina Kann  16:53
35% said Bill and 65% said Charlie.
 
Brooke Matherly  16:58
Here's the thing: Charlie is introduced as sexy, strong manly man, and Bill is introduced as a banker with an earring.
 
Christina Kann  17:11
That reminds me of my friend's stepdad has an earring that he got really recently, you know?
 
Brooke Matherly  17:16
Right. That's what I'm saying. You get a couple of teases about what it is he does, but it's like, "As long as I find treasure, it's fine." But you work for a bank. I grew up with a parent who worked for the bank and like, singular earrings and male ponytails are not the vibe of a bank.
 
Christina Kann  17:37
Yeah, I mean, I definitely would super consensually fuck Bill enthusiastically. But, as Haley said in a Twitter comment on our poll from July of 2021, which is this year, Haley said, "I mean, no hate to Bill. He's objectively hot. I just have a type and it's butch himbo nature boy." There's just something very like chaotic wilderness energy, you know?
 
Brooke Matherly  18:04
Yes.
 
Christina Kann  18:05
Almost like a puckish figure. He dances with dragons!
 
Brooke Matherly  18:08
I see that.
 
Mike  18:09
Nah, dude. Do the twins.
 
Christina Kann  18:12
I'm not gonna do both the twins!
 
Mike  18:14
Well, that's just because you're not adventurous. Do the twins.
 
Christina Kann  18:19
The twins are gigantic though. Not their penises. They're just tall. Those actors are like 6'3" at least. They're very tall.
 
Mike  18:27
Like I said, you know, take a fun ride, enjoy it. I'm not saying date them. Hell, I'm not even saying go on a date with them. I'm just saying text them late at night, "Hey, you up?" and just you know, go over there and just have some fun.
 
Brooke Matherly  18:41
I'm so afraid that I would reach out in the dark to grab a penis and it would turn into a mouse to startle me.
 
Mike  18:46
And that's the fun of it. That's kind of the fun of it. You don't know if they're laughing at you or laughing with you.
 
Brooke Matherly  18:56
But I do know that they're laughing inside me.
 
Christina Kann  19:02
Oh, I how do I transition from this into like, disciplining your children?
 
Brooke Matherly  19:08
That's the thing: Mr. Weasley comes in so hot, like, "I am going to be a disciplinarian in this moment."
 
Christina Kann  19:14
It's so funny to me -- Here's the thing. If Sean and I had seven children, we would be these people. And sometimes, we're interacting with the cats, and I'm like, "This is why we can't have kids." And it's things like this, where Arthur obviously wasn't going to tell Mrs. Weasley, who's been on this mission all summer of trying to set her kids on track. He's like one of the kids who's like, "Now we all know your mother is a hardass. So I'm not gonna tell her." I think part of the problem is that the kids think it's hilarious and they're roaring with laughter, and Arthur is like, "I just had to deal with so many, so many things before I left that house."
 
Brooke Matherly  19:56
I mean, he brings up the fact that he's mostly upset because of the mistreatment of Muggles issue.
 
Christina Kann  20:01
Right.
 
Brooke Matherly  20:02
This speaks to his like only hobby as a wizard. He's like, "I had a moment finally in a Muggle household to just be there with their Muggle things. I was looking at outlets. I was having the grandest of times, even though we had to do all this crazy shit to get Harry out. This was a moment for me, and you decided to unprovoked attack a Muggle in my goddamned presence."
 
Christina Kann  20:29
They insist that they gave this candy to him, not because he's a Muggle, but because he's "a great bullying git," which is not completely untrue, nut he just wasn't doing anything this summer. He was very scared already. Anyway, Arthur's like, "You wait till I tell your mother," and then Molly immediately enters the room.
 
Brooke Matherly  20:48
Like "Tell me what?" And Arthur's immediately like, "I was not intending to tell you anything."
 
Mike  20:56
"Yeah, this was a hollow threat at best."
 
Christina Kann  20:58
"I don't know where to go from here."
 
Brooke Matherly  21:03
"Tell you what, I'll tell you what. Harry and the twins are having a real lark, and you just can't -- you can't dance like that in the middle of a floo powder session."
 
Mike  21:14
"I'll tell you. I'll tell you. I'll tell you what. The twins definitely weren't railin' some chick, that's for sure."
 
Christina Kann  21:21
See, Arthur is a bad liar. We have no evidence for this. But he definitely is.
 
Brooke Matherly  21:29
He has the demeanor of a bad liar.
 
Christina Kann  21:32
Yeah, he's just too good. Sean's the same way. Sean is a terrible liar. He just can't fake it. I just want to make a note of this and then we'll move swiftly on. A lot of the last two chapters we spent harping on how grotesquely obese and like waddling Dudley Dursley was, and Molly Weasly is also fat, and she gets described as "plump" because she's a good person.
 
Brooke Matherly  22:02
She gets the Santa Claus treatment.
 
Christina Kann  22:04
She gets the Santa Clause treatment! She's like joyfully plum.
 
Brooke Matherly  22:11
Plump and jolly.
 
Mike  22:12
Look, she definitely doesn't suffer from diabetes. She's just living her best life.
 
Brooke Matherly  22:19
They're ostensibly superduper poor, but if they're super duper poor, she sews her own clothes, she's overweight and harried. She's got seven kids to keep track of and two of them are barely graduating from school. But you know what, like, she's a really nice person. She's so happy though.
 
Christina Kann  22:38
Right. It's immediately clear that Mr. Weasley was not actually going to tell Molly, as we mentioned. Enter Hermione and Ginny. They're just standing there; everyone's just standing there, and then the Molly-Arthur-twins thing really escalates very quickly.
 
Brooke Matherly  23:02
Movie Hermione would never pick up on the social cues inherent to this conversation and be like, "Hey, Ron, Harry, welcome. We should go check out where Harry is going to be staying so he can put his bags down." And Ron's like, "Huh?" and she's like, "We should go now." Movie Hermione would just be like, "I don't understand human interaction is this book?" You know what I mean?
 
Christina Kann  23:27
It's even more subtle. She's like, "We can all go," Hermione said pointedly. There is a lot more subtlety of dialogue here, I think, because just writing that someone does something pointedly is a lot easier than getting a 14-year-old actress to say something very pointedly.
 
Mike  23:44
Yeah, I think the big key point is you have a dialogue that's written by an adult versus a dialogue that has to be acted out by a child. And at the end of the day, there's always going to be limitations to that.
 
Christina Kann  23:57
Yeah, totally. So Harry Ron, Hermione, and Ginny leave. They're walking up -- There's like a whole, like West Wing like, montage -- not montage, but like -- what am I trying to say? The one shots of them walking down the hall--
 
Brooke Matherly  24:15
A walk and talk?
 
Christina Kann  24:15
A walk and talk! But it's just up the stairs, up those seven flights of stairs or whatever. Ron's explaining to Harry what is Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes. We learned that Molly found some order forms in the twins' room. They are obviously going to want to start selling these at Hogwarts next year. They have loads of trick wizard shit. But obviously it is kind of dangerous. So Molly put her foot down and burned their order forms.
 
Brooke Matherly  24:49
The most ridiculous part of this is the fact that Molly's so against it. Dude, your kids have an entrepreneurial spirit. They've actually created products that are well above what they should be able to do at this point in their lives. And they have successfully already taken orders -- they've sold them already. They're doing it. They've got a frickin Etsy shop.
 
Mike  25:12
Imagine if Bill Gates, who started his company -- was it Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? One of them started their company in the garage. Imagine if their parents had come in and be like, "Get your shit out of my garage! I need to park our car."
 
Brooke Matherly  25:23
"That's a lot of electric wires. That looks dangerous."
 
Christina Kann  25:29
Yeah. Molly was already mad because the twins didn't get as many OWLs as she expected. How did the fuck do OWLs work? How do you get one? What does that mean?
 
Brooke Matherly  25:40
I think if you pass it, you get it.
 
Christina Kann  25:43
That's such a weird way to phrase it.
 
Brooke Matherly  25:45
I think they're all done on a pass-fail system.
 
Christina Kann  25:48
What?
 
Mike  25:49
I don't know, I think it's supposed to harken to a lot of standardized testing. Don't forget, in England, their school system is much more stricter. So I forgot what we had in school -- I think it was called like the Topeka or something like that.
 
Christina Kann  26:07
Topeka, Kansas?
 
Mike  26:08
Yeah, it was like a standardized test, and they gave it some dumb name. But I think it's supposed to be like that. It's like, "Oh, you're supposed to get your standardized mark." So like, the concept was there's a standardized test, and if you don't do well on them, that's bad.
 
Brooke Matherly  26:24
They are individual examinations in a variety of things. I think to get an OWL means that you passed that particular examination, because they take a lot of them. They take like seven.
 
Christina Kann  26:33
But what does that mean? For their school career? Can they not continue taking classes in a subject if they don't get an OWL in it the previous year?
 
Brooke Matherly  26:45
I think so. I think that it like tests you into upper levels of things. If you took a French language proficiency test, and they were like, "You don't get to go to Advanced French, because you cannot write a whole essay in French, and that's a required skill for the upper level."
 
27:00
I think that's a very, like I said, a very European mindset. You know, Europeans, their education is very structured. And then as you go further up, it becomes much more narrow, whereas American education is very broad, very much a liberal arts kind of get your tastes in everything. And I think maybe it's kind of a concept that as an adult, if you didn't get OWLs in that, they're like, "Well, you can't open up this store. You can't practice this kind of magic, because you didn't do good in transfiguration. Therefore, you cannot practice transfiguration."
 
Brooke Matherly  27:32
Well, I don't know that it's that you can't ever do it, but I think it just disqualifies you. With the UK university system, there undergraduate degrees are only three years long, because you do your first year of your undergraduate degree in high school, like our version of high school, because you've already tested into a university track or a non-university track.
 
Christina Kann  27:55
Oh, interesting.
 
Brooke Matherly  27:56
And then you've already picked a specialization by that point. So you already know. So I think this is meant to kind of roughly approximate that system. I think you take OWLs in a large number of subjects and you take fewer NEWTs later on.
 
Christina Kann  28:13
Yeah, I think that in book five before his OWLs, Harry does career guidance with McGonagall. And that's pretty much what that is.
 
Mike  28:24
When she wrote this book, I don't think she ever really imagined a worldwide audience. I think she was just hopeful like, "Maybe this will take off in England and some other Commonwealth countries." So I think there are things that are intentionally added -- maybe not even by her maybe later by our editors -- where they were like, "Kids will relate to this better if we have these generic concepts that are similar, but not too similar, to what most kids go through in school."
 
Christina Kann  28:53
Yeah, that makes sense. The Weasley twins told Molly that all they want to do after school is open a joke shop. Molly wants them to go into the government. It's just so funny because like, obviously not with this much chaos. They're not going into the government! She's in denial, I think.
 
Brooke Matherly  29:11
Well, we've also talked about the fact that there are ostensibly three career tracks in the entirety of the wizarding world.
 
Christina Kann  29:16
And they're not going to be teachers!
 
Brooke Matherly  29:18
Yeah, it's teachers government or entrepreneurship. They are too chaotic for teacher or government. This is the only option left to them. What are they supposed to do otherwise, Molly?
 
Christina Kann  29:26
Yeah, exactly. So they are still walking up the stairs. They meet Percy on the landing. He comes out of his room in a huff and asks them to shut up from "thundering up and down the stairs."
 
Brooke Matherly  29:42
Okay, so he has this weird conversation with them about standardizing cauldron bottoms, because he's saying foreign imports have been a little bit on the thin side and it's causing extra leakage. Is this an intentional "made in China" joke? Is that what we're to take here? The classic thing of "Made in China isn't exactly a mark of quality there!" You know what I mean? Is that what this is alluding to?
 
Mike  30:15
If you think about it from a geopolitical standpoint -- once again going back to the brilliance of JK Rowling -- she foresaw a lot of the trade issues that would become issues--
 
Christina Kann  30:25
Mike has a knife in his hand. I just want everyone to know.
 
Mike  30:27
--and America and the current destabilization of the supply chain. Really, I think she foresaw that, and I think what she's trying to really hint at and warn her readers is that, you know, Tesla stock and Bitcoin is definitely going to roll in, and if you're not doging on the Robin Hood -- so I think that's really what she was trying to get at.
 
all  30:54
*stunned pause*
 
Christina Kann  30:55
Yeah, we can look for some more throughout the rest of the chapter. Percy's just bragging about work.
 
Brooke Matherly  31:04
Okay, did Percy graduate? Is that what happened?
 
Christina Kann  31:06
Yeah, last year.
 
Brooke Matherly  31:07
This is his like job job.
 
Christina Kann  31:09
Yes. His job job. Cuz he was Head Boy last year.
 
Brooke Matherly  31:12
I'm kind of shocked that he didn't try harder to move out.
 
Mike  31:18
Dude, what? 18 year old --? I'm sorry, man. I was a 19-year-old like waiting tables at Olive Garden. What 18-year-old is just sitting there being like *pretentious noises* like, come on, man.
 
Brooke Matherly  31:29
I could see Percy being like, "From a logical perspective, I save a lot of money by staying at home with my parents." But clearly he's not happy here. He's like, "There's so much chaos all around me." Yeah, there's always gonna be, dude.
 
Christina Kann  31:40
Yeah, maybe he's waiting to see how it is when the kids go to school for the year, though.
 
Brooke Matherly  31:45
Maybe.
 
Mike  31:45
Also maybe the wizarding housing market is pretty stifled.
 
Christina Kann  31:50
Yeah, where is he gonna move to like live near other--? I guess London because that's where the Ministry is.
 
Mike  31:56
Once again going back to like English culture and European culture in general, that's very very common.
 
Christina Kann  32:02
What, wizards moving out of the house?
 
Brooke Matherly  32:06
No actually, wizards staying home.
 
Christina Kann  32:08
I see I see.
 
Mike  32:09
In Europe, it's very common, if you're 20, 21, 22, to be living at home. In fact, it's kind of expected. So I think it's not odd really to be like, "I have a job. I'm stable. I have what many Americans would view as the impetus to move out, but I'm not going to because housing is hard to get and commuting is very difficult, I'm gonna save money, so I live at home with my parents."
 
Brooke Matherly  32:40
it's similar to the northeast of the US. A lot of my friends that I know that live in New Jersey and Long Island and New York, they live with their parents for longer because their parents are just like, "This makes more sense. You can't really actually afford to live on your own. Just live here for a little bit longer until you can save up enough money that you can get an apartment on your own." I don't know. It just struck me as particularly weird for Percy because he clearly hates being in this environment so much.
 
Christina Kann  33:10
Yeah. And also they live in fuckin Ottery St. Catchpole, which is not the place to live to be thriving as a young adult and moving your career ahead in the world.
 
Brooke Matherly  33:22
I think he would want to be around other like other wizards--
 
Christina Kann  33:27
Other Percys.
 
Brooke Matherly  33:27
--in a more thriving environment so that he could network and rub elbows with people, you know what I mean?
 
Christina Kann  33:32
Yeah, it's true. So Ron and Percy fight, and Percy slams the door and Ron stomps up the stairs. And finally they make it all the way up to Ron's room at the top of the house. There's actually a really, really adorable illustration of it in my Jim Kay illustrated edition that I'm going to post on Instagram today, of Ron's little room. I love it so much. It's very orange, but the illustration makes it look kind of lovely, you know? And "Ron's old rat, Scabbers, was here no more." Okay, sure. We don't have time to go into that backstory.
 
Brooke Matherly  34:07
I have a real question, because there's a big debate in this moment. And I want to know from our listeners, and we'll put a poll up on the Twitter. Pigwidgeon as an owl name: cute or catastrophic?
 
Christina Kann  34:21
But also Pig!
 
Brooke Matherly  34:23
I like Pig as a nickname. I'm actually with Ron on this. I think Pig is a cuter nickname than Pigwidgeon is as a full name.
 
Mike  34:30
It also just sounds cool. "Here piggy, piggy, piggy, piggy, souieeeeee!"
 
Brooke Matherly  34:35
I don't think they sooie at their pigs there, do they?
 
Mike  34:39
You know, that's a great question.
 
Christina Kann  34:41
Definitely not at their Pigwidgeons.
 
Mike  34:43
If we have any English farmers listening, please comment.
 
Brooke Matherly  34:47
Stop threatening me with that knife.
 
Mike  34:49
I don't know what you're talking about. It's my magical wand. It's my it's my pointy death wand.
 
Brooke Matherly  34:53
Michael calls it his magical wand because when you're waving a knife at someone, they tend to do what you want them to.
 
Mike  34:59
It's pretty BA. But anyway, sooie.
 
Brooke Matherly  35:06
But Pigwidgeon. As a whole name, I think it's catastrophic. I think that's terrible.
 
Christina Kann  35:11
Okay. Well you can vote in the Twitter poll.
 
Brooke Matherly  35:14
Okay.
 
Christina Kann  35:16
There's usually two beds in this room for no reason because Ron sleeps in it by himself -- but right now there's four beds because Charlie and Bill are sleeping in the twins' room so the twins are sleeping in with Harry and Ron, which is ... the injustice. So Charlie lives in Romania; where does Bill live?
 
Brooke Matherly  35:33
I think Bill has a cool bachelor pad.
 
Christina Kann  35:37
In like London or something.
 
Brooke Matherly  35:38
I'm gonna put this out strong: I think Bill has found a bachelor pad loft with an observatory.
 
Christina Kann  35:44
Whoa!
 
Brooke Matherly  35:45
I feel like that's his vibe.
 
Christina Kann  35:46
So specific. I like that. I'd fuck there! Anyway, so they just like sit around and chat a bit. Ron's talking about how Percy is so obsessed with his job and his boss, Mr. Crouch. Hmm? That'll never come up again.
 
Brooke Matherly  36:05
I don't know when this chapter takes place, but I'm shocked that it's not April because this is a little Easter egg hunt. There are little Easter eggs all over this chapter.
 
Mike  36:14
Wow. Okay.
 
Brooke Matherly  36:20
Because we get the Mr. Crouch tease.
 
Christina Kann  36:22
Right. Bagman later.
 
Brooke Matherly  36:24
We're going to get to our girl Bertha Jorkins.
 
Christina Kann  36:28
Yeah, Bertha Jorkins!
 
Brooke Matherly  36:30
We also tease the suspicious secret event coming up later that we're all preparing for which is obviously the triwizard tournament.
 
Christina Kann  36:40
Yeah, definitely. This whole chapter is just setup, and it also feels like the whole last chapter was just setup, and last chapter we were talking about how the chapter before that was all setup. Should have been some condensing of chapters round this part of this book.
 
Brooke Matherly  36:53
Like a good flan, we are at this point fully set.
 
Christina Kann  36:59
And the next chapter is also kind of setup. And the chapter after THAT is when stuff starts to really happen, I think!
 
Brooke Matherly  37:05
It takes a while for everything to cure.
 
Christina Kann  37:08
It takes 130 pages to get to Hogwarts.
 
Brooke Matherly  37:13
We haven't had that kind of a wait since the first book.
 
Christina Kann  37:16
You're right. The first book there was a lot of buildup in the beginning.
 
Mike  37:20
Yeah, but because there was so much buildup in the first book, and because it was so frustrating, it's literally left the vibe that still sticks and to all subsequent books, where Harry's afraid of being stuck with the Dursleys. And even now we hate Dudley. So that buildup still pays dividends even now. Wait, so wait, I can't remember. Goblet of Fire -- by this point, this is the longest of all the novels, right?
 
Christina Kann  37:48
Yeah. Oh, for sure.
 
Mike  37:49
Yeah. Actually, I remember when this one came out, and I was like, "Holy thickness!"
 
Brooke Matherly  37:56
That's also what he says to me every night.
 
Christina Kann  38:00
I do like 'em thicc. Yeah, so once the yelling in the kitchens appears to subside from basically the attic where they are, they go back downstairs to help with dinner. Molly is angry cooking, which -- I've been there, girl.
 
Brooke Matherly  38:16
Dude, same. Angry cooking is second only to angry dish cleaning.
 
Mike  38:22
My mom used to angry cook, and she would make amazing dishes. So as kids, we would intentionally piss her off, just do outlandish things to make her cook. So I knew that if I got in trouble at school, and I came home, I was like, "Man, I'm gonna get my ass whooped. But we might have crab legs tonight!"
 
Brooke Matherly  38:45
Michael is an amalgamation of Fred and George.
 
Christina Kann  38:49
That is so funny. So because she's mad, she's being careless -- also been there -- so everything's going wrong -- also been there. The potatoes are shooting around the kitchen and everything's exploding and she's slamming stuff. It's a shit show. She's just in her own little world right now. She's having a livid, vivid monologue that just absolutely no one needs to -- she wants no one to engage with her. She's just on a roll.
 
Brooke Matherly  39:24
Clearly this is coming from a good place. She's just very, very worried about her kids. This is another big difference: Molly in the books isn't just like a vapid, overly supportive, quirky Mom, you know? In the movies, she comes off as "not like the other moms," basically.
 
Christina Kann  39:48
Right.
 
Brooke Matherly  39:48
Where she's just like there for them all the time. Like, "Whatever you want to do. Follow your dreams. I'm here to support you." And in the book, she's just like a real mom, where she's like, "I want you to do well. I don't want you guys to end up unemployed and sad. I would like to see you do something with your lives."
 
Mike  40:06
"I don't want you to be overweight, unemployed, and sad--"
 
Brooke Matherly  40:11
"--looking after seven kids alone in the countryside, and you never really did anything with your life."
 
Mike  40:15
And she just pops like seven Zolofts offs.
 
Christina Kann  40:21
Here's a question: she has rage. We see her rage at different times. And I think we can all agree that her family and her husband are a little afraid of her emotional reactions to things. Is she maybe like a little emotionally abusive, or manipulative?
 
Brooke Matherly  40:44
I don't think she's emotionally abusive or manipulative. I think she's just the glue that holds the family together, and everyone is aware of that. So if she needs to be catered to, then she needs to be catered to.
 
Christina Kann  40:59
Interesting.
 
Brooke Matherly  41:00
Because if Molly gets too frustrated and walks out, no one makes dinner, no one makes clothes, no one gets school supplies. The house doesn't get clean, everything falls the fuck apart.
 
Christina Kann  41:11
That's true.
 
Mike  41:12
As a man who lives in constant fear of his spouse, I can sympathize a lot with their captiveness and how they're being held hostage by their mom, who is a violent, emotionally manipulative human being--
 
Christina Kann  41:28
I see your perspective.
 
Mike  41:29
--who has monopolized basic chores within the house and use it as punishment to withhold.
 
Brooke Matherly  41:38
Yeah, I'm punishing you by withholding your abilitiy to do chores.
 
Mike  41:40
Whoa! No, nobody was comparing this to our relationship. Why would you make that correlation jump? But now that we're here, let's talk about that.
 
Christina Kann  41:48
Mike, put the knife down.
 
Brooke Matherly  41:49
Yeah, you still got a knife in your hands!
 
Mike  41:51
Yes, and you have one at my heart.
 
Christina Kann  41:59
The boys run outside for safety, and Charlie and Bill are having a table fight. That's the cutest thing about them both, is that they're like "This is a fun idea."
 
Brooke Matherly  42:14
It's actual chaos. They don't stop until one of the tables breaks, and then they just magically glue it back together. I don't understand how Molly's so caught up with, what? A toffee that made someone's tongue grow real big? And then she does in the kitchen grab a fake one that turns into a mouse.
 
Christina Kann  42:33
Yes, that was probably very infuriating, bad timing.
 
Brooke Matherly  42:36
Yep, but meanwhile, her other two sons are fighting with her furniture outside. She's just like, "Oh, but that's Bill and Charlie."
 
Christina Kann  42:46
Once you've proven yourself and left the house, you get to just be whoever you want to be.
 
Brooke Matherly  42:51
You get free reign.
 
Christina Kann  42:56
Percy, however, screams at Charlie and Bill out of the window to keep it down.
 
Brooke Matherly  43:01
I love that he screams at them, and Bill, without skipping a beat, is like, "How's the cauldron bottoms coming on, buddy?" I love watching the Weasley kids interact with each other because they are just the most siblingy siblings to ever sibling.
 
Christina Kann  43:20
Yeah, and we've wondered aloud on this podcast a lot about the dynamic of the Bill-Charlie-Percy relationship before other children were born, you know? Because Percy does seem to not really fit in anywhere, but for a while it was just the three of them.
 
Brooke Matherly  43:39
There does seem to be a real divide in the family.
 
Christina Kann  43:43
The twins are like a hard wall.
 
Brooke Matherly  43:45
Yeah, because the twins are just so much.
 
Christina Kann  43:50
Yeah, it's amazing they have kids after the twins.
 
Brooke Matherly  43:54
Well, the twins are how much older than Ron? Like three years older than Ron?
 
Christina Kann  43:58
They're two years older.
 
Brooke Matherly  44:00
Gosh, that's late. I mean, I guess not. They would have been like one-ish when Molly got pregnant again. And like I could see, "Alright, they're one. They haven't really started developing outlandishly." They're not particularly mobile at that point. And then like by the time you have Ron, you're like, "Oh, no, what have I done?"
 
Christina Kann  44:23
And then you're like, "Please, please just give me a daughter. I'll do anything!" and you have that one last Hail Mary baby, and you get Ginny! Which in the movies is a burden, but in the books it's a great bounty.
 
Mike  44:35
Also, I'm just gonna say this: wizarding condoms aren't all they're made up to be. They still use goatskin.
 
Brooke Matherly  44:41
We've talked about this before on the podcast. What is wizarding birth control? Surely they have very effective forms. I refuse to believe anything otherwise.
 
Christina Kann  44:51
Potions! Just an easy potion. It tastes like Lacroix.
 
Mike  44:56
Yeah, they have seven flights of stairs in their house. That's what they have. I don't really think they're mixing the potions on Planned Parenthood in the wizarding world.
 
Brooke Matherly  45:15
Michael, Michael. Put the knife down.
 
Christina Kann  45:22
All right, I'm taking the reigns. Let's all sit down for a nice family dinner and be polite. Please take off your hat.
 
Brooke Matherly  45:29
This meal sounds delicious.
 
Christina Kann  45:31
Yeah, for sure.
 
Brooke Matherly  45:34
We get chicken and ham pie -- which, yum -- and then boiled potatoes -- which I'm assuming are seasoned to some point -- and then a nice salad. This is an ideal meal to me.
 
Christina Kann  45:46
And then dessert is... "They had their pudding, homemade strawberry ice cream." I know that that's your kryptonite, strawberries.
 
Brooke Matherly  45:55
I don't like strawberries.
 
Christina Kann  45:57
It still sounds delightful. Imagine it was a different kind of berry.
 
Brooke Matherly  45:59
Homemade raspberry ice cream, I could fux with. Blackberry for sure. I don't like strawberries. I find their flavor to be offputting. But I'm alone in that.
 
Christina Kann  46:09
It's your only character flaw.
 
Brooke Matherly  46:11
I am as alone and not liking strawberries as Haley is alone in not liking cheese. I accept that I'm the only person in the world.
 
Mike  46:18
One of the things I did like about this scene was the subtlety of having Paul Hollywood show up and give a handshake to Mrs. Weasley.
 
Christina Kann  46:29
Is the new season out yet, or have you guys only just been seeing all of the ads on social media like I have?
 
Brooke Matherly  46:35
I've just been seeing all the all of the ads.
 
Christina Kann  46:38
They posted on Instagram today themselves doing a parody of Achey Breaky Heart -- like, I can't. I can't with with that at all.
 
Brooke Matherly  46:50
Oh, dear lord.
 
Christina Kann  46:52
But that actually is exactly the vibe that's happening right now, Great British Bake Off. Definitely Fleur and Bill's wedding in the Weasley backyard in the last book with the big tent, you know?
 
Brooke Matherly  47:04
I really like the exchange about work that happens here between Percy and Mr. Weasley, because this is exactly how my father and I talk to each other about our jobs. My father and I are in different but related industries.
 
Mike  47:17
It's super exciting visiting her inlaws.
 
Brooke Matherly  47:21
My dad and I are in different but related industries, adjacent industries. And when we talk, we talk exactly like this, where I'm always really fiery, because I've just been in it less time. My dad very patiently is like, "You know, there's wisdom in a lot of people you'll meet, even if you don't like working with them." You can tell Mr. Weasley is proud of his boy, but he's also trying to impart a little bit of like--
 
Christina Kann  47:52
He's like, "Hey, chill out."
 
Brooke Matherly  47:54
Well, and it's also government, and anything in government is also politics. You can't just be like burning half the people in the Ministry and still expect to do well.
 
Christina Kann  48:06
That's a good point. Yeah, they talk about Ludo Bagman because Mr. Crouch doesn't like Bagman, but Mr. Weasley says mildly that he likes the dude. It just is so funny to me. Ludo Bagman got the Weasleys their tickets to the Quidditch World Cup, which is an excellent favor, if you ask me, because that sporting event is dope, and I don't even like sports.
 
Brooke Matherly  48:30
For the low low price of Mr. Weasley not investigating his brother, who definitely tampered with a Muggle object.
 
Mike  48:40
Have we talked about government bribery?
 
Brooke Matherly  48:42
That's literally what happened. Mr. Weasley straight up took a bribe to not pursue legal action against this dude's brother. That's how they're going to the Cup right now.
 
Christina Kann  48:58
That's so funny. I didn't even clock that. Yeah, that's pretty par for the course, I think.
 
Mike  49:06
What if Voldemort, in a different world, was kind of bad because his methods aren't good. But like he's also like, "Hey, I have a political like foundation, and I believe that the current government's corrupt, and I'm gonna end it." And you're kind of like, "Oh, okay, well I don't agree with how you're doing it, but he is kind of right." Hmm.
 
Brooke Matherly  49:28
Another thing that's like very government to me that gets mentioned in this, is they mentioned that Bertha is not good at any job. But instead of firing her, they've just been moving her department to department for years. It's just very government to be like, "Yeah, we can't fire them. Maybe they'll do better over here."
 
Christina Kann  49:48
I love her so much. I love just a dumb bitch who's so happy and trying her best. That's my favorite kind of person. Yeah, they're talking about Bertha. She's missing. Percy's like, "Mr. Crouch would never do this," and then he's like, "There's this big event coming up. You know the one, Father."
 
Brooke Matherly  50:12
The top secret big event thing that we're working on that no one knows about. But actual question: is the Triwizard Tournament a surprise? Doesn't it occur on a schedule?
 
Christina Kann  50:25
I think they had to take a break because people got hurt -- or died. I think in the last one people died. So they took like, a 100 year break or something.
 
Mike  50:37
Sorry, that's just the most wizarding thing to be like, "These kids died. Should we maybe import safety measures? No, let's just take a hundred-year break and forget about this."
 
Christina Kann  50:50
Well, maybe it was like a 15 year break. I don't know.
 
Mike  50:53
They're like, "We'll just forget about it and repeat the past. Sounds pretty good to me!"
 
Christina Kann  50:59
We've figured out a way for people to probably not die this time.
 
Brooke Matherly  51:02
They just wanted to hit a point where people are like, "Remember that fun tournament we used to do when we were in school? I can't remember where they stopped doing that."
 
Christina Kann  51:13
My question is why they would -- logistically, from a governmental, administrative standpoint -- why would you choose to do to host the Quidditch World Cup and host the Triwizard Tournament in the same year within a couple months of each other?
 
Mike  51:30
This is actually terribly interesting, and it was actually answered in some fanfiction. There is this contest that's held every year in Europe called the Eurovision, and you see, the wizarding English team won that year. I believe it's on Netflix.
 
Brooke Matherly  51:49
You mean Iceland? Don't disrespect Fire Saga. I love that movie. That movie got me through some dark times.
 
Mike  51:58
What if the wizarding world had their own version of Eurovision? And they're like, "Whoever wins Eurovision this year gets to host that tournament where the kids die?" Like fuck yeah.
 
Brooke Matherly  52:13
I mean, maybe that's the thing. Do they just like randomly select other schools every time?
 
Mike  52:18
It's only three schools, man.
 
Christina Kann  52:19
It is three schools.
 
Brooke Matherly  52:22
They go on to talk about the World Cup. And they're mentioning all of the teams that played in the, I suppose, runoffs or playoffs? And it's like, fully global. We get Ireland obvi,  Bulgaria obvi, but we also get Peru, Luxenborg, Wales, Scotland, and Uganda.
 
Christina Kann  52:45
I thought we were talking about the Triwizard Tournament.
 
Brooke Matherly  52:49
Well, that's what I'm saying. Maybe the Triwizard Tournament just like bounces around the world with different sets of combinations of schools going on, Is it always the same three?
 
Christina Kann  52:57
I think so.
 
Mike  52:59
Yeah. I think it's supposed to be like kind of like--
 
Christina Kann  53:01
The European magical schools.
 
Mike  53:03
Yeah, well, like Harvard versus Yale kind of thing. These three schools have this ongoing rivalry and it's kind of known.
 
Brooke Matherly  53:11
And we let them kill each other recreationally?
 
Christina Kann  53:13
No, but that's the point is we think we figured out how they can probably not maybe kill each other.
 
Mike  53:18
Probably not.
 
Brooke Matherly  53:19
Probably no one will die.
 
Mike  53:20
We don't really know because we haven't held this tournament at 100 years, so we're not really sure, but fuck it. Let's do it.
 
Brooke Matherly  53:26
The Hogwarts promise: probably no one will die.
 
Mike  53:30
You're sending your kid, and along with the first letter you get is another owl with a whole book of just forms you have to sign.
 
Christina Kann  53:38
Waivers.
 
Mike  53:39
Just waivers upon waiver. The kid just gets this nice little letter, but the parents are running around with stacks of paper. And one of them, because it's wizard, they're like, "Hey, you've got to sign this with your blood. It's got to be under a full moon." You're like, "What? Why?" and they're like, "Your kid might die!"
 
Christina Kann  53:57
Bold of you to assume that anyone in the wizarding world would value actual paperwork. It's cute -- during this part of the chapter, we're just getting little snippets of conversation. It's a little bit tedious. We could be doing other things right now. But we get Mrs. Weasley arguing with Bill about his earring. "No one at the bank gives a damn how I dress as long as I bring home plenty of treasure," is his answer. I have a couple of questions. Is Bill a pirate? Is Bill bringing home treasure ethically? Is it possible for anyone who is a resident of Britain to bring home treasure ethically?
 
Brooke Matherly  54:33
I think there's probably a 0% chance that this is fully ethical. But if we were to take a potentially ethical spin to it, I think there is a case to be made that maybe he tracks down stolen items. You know what I mean?
 
Christina Kann  54:49
Like a spy.
 
Brooke Matherly  54:51
Yeah, basically. If Gringotts was making a cash transfer done in ye olden day style, where they put it in a suitcase that gets chained to someone's wrist right. And they're like, "They killed our messenger and they stole 2000 gold. Go find it." I could see that.
 
Christina Kann  55:09
Galleons, please.
 
Brooke Matherly  55:10
Galleons. There can be gold galleons. I could see it being like that kind of scenario where he tracks down--
 
Christina Kann  55:22
Let's say that that's what he's doing.
 
Brooke Matherly  55:25
Misappropriated, stolen, or otherwise -- I think people can report -- because they don't have a credit card, so if someone steals your shit, you can't just like turn it off and get the money credited back to you. I think Bill's the back end of that.
 
Christina Kann  55:38
Okay, all right. I like that interpretation. Also, he might be a pirate.
 
Brooke Matherly  55:43
Maybe pirate. I do like that this is the most mom conversation in the world. I -- and Tina, I know you've done the same on multiple occasions -- dyeing your hair funny colors gives you the exact same response from your parents. Where they're like, "Your hair is rainbow. How can anyone respect you? Did they stop paying you a salary the minute that you did this?"
 
Christina Kann  56:03
Right.
 
Brooke Matherly  56:04
And you're like, "Nope, believe it or not, I talked to the CEO like this, and he doesn't care."
 
Christina Kann  56:08
Right. I am in fact the same person I was before.
 
Brooke Matherly  56:11
Yep, shockingly, not a single person I've ever been on a job with has been like, "Dear God, you have a tattoo. Leave and never return."
 
Christina Kann  56:20
Right! Leave and never return.
 
Mike  56:23
Also, this is like the '90s, so it's kind of like wickedly Gen X.
 
Brooke Matherly  56:27
What?
 
Mike  56:28
To be like, "I have a dragon earring."
 
Brooke Matherly  56:32
To be fair, he has a fang hearing. We don't know what the fang is from.
 
Mike  56:36
I always assumed it was a dragon.
 
Brooke Matherly  56:37
But it is -- Easter eggy chapter -- and what does Bill get bit by later?
 
Christina Kann  56:45
A werewolf?
 
Brooke Matherly  56:47
Maybe it's a werewolf fang.
 
Christina Kann  56:48
Interesting.
 
Brooke Matherly  56:50
From the moment he enters this series, he's tagged as a beast inside.
 
Christina Kann  56:54
Oh, wow. They left their mark on him! Interesting. Okay.
 
Brooke Matherly  57:00
Um, I have one last question.
 
Christina Kann  57:02
Go ahead.
 
Brooke Matherly  57:03
About their Quidditch conversation. How did they know? Are they reading about these in the paper? They don't have TVs; they don't have radios. Are they reading about these matches in the paper? Or are they attending them? They're all over the world.
 
Christina Kann  57:17
Do you remember how in Hello from the Magic Tavern, they have all the different ways that you can tune in to watch Mittens? Including -- isn't there one that's like slaughtering a cow and like watching in its blood?
 
Brooke Matherly  57:29
Slaughter a horse and watching in its blood, yep.
 
Christina Kann  57:34
In this case, I have no idea.
 
Brooke Matherly  57:36
I'm assuming it's just the paper but like--
 
Christina Kann  57:39
That's not very exciting.
 
Brooke Matherly  57:41
It's not. They're enthusiastically talking about like, "Oh, they edged them out in the last minute," or "Well, Krum's a decent player, but Ireland's got seven." How do you know? How many games have you seen of Bulgarian Quidditch? How are you to know any of this? How does Ron even keep up with the Chudley Cannons?
 
Christina Kann  58:04
Yeah, I don't know if he like -- I mean, it just seems so distant from how we receive news like this, that a kid would go to his mom or dad and be like, "Hey, did the Cannons win last night?" and then have the answer be enough. But like, these are country, old-fashioned kids.
 
Brooke Matherly  58:24
It's baffling to me because I just don't understand how you could be a devoted fan of a sport that you cannot see ever.
 
Mike  58:32
This is literally the most millennial conversation I've ever heard.
 
Christina Kann  58:38
Maybe maybe Arthur can get other free tickets to local games from work, but this is the World Cup so they bring Harry.
 
Mike  58:50
Yeah, he doesn't go to many games. That's what makes us special. But he follows the team, reads it in the newspaper, sees it, and talks to people, and they tell him. It's a very millennial mindset to be like, "If you can't see it, it doesn't exist. How doI know you went to Belize? It's not on your Instagram!"
 
Brooke Matherly  59:12
Even in the '20s, they listened to baseball games on the fucking radio. They don't even have that!
 
Christina Kann  59:16
How do you get emotionally engaged in something you can't actually experience?
 
Brooke Matherly  59:20
Correct.
 
Mike  59:21
So that's why you go to the game.
 
Brooke Matherly  59:25
But these games are happening in Uganda and Peru. Right?
 
Mike  59:28
Okay. Okay. Hold on. We are reading a book about people who literally just transported through a fucking fireplace and you literally just asked, "How do they get to these places?"
 
Brooke Matherly  59:39
Does Floo powder work internationally?
 
Christina Kann  59:42
I think it would have to.
 
Mike  59:43
"How do the people on the broomies with the magical powers--?"
 
Brooke Matherly  59:47
It just seems like it would be too much.
 
Mike  59:50
"How did the school from -- Oh, they took their magical boat under the water and it just appeared?"
 
Christina Kann  59:55
Both perspectives are valid.
 
Brooke Matherly  59:57
Would have to dump a whole satchet of Floo powder to get all the way to Peru?
 
Mike  1:00:03
"How did that one school with the magical flying cart -- Oh that's right! They just flew there!"
 
Brooke Matherly  1:00:08
I am never going to be satisfied, even in this series, for an answer being "because magic."
 
Christina Kann  1:00:14
Okay, I'm with you. I'm with you. Ron asks Harry if he's heard from Sirius Black, and the answer is yes. And that's it. It's a very brief conversation.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:00:25
Thumbs up.
 
Christina Kann  1:00:27
Gotcha.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:00:27
They're like, "About anything in particular?" and Harry's like, "Hmm, what have I learned in the past 3 books about telling people what's going on? Nothing? No, everything's fine."
 
Mike  1:00:37
Wouldn't it be crazy if it's like a movie and they asked that line in the movie and Harry says it, and then you just see his eyes stare off and you see like sounds in the background? And you're like, "Wait a second, there's a whole side quest here? and they're like, "Oh yeah, whole side quest. Whole adventure."
 
Brooke Matherly  1:00:53
Just horror imagery of nightmares of people being killed.
 
Mike  1:00:56
Yeah, like we murdered some people for a weekend.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:01:02
Harry's like, "I am not sure entirely how complicit I have been in a couple of murders at this point." Which is a lot for a 14 year old.
 
Christina Kann  1:01:11
Yeah.
 
Mike  1:01:12
That's why he's just like, "Yeah, yeah, Ron, I have."
 
Christina Kann  1:01:19
Mrs. Weasley finally sends everyone to bed and because they have to be up at the crack of dawn to get to the World Cup. She's going to spend the day getting their school supplies from Diagon Alley. She's honestly probably like really, really stoked to be able to just go shopping by herself. I would be if I were her.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:01:37
I'm also hoping that Harry, like, wizard Venmoed her enough money for this, because she surely does not have the cash to be also getting his school supplies, and Harry is very rich.
 
Christina Kann  1:01:49
Yeah, you're right about that.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:01:50
He should be paying them rent. He is wealthy enough to be paying them rent.
 
Christina Kann  1:01:54
Yeah. That's it gang. That's the end of the chapter. Is there anything that we failed to address that you just simply must discuss?
 
Brooke Matherly  1:02:03
If anything, we just failed to undress? And that was really a disappointment to me.
 
Christina Kann  1:02:08
Aw.
 
Mike  1:02:11
Wizards invented international travel. They're also recklessly murdering children for their own bloodsport, and you know, don't ever pass up on a chance to have sex with two twins.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:02:26
Mike's lessons at knifepoint.
 
Mike  1:02:30
Which is another podcast you should tune into, or else!
 
Christina Kann  1:02:34
Well, that seems like a good segue as any directly into our plug portion of today's episode. I would love to start by plugging our Patreon! September's bonus episode for our patrons covered My Immortal, the very mysterious and goffick and legendary Harry Potter fanfiction and all of its lore. Special shoutout to Haley for running that one for us. Link is in the show notes. Please support us on Patreon to get more bonus episodes of that nature. Brooke, where can people find you on the internet?
 
Brooke Matherly  1:03:08
You can find me on Instagram @passion_for_parks. You can find me on Twitter @grumpybrooke. And this week, I would love to plug a book that I have been demanding everybody in my entire social circle read. It's called "Malice."
 
Christina Kann  1:03:24
Oh yeah! You're bringing it to me.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:03:25
I am. It's called "Malice" by Heather Walter. Part of the reason I'm so excited is because it's so rare that I just walk into a bookstore and I picked up a book based entirely on cover art. And I flipped open the inner jacket, and I read a couple sentences, and I was like, "Yeah, fuck it, I'll get it." And then what I proceeded to read was one of the most original, well thought out, delightful, sapphic fantasy novels. It is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. It is fucking amazing. It's one of two, but the second book is already written and good to go and coming out in May of next year. So this is not a thing where we have to worry about reading it or getting invested in it. And it's just so good. It is a great book. Everyone should read it. I make no hesitation there: everyone should read it. It is very, very good, and I loved every minute of it, and you should too. "Malice" by Heather Walter.
 
Christina Kann  1:04:22
Oh my god, I'm so freakin excited.
 
Mike  1:04:25
Read it.
 
Christina Kann  1:04:27
Mike, where can people find you on the internet?
 
Mike  1:04:29
They can find me on the Internet at 208-672-2222--
 
Christina Kann  1:04:38
I thought maybe you'd plug your Instagram or something.
 
Mike  1:04:40
Oh, I thought you needed my local IP address! My bad. You asked me where I was on the internet! You can find me on Instagram @weirdcarsrva. You can also find me on TikTok @magicmikedancedancedance.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:04:47
You cannot find him @magicmikedancedancedance.
 
Christina Kann  1:04:59
I wish.
 
Mike  1:05:02
But yeah, sadly I am not as well versed as by amazing, intelligent, beautiful wife, so I do not have any books to recommend.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:05:09
Plug that poem that you've been digging.
 
Mike  1:05:11
Oh, there was a really good Leonard Cohen poem called "Kanye West Is Not Picasso." It's freakin amazing. It's a really short poem. So if you got two minutes, just literally type on Google "Kanye West Is Not Picasso."
 
Christina Kann  1:05:32
Hell yeah. I've been your host, Christina. You can follow me on Instagram @christinathekann, you can follow me on Twitter @christina_kann, and you can follow me on TikTok @sproutsprivatestash. This week I have to recommend to you -- What is it? What did I decide? I forgot already. Oh! Bob's Burgers! I'm plugging it because the new season started last week, last Sunday, actually. And I fucking love that show. Y'all know I love that show. I have plugged it before. I just wanted to let anyone who doesn't know that there's a new season know that there's a new season. I don't know anything. I haven't watched it yet. Podcasts get recorded ahead of time. Well, that's that. Brooke, Mike, thank you so much for joining me on this fine, fine evening.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:06:14
Absolutely. We're always happy to get to hang out with each other in someone else's presence. We're the masterful couple of making other people third wheel for us.
 
Christina Kann  1:06:25
I love that.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:06:26
You're actually probably one of the few people that has enough of a sense of self and strong personality that you can't be made a third wheel.
 
Mike  1:06:34
You are. You're the unicycle.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:06:37
And we're just like clinging to the back of it.
 
Mike  1:06:40
I don't know what the fuck we are. I don't know what else goes on a unicycle.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:06:43
We're on a trick bike. You're actually driving it. I'm sitting on the handlebars, and Mike's on the pegs on the back.
 
Mike  1:06:50
And we're totes about to go play N64 at Eric's house right now and I think he has some weed from his older brother.
 
Christina Kann  1:06:58
Guys, how am I supposed to naturally wrap it up from here?
 
Brooke Matherly  1:07:03
Just go for it. Plunge straight in.
 
Christina Kann  1:07:03
I gotta go finish reading "Tricky Candy for Tricky Boys" before this book starts disciplining me. Bye!
 
Brooke Matherly  1:07:11
Bye.
 
Christina Kann  1:07:11
Mike, say bye.
 
Mike  1:07:14
Byeeee!
 
Christina Kann  1:07:18
The Restricted Section is thrilled to be a member of the Movie Night Crew Podcast Network, which features amazing other podcasts, such as My Cabbages: an Avatar Podcast. My cabbages is an avatar the last airbender podcast that was started by two lovable nerds during a global pandemic to stave off their inevitable existential crisis.
 
Christina Kann  1:08:55
The Restricted Section was created by me, Christina Kann, based on the book series by JK Rowling. All music by Ryan Kann. Logo by Michael Hardison. Support us on patreon.com/restrictedsection. For as little as $1 a month, you can gain access to our Discord community server, which is a really happy place to be, and there are other rewards as well, such as bonus episodes and Zoom happy hour hangouts. Be sure to follow us on Instagram @restrictedsectionpod, on Twitter @restrictedpod, and on Facebook @restrictedsectionpod. Also feel free to shoot us an email at restrictedsectionpod@gmail.com to share your thoughts, feelings, complaints, conspiracy theories, or even lavish praise.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:09:43
Did you just get a knife to scratch your back with?
 
Mike  1:09:46
Yes.
 
Brooke Matherly  1:09:47
You got to show her that night. It's a large knife.

SPEAKERS
Mary Clay Watt, Christina Kann, actual ghost probably, Jason Hilton
 
Christina Kann  00:02
"Harry wheeled around. Dudley was no longer standing behind his parents. He was kneeling beside the coffee table, and he was gagging and sputtering on a foot-long, purple, slimy thing that was protruding from his mouth. One bewildered second later, Harry realized that the footlong thing was Dudley's tongue, and that a brightly colored toffee wrapper lay on the floor before him." Okay, I'll read more. "Aunt Petunia hurled herself onto the ground beside Dudley, seized the end of his swollen tongue, and attempted to wrench it out of his mouth. Unsurprisingly, Dudley yelled and sputtered worse than ever, trying to fight her off. Uncle Vernon was bellowing and waving his arms around, and Mr. Weasley had to shout to make himself heard." So that's what we're doing in this chapter.
 
Christina Kann  01:10
What's up, Pott-heads? Welcome to The Restricted Section, a show in which a bunch of nerds with potty mouths reread the Harry Potter series for the umpteenth time and discuss the way that this story and its themes have stayed with the generation into adulthood. Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't done the reading, don't worry, we did it for you. Here's what we're talking about this week:
 
Christina Kann  01:30
Chapter Four: Back to the Burrow. Harry spends a very tense day waiting for the Weasleys to come pick him up at the Dursleys'. Uncle Vernon is wearing his best suit for the occasion in a show of power. But unfortunately, the Weasleys arrive via fireplace, and also very unfortunately, the Dursleys' fireplace is boarded up in favor of an electric fire. So the visit starts poorly with Arthur Weasley blasting the Dursleys' fireplace apart, and it does actually in fact get worse from there. On their way out, Fred drops a bunch of candy. Whoopsie! Oh wow, what a silly accident. Well, of course, dieting Dudley eats one candy that was accidentally left behind, and it causes his tongue to grow uncontrollably. So Uncle Vernon starts chucking china pieces at Arthur, and Arthur makes Harry leave via Floo Powder while he fixes everything. Not all heroes wear capes; some wear "long robes in varying states of shabbiness."
 
Christina Kann  02:40
Welcome to The Restricted Section, where we WILL explode your living room! I am delighted to be joined today by my boisterous friend, Mary Clay! Say hello to the listeners, Mary Clay.
 
Mary Clay Watt  02:51
Hello, listeners.
 
Christina Kann  02:53
I'm so glad you're back after summer vacation.
 
Mary Clay Watt  02:56
I know! I was just I was texting you earlier this week, and I was telling Jason when you were running around your house resetting your Wi Fi, that it feels like it's been a while. I couldn't remember what I was last on for. Obviously it was Prisoner of Azkaban, which comes right before this book, Goblet of Fire.
 
Christina Kann  03:15
Yeah.
 
Mary Clay Watt  03:16
So it's good to be back talking about good old HP.
 
Christina Kann  03:22
The last episode you were on was the movie episode with Ethan and Haley, and that does feel like it was truly so long ago.
 
Mary Clay Watt  03:31
Well, honestly, when we recorded that episode, it very well could have been when I was still at my old job. I know I was at my old house. It was probably before we traveled -- we did all this traveling for my brother's wedding. I lived with my parents for two weeks when I was in between leases. And then moving in was a whole process because we had an issue with our gas stove leaking gas. And so it's truly like a lifetime has passed in terms of what I've experienced since I was last on.
 
Christina Kann  04:13
You've come so far and tried so hard. And in the end, it definitely mattered. And our special guest today -- you might have heard of him -- is Jason Hilton, editor of the Movie Night Crew! Say hello to the listeners, Jason.
 
Jason Hilton  04:32
Hello to the listeners, Jason.
 
Mary Clay Watt  04:34
I almost did that joke, but I couldn't remember what Christina said exactly.
 
Christina Kann  04:44
You may remember Jason from his past episodes. He was on for Chamber of Secrets, Chapter 17: The Heir of Slytherin, and Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter Seven: The Boggart in the Wardrobe, so pretty good chapters, if I do say myself.
 
Mary Clay Watt  05:00
Quality stuff.
 
Jason Hilton  05:01
Well, my first chapter was the very first chapter of Chamber of Secrets. So...
 
Christina Kann  05:07
Oh really?
 
Jason Hilton  05:08
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  05:09
Dang, I didn't even look. I scrolled back and I'm sure I was like, "Oh, there's this Chamber of Secrets one and that's all that he did." I didn't remember you did two.
 
Jason Hilton  05:19
I am hurt. That was a special recording.
 
Christina Kann  05:23
You're right. I do remember, though, cuz that was incredibly boring and terrible. *scathingly* Harry Potter was a very special boy.
 
Jason Hilton  05:31
Yeah, and I was way more nervous.
 
Christina Kann  05:34
Well, I hope you're comfortable. In fact, let's all get comfortable in the Dursleys' living room.
 
Jason Hilton  05:42
While we can.
 
Christina Kann  05:44
While we can. Today, we're talking about Chapter Four of Goblet of Fire, Back to the Burrow. But like, wow, misnomer, cuz we don't see the Burrow in this chapter.
 
Mary Clay Watt  05:54
I know, I was very disappointed.
 
Jason Hilton  05:56
Me too. Like, exactly. I was actually pretty let down.
 
Christina Kann  06:00
Okay, but it's still a pretty fun chapter, at least compared to the past two chapters.
 
Mary Clay Watt  06:05
It is very fun, but I just don't understand why she wouldn't have combined either the previous chapter and this chapter, or this chapter and the next chapter, you know?
 
Jason Hilton  06:16
Yeah, you like blink in this chapter is over, so it seems weird to even separate them.
 
Mary Clay Watt  06:21
It is still very fun. But I said before we officially started the episode that I kept reading on to the next chapter because it was so funny. I had a vague memory. I was like, "Don't Bill and Charlie, like, smash tables together like with their wands?" And I was like, "Did that actually happen?" But we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about Harry just sitting in the hallway.
 
Jason Hilton  06:52
Freshly packed.
 
Christina Kann  06:53
Okay, be grateful for what you get. Yes, he packs. Yeah, to go to the Weasleys'. The Dursleys are pretty tense about the wizards that are coming to their house. Frankly, I'm impressed that they're even bearing this anxiety compared to how they usually act about "your kind."
 
Mary Clay Watt  07:14
I can't believe they didn't just be like, "Harry, you have to go meet them somewhere else at a drop off point. We're not allowing them into our house."
 
Christina Kann  07:23
Yeah.
 
Jason Hilton  07:25
They didn't even know how they were going to show up. So that probably wouldn't even have worked
 
Mary Clay Watt  07:28
True.
 
Christina Kann  07:29
Yeah, that's true. I mean, unless there's a public location with a fireplace, which does exist, but it would have to be like a bougie winery or something. Maybe not in the UK. There's actually probably a lot more fireplaces in the UK. Uncle Vernon says that they better dress normally. Vernon, for his part, is wearing his very best suit, which is so ridiculous. Even if Mr. Weasley was a Muggle, it's still a ridiculous outfit to wear to sit in your living room.
 
Mary Clay Watt  08:02
I loved the note that it wasn't because he wanted to look, you know, put together for his guests; it was that he wanted to show off how much money he has or how nice his clothes are or something.
 
Jason Hilton  08:16
Yeah. Which is a pretty big sting for the Weasleys.
 
Mary Clay Watt  08:21
They don't wear Muggle clothes, so Vernon wearing an impressive, nice, fancy suit isn't something that's going to impress them. They're just gonna be like, "Yeah, it's muggle clothes. I guess it looks nice. Like, congratulations." It's like me when people tell me basically anything about what their car is. I'm like, "Cool!"
 
Christina Kann  08:43
Harry doubts that they're gonna dress in a way that Uncle Vernon likes because the Weasleys parents, they often wear long robes. I feel like wearing long robes every day would be extremely obnoxious. What do you guys think?
 
Jason Hilton  08:58
Well,  it drags on the ground all the time. You even notice that in the movies, where they have like soot always on the bottom of their wizarding robes. It would seem kind of inconvenient for me. I don't go around wearing like a trench coat all the time. Well, for multiple reasons.
 
Mary Clay Watt  09:16
I would love the feeling of just always having a cape on. I know our dear friend admin Edna mode says "No capes!" I would just love the feeling of like anywhere I walk. It's like whoosh!
 
Jason Hilton  09:27
Friend of the podcast Edna Mode.
 
Mary Clay Watt  09:29
Yes, she listens.
 
Jason Hilton  09:31
I like to imagine Arthur Weasley coming in with the most stereotypical wizarding outfit possible, just by chance, so he's got the big, pointy Merlin hat and a purple cloak with yellow stars and moons all over it. Like, "Hello!" And he's just trying to be nice, but greatly offending.
 
Christina Kann  09:50
Oh my God, we have that exact outfit. We bought our Dumbledore outfit; you just described it like exactly. I think that I would be okay wearing long robes every day at Hogwarts, where everything's cold and made out of stone, you know?
 
Christina Kann  10:08
It's not very dirty. It's not muddy, you know? It's just these big stone corridors with nothing to catch you. If I had a robe, I would get it caught on everything, and also I'm realizing now that the kittens would just love that thing.
 
Mary Clay Watt  10:08
Yeah.
 
Mary Clay Watt  10:24
Yo, you know when you're going about your day and then, absolute day-ruiner, you're wearing a cardigan and the pocket gets caught in a doorknob? Is this only a me experience?
 
Christina Kann  10:36
No.
 
Jason Hilton  10:39
No, that's happened to me with belt loops.
 
Mary Clay Watt  10:41
Okay, or a similar thing: you have you have a jacket on, you have a purse, you have anything on your body, and you walk past a door, and it catches on the doorknob.
 
Christina Kann  10:51
It's usually my purse.
 
Mary Clay Watt  10:52
You just imagine how often that would happen with your robe?
 
Jason Hilton  10:55
I'm just concerned with how much fire is in Hogwarts.
 
Christina Kann  10:59
Oh, that's true.
 
Jason Hilton  11:02
Oh yeah, Snape gets his robes on fire, right?
 
Mary Clay Watt  11:06
Yeah, but that's because a student did that to him.
 
Christina Kann  11:10
Yeah, someone set him on fire. That's different from just catching on fire.
 
Mary Clay Watt  11:16
I would have to have a summer robe.
 
Jason Hilton  11:18
It's really easy for children to set your clothes on fire. That's my only thing. That's why I wouldn't want to wear one.
 
Christina Kann  11:25
Yeah, Mary Clay, I suppose a summer robe would consist of like -- oh my god! At the Renaissance Fair, Lelia bought this capelet. It's like Little Red Riding Hood and it only covers her shoulders and it's adorable.
 
Mary Clay Watt  11:41
I'm imagining a sheer robe that's mostly just an overlay. You know?
 
Christina Kann  11:52
Mmm! Yes.
 
Mary Clay Watt  11:53
That maybe some floral designs on it or something for the summer. That would have to be my summer robe, since it's, you know, always 90 degrees where we live.
 
Christina Kann  12:06
It's true.
 
Jason Hilton  12:07
Not in jolly old England.
 
Christina Kann  12:10
Okay, and then so Dudley is acting generally afraid because the last time that he met a wizard, he got a pig tail out of it. Well, the text calls him a full-grown wizard, I think, but it was Hagrid. I would argue that he's not a full-grown wizard. He doesn't have wizard training.
 
Mary Clay Watt  12:31
I think it means he is a wizard who is full grown. Like he's an adult.
 
Jason Hilton  12:37
Yeah.
 
Mary Clay Watt  12:39
Rather than like a fully trained wizard.
 
Jason Hilton  12:41
He may be a child on the inside, but he is an adult on the outside.
 
Christina Kann  12:45
And I suppose Dudley wouldn't know the difference. He was probably very threatened by that man at the time.
 
Mary Clay Watt  12:51
Yeah, but of course, it has to refer to that as a distant event, because if you say, "The last time Dudley was with a wizard, Hagrid gave him a tail," and then JK Rowling would have to be like, "Hagrid is the gatekeeper at Hogwarts." How she'll pepper in those details. "Yes, we know. It's book four. We know."
 
Jason Hilton  13:17
I kind of appreciated those sometimes because there was such a big gap between when the books came out. What was it, like every couple of years? I don't remember.
 
Mary Clay Watt  13:26
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  13:26
Yeah, it was definitely a couple of years between them.
 
Jason Hilton  13:30
Oh, yeah.
 
Christina Kann  13:30
Not many though, honestly. Pretty impressive writing pace, and George RR Martin could stand to take a leaf out of HER?? book. Reading these books this time around, I feel so bad for Dudley, honestly. He never stood a chance as a human being or a character. The text just absolutely despises him in a way that children should not be despised.
 
Jason Hilton  13:57
Although him constantly holding his butt this entire chapter was pretty funny. That was a funny detail that she kept bringing up.
 
Christina Kann  14:04
I think it's sad. He's like, absolutely terrified.
 
Mary Clay Watt  14:07
Yeah. Also it mentioned that they had to take him to a private hospital for the tail to be removed.
 
Christina Kann  14:14
Yes.
 
Mary Clay Watt  14:15
So that required surgery. He was in physical pain, probably, because of what happened.
 
Jason Hilton  14:22
Probably couldn't sit down for a while
 
Christina Kann  14:24
Yes, that's what I was about to say! It's his favorite thing to do! Oh my gosh. We talked about this a lot in the last chapter, so we won't harp on it here, but the really rude fat shaming of Dudley continues through this chapter. He can't just walk out of a room, he has to waddle, you know? Yeah. And so the pig thing is just, I think it's just -- they're laying it on too heavy. In this book, he hasn't done a damn thing.
 
Jason Hilton  14:53
That adjective "porky" makes a return. For sure.
 
Christina Kann  14:57
God damn, remember that one pilot from Star Wars named Porkins?
 
Jason Hilton  15:03
Oh yeah, for sure. He's my favorite character.
 
Christina Kann  15:08
He's my favorite, too. It's a totally different situation. But--
 
Jason Hilton  15:11
I heard a funny story about that, where the actor was mildly offended at that because he was overweight. And he's like, "Are you calling me Porkins because I'm fat?" But apparently George Lucas was like, "Oh, no, you've got this whole backstory. And this is why Porkins is your name," or something like tha, just to make him feel better.
 
Christina Kann  15:28
That's funny.
 
Jason Hilton  15:28
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  15:29
Putting in the legwork. "Check out this worldbuilding. I'ma explain why the fat guy's named Porkins." So, lunch is very tense and silent.
 
Mary Clay Watt  15:42
*SLAP*
 
Christina Kann  15:42
Mary Clay, did you get the bug?
 
Mary Clay Watt  15:44
Can you see it flying around?
 
Christina Kann  15:47
No, I can't.
 
Mary Clay Watt  15:48
There is a fly. First of all, there's a gnat and a fly in my room. And the fly, I think, has been in our apartment. Like I think it needs to pay rent at this point. Anyway, continue.
 
Jason Hilton  16:05
No, I want to hear more about the bugs!
 
Christina Kann  16:07
I spend a lot of time watching other creatures catch bugs because my cats love catching bugs, and there's so many in our house.
 
Mary Clay Watt  16:15
Send them here! *SLAP* Oh my god. Oh, no. No, I slowed it down, though.
 
Christina Kann  16:19
Dude, you can have a kitten if you want.
 
Mary Clay Watt  16:22
I'm slowing down, I'm slowing it down. Okay,
 
Jason Hilton  16:24
Gus will do that. He'll just grab a fly and coldly eat it. And I'm like, "Ah, God, this is nature in my house."
 
Mary Clay Watt  16:33
My favorite videos from the summer have been pet owners being like, "Spit it out, spit it out now!" and they have a giant cicada in their mouth. And it's just a dog and their mouth is closed and then you just hear like the chirping but it sounds muffled.
 
Christina Kann  16:53
So lunch is very tense and silent. I think it's silent, completely silent, except for that Vernon asks if the Weasleys will be driving. And Harry realizes -- sweet, stupid little Harry realizes -- that he has absolutely no fucking idea how they're getting there.
 
Mary Clay Watt  17:08
Also, I love how as the books go on, and like I said earlier, at this point, she doesn't have the time to go in and every time they mention something crazy, explain exactly what happened. So she'll just pass by it really quickly. And so it mentions that their Ford Anglia is currently driving around the Forbidden Forest at Hogwarts. So it's very funny as the books go on, and like you have these opening chapters reintroducing you to the world and people and characters and objects and stuff. All of these very crazy, out-of-context things that are just adding to the list.
 
Jason Hilton  17:54
Do they even like attempt recap chapters once book seven comes around? I haven't read it in a long time.
 
Mary Clay Watt  18:00
I can't remember. I don't know. We'll find out in three years.
 
Christina Kann  18:03
I think they kind of stop in Order of the Phoenix. But Mary Clay, there is now suddenly a fly zooming around my office. And I think you summoned it -- or sent it.
 
Mary Clay Watt  18:18
I think I did kill the fly because I can see it lying on my floor. So maybe his spirit, his ghost, is over there.
 
Christina Kann  18:27
My God. I don't know how to segue from ghost fly into Harry sitting around.
 
Mary Clay Watt  18:34
Just go immediately into whatever you we're going to talk about and just cut all of this out and put it into Patreon content.
 
Christina Kann  18:41
A Patreon episode of just Mary Clay talking about the fly! Well, we need we need to do something while we're just waiting around for the Weasleys to show up. Harry's just sitting around. He's not even reading. They're just sitting.
 
Mary Clay Watt  19:01
They're twiddling their thumbs, yeah.
 
Jason Hilton  19:04
Their very, very bulbous thumbs.
 
Mary Clay Watt  19:06
Oh, also want to point out that their lunch is cottage cheese and shredded celery.
 
Christina Kann  19:13
God damn, that sounds so terrible.
 
Jason Hilton  19:16
That's such a '90s diet.
 
Christina Kann  19:18
It is a very '90s diet. I bet my mom had that for lunch more than a couple times.
 
Jason Hilton  19:23
Yeah, I'm sure that was like a miracle recipe back then. It's like, "Oh, if you just get into cottage cheese, you're good. You'll never have to eat cheese again." And then of course, it was a dirty, dirty lie. Just like with kale. It's like "You'll never want spinach or lettuce again!" And like you know, I do.
 
Mary Clay Watt  19:36
I don't want spinach or lettuce to begin with.
 
Christina Kann  19:39
Aw. I love lettuce. Um, that's not relevant, so... Okay, so it's five o'clock. What time are the Weasleys supposed to get here?
 
Mary Clay Watt  19:50
Five o'clock. It's very similar to how Jason and I rolled up to this recording.
 
Christina Kann  20:01
Whoa!
 
Mary Clay Watt  20:03
That was a self-roast.
 
Christina Kann  20:04
So they're just waiting in utter agony. They're all just so tense. But Harry never doubts for a second that the Weasleys are coming to get him.
 
Jason Hilton  20:15
Yeah, that's nice, but I don't understand -- when you have teleportation, how is being a late even an issue ever?
 
Mary Clay Watt  20:23
Well, they still have to get to the fireplace, you know? When you have a family of -- and Bill and Charlie are there, too, at this point. Spoiler alert for the next chapter. I didn't read ahead, what? Even though I admitted it at the beginning of this episode, I think. I'm sure the Burrow's crazy, you know. Fred and George are probably running around their room being like, "Oh, you know, it would be really funny? Get some of the toffees. Let's test them out on Dudley," and they're planning that out. Ron's upstairs maybe straightening his room, and Arthur's downstairs, like, "Come on, boys. We have to go!" and then Molly's like, "Well, while you're standing here waiting for them, you might as well help me cook dinner." So I can see how the Weasleys being a very large, rambunctious family, it takes a while to get them all, you know, in one place. Even if that place is in front of their own fireplace.
 
Jason Hilton  21:20
That is something I like to think about: if teleportation was like possible, I mean, I feel like people would still be late because you would still be procrastinating. You would be procrastinating to the very last second or something.
 
Christina Kann  21:35
Yeah, my beloved husband Sean has ADHD, and he would be, for sure, that person who cannot get there on time with teleportation.
 
Jason Hilton  21:45
I love the tone of your voice when you say "beloved husband."
 
Christina Kann  21:50
I love him, but he literally sometimes just literally cannot make himself get it together and get out the door wall. It's always when we're going on vacation and the pressure's on and I'm like, "People are waiting on us." And he's like, "Wait, I'm resetting the router."
 
Mary Clay Watt  22:08
Oh, I thought you meant you were going to right now to reset the router.
 
Christina Kann  22:11
No, that's always why he takes so long.
 
Mary Clay Watt  22:16
Also, consider, for people who have done remote work at all in the last year: Are you sitting at your computer exactly at 10am as the Zoom meeting rolls around? Or are you still on the toilet, scrolling TikTok being like, "Oh, shoot the meeting!"
 
Jason Hilton  22:39
In general, that's why I can't get into TikTok. I'm refusing myself TikTok because I know I'll get sucked into that world.
 
Mary Clay Watt  22:47
Oh, yeah.
 
Jason Hilton  22:47
I feel like it'll ruin my life.
 
Mary Clay Watt  22:49
I have a problem.
 
Christina Kann  22:50
I've told your wife several times before that I think the two of you could have a very lucrative TikTok, and I'm happy to talk about that more at a later time.
 
Jason Hilton  22:59
Oh no. That's I'm fine.
 
Christina Kann  23:01
Your funny little songs.
 
Jason Hilton  23:03
Oh, true. Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  23:05
Finally, there's a scream. Uncle Vernon screams. There's a noise coming from inside the board-up fireplace.
 
Mary Clay Watt  23:13
The call is coming from inside the house.
 
Jason Hilton  23:15
Inside the fireplace.
 
Christina Kann  23:18
Dudley immediately peaces the fuck out. He's like, "I'm just already done." Why is he even here? Go to your room.
 
Mary Clay Watt  23:24
I know. I mean, that's always what I did as a kid and as an adult, is just go up to my room whenever people I don't know who I don't want to interact with come over. You just go to your room and close the door.
 
Jason Hilton  23:36
It's that suburbanite thing where like, everyone has to be there to greet them. Or maybe it's just classic English politeness.
 
Christina Kann  23:44
Dude, it's like the Von Trapp family. Line up. Parade out. Let me show all my friends what? I've made children.
 
Jason Hilton  23:51
Can you imagine if there were seven Dursley kids?
 
Christina Kann  23:54
No. They wouldn't be the same at all. Because part of that is that Dudley is like, inherently this way because he's the only, most precious child.
 
Mary Clay Watt  24:05
Yeah, if they had seven children, they would for sure pick a favorite. And then the favorite would know that they're the favorite, you know?
 
Jason Hilton  24:13
Yeah. I mean, it's always the first kid.
 
Christina Kann  24:15
Um, it is not always the first kid. Let me tell you, me and my little brother go back and forth.
 
Jason Hilton  24:21
Your parents go back and forth over which one they like more?
 
Christina Kann  24:24
But we always know which one it is.
 
Mary Clay Watt  24:26
I tell you what, as the third child in my family: The favorite is never -- it's been the first child a lot. It's been the second child a lot. It's never really been the third child.
 
Jason Hilton  24:37
I know, there's there's so few pictures of me as a baby because I was the third kid.
 
Christina Kann  24:42
Okay, in my family, the third child was beloved, but that's because he's an actual genius.
 
Mary Clay Watt  24:47
I think there are two spectrums for third child in families. There is one end where the third child -- or the youngest or whatever -- is -- I say "spoiled" in the sense that like they're given almost everything that they want. The rules are relaxed for them. Things are easier for them because there's always attentionon them. Or they're just pushed to the side and forgotten because there's all this other stuff happening already. When you come into the world, it's like, "That's great. But I also have the six year old and this three year old and now I have a baby. You, at least, can't move. So I'm going to put you in the swing," which my mom referred to as the Neglect-o-matic.
 
Christina Kann  25:38
Work smart, not hard, Mom!
 
Mary Clay Watt  25:40
In order, you know, to wrangle the other children. So I was on the other end of the third child spectrum where it's like, brother's off at band camp, sister's off at swim team, and you have your Gameboy to sit in the bleachers and watch.
 
Jason Hilton  25:55
And you can be quiet.
 
Mary Clay Watt  25:58
And you can sit there and enjoy your book or your Gameboy or whatever it is.
 
Christina Kann  26:02
My youngest brother, Ryan, wrote the theme song for this podcast, and if that isn't just the pinnacle of success, I don't know what is. Fred, George, and Mr. Weasley roll up into the blocked-off fireplace. Basically, they're coming in hot literally because there's a fire. But I guess the fire is not flammable. I assume it's blocked off with cardboard, right? No, yeah. No, not cardboard, wood. Plywood!
 
Mary Clay Watt  26:31
What I think would have been more fun, is if the reason the fireplace was blocked up was because Vernon blocked it up when -- actually, I don't know if that's a movie detail or if they did that in the book as well. In the first book, with the letters coming, if he boarded the fireplace up when the letters came and then was just too lazy to take them down at some point, you know.
 
Jason Hilton  26:57
I'll just get an electric one.
 
Mary Clay Watt  27:00
I would have appreciated that detail of like, "but the fireplace was boarded up because Vernon tried to stop Harry's school letters from arriving."
 
Jason Hilton  27:09
That's a Marvel-level continuity thing, so I could see that.
 
Christina Kann  27:11
Yeah. Before I remembered the letters thing, what I was thinking is that maybe when Lily died, someone took the Floo Network to their house to tell them that that had happened, and surprised them. And they boarded it up so no more wizards could get through.
 
Mary Clay Watt  27:29
I like that, I like that. I think the real answer, though, is just that like in -- quote unquote -- in the modern times of 1994, they have this electric fireplace that's a lot less effort for maintaining that they use instead. And I think that's just like, "Oh, this is this new gadget. It shows our wealth, it shows that we are with the times. It's something that we don't have to fuss about. And we can just turn it on and be warm and turn it off again."
 
Christina Kann  28:07
I'm grumpy because Sean and I have an ongoing fight about what kind of firepit we should have in the backyard. And in the end, he bought me my regular wood burning fire pit, but he always complains that it's not gas powered. I like the smell of fire.
 
Jason Hilton  28:24
Not when it's like blowing directly on me.
 
Mary Clay Watt  28:26
That's nice until -- you know what, Christina? I was with you until I thought about the actual situation of sitting around a fire and then there's always that one person the smoke is always blowing in, you know?
 
Christina Kann  28:42
Pkay, but I have a couch back there now. Can I interest you in a couch? Last time you were here, there wasn't a couch.
 
Jason Hilton  28:47
Can I interest you in a smokeless couch?
 
Mary Clay Watt  28:51
If I'm sitting on the couch, the smoke is still gonna blow at me when I'm on the couch.
 
Christina Kann  28:55
I'll protect you. So Harry goes to speak to Mr. Weasley--
 
Mary Clay Watt  29:00
The fly! The fly was not dead. It got back up.
 
Jason Hilton  29:04
It was pretending!
 
Mary Clay Watt  29:05
It got back up and flew away. Oh my god. It was literally lying on the floor. And I saw it go by I was like, "Are you kidding me? There's another goddamn fly."
 
Jason Hilton  29:12
I would recognize that fly anywhere.
 
Mary Clay Watt  29:14
The thrilling saga continues.
 
Christina Kann  29:17
That happens a lot in my house because the kittens don't like to eat the flies. They just like to take them down. So they'll bring down a fly and carry it around, and I think it gets all wet with spit, and then like three hours later it dries off and can fly away. They don't kill these flies. Cats are insane. So Harry's like, "Mr. Weasley, it's boarded up," and Mr. Weasley's like, "What the fuck?" But he's excited that there's an "eclectic" fireplace. And then Ron shows up. Have you ever seen a fireplace that all of these people could fit in at the same time?
 
Jason Hilton  30:02
No --
 
Mary Clay Watt  30:03
I guess they're up in the chimney.
 
Jason Hilton  30:04
Yeah.
 
Mary Clay Watt  30:04
That's what I have imagined is that like they're stacked on top of each other.
 
Jason Hilton  30:09
The logistics of everything was confusing me. I was like "That's the only way."
 
Christina Kann  30:13
*dying laughing* STACKED ON TOP OF EACH OTHER UP THE CHIMNEY!
 
Mary Clay Watt  30:19
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess that's the only thing I can think of.
 
Jason Hilton  30:24
Wait, why did so many people need to come?
 
Mary Clay Watt  30:26
Yeah, that's what I don't get. Maybe, I would say Ron could come because it's his friend, but if you want to make the matter simpler, just have Arthur Apparate in, and then Harry can just hold on to his arm and then Apparate out, but maybe JK Rowling hadn't invented that concept yet. I love this moment when Ron pops in and says, "What are we doing here? Has something gone wrong?" "Oh no, Ron," said Fred's voice very sarcastically. "No, this is exactly where we wanted to end up." "Yeah, we're having the time of our lives here," said George.
 
Christina Kann  31:05
I love them so much. So Mr. Weasley finally just straight-up blasts the fireplace open. And the Weasleys all fall out.
 
Mary Clay Watt  31:16
Imagine like a slide, I guess, because they're all stacked on top of each other.
 
Christina Kann  31:22
And then Mr. Weasley tries to go politely introduce himself.
 
Jason Hilton  31:26
Yeah, I love his very bold attempts to try to win him over with kindness or politeness. It's like, "Hello. I just destroyed your living room. How's it going?"
 
Mary Clay Watt  31:39
Oh, it would be so pissed.
 
Jason Hilton  31:40
I know. I'm kind of with the Dursleys on this one. 100%
 
Mary Clay Watt  31:43
Filthy.
 
Christina Kann  31:44
Okay, but -- but to Mr. Weasley, this is something that can be fixed with magic in like 10 seconds, you know?
 
Mary Clay Watt  31:51
Yeah.
 
Jason Hilton  31:52
Yeah, he better.
 
Christina Kann  31:53
He has no idea. He's trying so hard.
 
Jason Hilton  31:54
How can you still not pronounce "electric" right? He's been working at the Ministry for years!
 
Christina Kann  32:00
No one will talk to him about "ekel-tricity."
 
Mary Clay Watt  32:03
And we find out that he collects plugs. So he should know that it's pronounced "electric."
 
Jason Hilton  32:13
Yeah. I always wondered what goes on at a Muggle research because I'm like, "Can't you just go to a library?" Like a Muggle library? And find out like everything about them? We are really good at recording like literally everything about ourselves.
 
Christina Kann  32:30
Yeah, that is true. We love to do that.
 
Jason Hilton  32:33
But it's less fun that way.
 
Christina Kann  32:34
So the Dursleys back away from Mr. Weasley in fear and horror. He tries to explain the Floo network to them, kind of -- well, he tries to explain -- "Well, this happened because we hooked you up to the Floo network." And he's just talking. He's like, "I can fix everything. Don't even worry about it." But they are actually in fact worried about it. I don't think they say almost a thing for like the rest of this chapter.
 
Mary Clay Watt  33:04
Yeah, they're just standing there in shock. Yeah.
 
Jason Hilton  33:07
Yeah. And there's very, very graphic depictions of what Uncle Vernon's face is doing right now. And Aunt Petunia "chewing her tongue," which sounds really painful. She doesn't even say a word in this chapter.
 
Christina Kann  33:25
I think I know what that means. I have this like thing that I do that where I like, kind of chew the inside of my mouth a little bit.
 
Jason Hilton  33:33
Oh, I do that, but your tongue? I don't --ow! That's a British thing.
 
Christina Kann  33:38
I think it's like the same kind of thing, though. You know what I mean?
 
Mary Clay Watt  33:53
Listeners, try at home.
 
Christina Kann  33:56
Hit us up if you're a tongue chewer, let us know.
 
Jason Hilton  34:00
Like and subscribe.
 
Christina Kann  34:02
Like and subscribe, all tongue chewers. Fred and George are like "Lol, we'll go get your trunk, Harry."
 
Jason Hilton  34:11
They really want to see what Dudley looks like. Probably.
 
Christina Kann  34:14
Yeah, they've never met him and they lay eyes on him and then they decide to ruin his fucking life.
 
Jason Hilton  34:22
Essentially poison him.
 
Christina Kann  34:24
Yes!
 
Mary Clay Watt  34:26
It is a funny note -- again, not that this is the chapter that we're discussing -- but in the next chapter, you know, Arthur tries to chastise them for what they do. And they're like, "In our defense, we didn't do it because he's a Muggle. We did it because he's terrible. I mean, he's actually the worst."
 
Christina Kann  34:44
It's true.
 
Jason Hilton  34:44
He got the pigtail already.
 
Mary Clay Watt  34:47
I think we're good now.
 
Jason Hilton  34:48
Well, he's continually horrible to him. He didn't really learn his lesson the first time.
 
Christina Kann  34:52
I maintain that he hasn't done anything this book that we've seen.
 
Jason Hilton  34:55
Yes.
 
Christina Kann  34:56
So Mr. Weasley is trying to make small talk but he also just can't contain his excitement about like the Muggle shit around him. It's very adorable.
 
Jason Hilton  35:08
It's like when I'm someone you barely know, like a friend of a friend or an in-law or something, who like, doesn't really know that much about you, but knows that you own batteries. So that's like the only thing he -- that's like the first thing he brings up. He's like, "I have a collection of batteries. My wife thinks I'm mad."
 
Mary Clay Watt  35:30
There's a note from narrator Harry, that's like, "The Dursleys probably did think him mad."
 
Christina Kann  35:36
Yeah, so Dudley returns to the room because Fred and George scared him.
 
Jason Hilton  35:42
He smells candy.
 
Christina Kann  35:43
And he smells candy. Mr. Weasley also tries and fails to make small talk with him. I think Mr. Weasley has it right. He looks at Dudley and he's like "That is a poor, stupid boy who doesn't stand a chance." And he uses his extra nice voice on him.
 
Jason Hilton  36:00
Yeah, I appreciate that. He's like, trying his best. He knows these people are awful to him, and he really could just be as cold as possible to them, but he's really trying his best to come off like a respectable, nice person.
 
Mary Clay Watt  36:15
Also, it's such a dad thing for him to be -- he says "Having a nice holiday?" Like, "How's your summer vacation going?"
 
Jason Hilton  36:22
Oh, yeah. "How's school going?"
 
Mary Clay Watt  36:24
"How's your break from school?" You know, that's such an appropriate dad question to ask.
 
Jason Hilton  36:29
"What's your major again?"
 
Christina Kann  36:31
I asked you how your summer break when at the beginning of this episode. They call me Pod Daddy. So Fred and George return with Harry's trunk, and Mr. Weasley magically lights a fire in the hearth, and he pulls out some Floo Powder. And he's like, "Fred, you go" and but on his way out Fred "spills" a massive bag of candy.
 
Jason Hilton  36:59
Quote, unquote, "accidentally spilled."
 
Mary Clay Watt  37:02
Oh, no, these candies fell out of my pocket.
 
Jason Hilton  37:05
Stop, no, come back.
 
Mary Clay Watt  37:06
Darn!
 
Christina Kann  37:07
Oh, sorry! Are you on a diet? I'll get these away from you.
 
Jason Hilton  37:12
Go ahead. They're low fat.
 
Christina Kann  37:16
But like don't even worry about it because he gathers them up and then he leaves. He's gone. It's done. Never to worry. And then George goes next with Harry's trunk. And then Ron goes, and then it's Harry's turn. So Harry says goodbye. Obviously they don't answer him. And then Harry tries to leave, but Mr. Weasley stops him and asks the Dursleys if they heard Harry say bye. Arthur's like "Okay, well, you guys aren't even being like human decency levels with like this kid, hold the phone."
 
Jason Hilton  37:52
He's got a lot on his mind currently at the moment though. It's like, "What am I gonna do about this hole in my wall?" And he's coated with soot. No one wants soot.
 
Christina Kann  38:06
Arthur just really knows how to take things in stride and he's trying to encourage other people to do the same.
 
Jason Hilton  38:11
Yeah, I think that was captured pretty well by they actor. He always felt like such a sweetheart, you know?
 
Christina Kann  38:18
Absolutely.
 
Jason Hilton  38:19
Just wants the best for everyone.
 
Christina Kann  38:21
He makes Uncle Vernon say goodbye. Like the shittiest goodbye.
 
Jason Hilton  38:25
Even though Harry really doesn't care.
 
Christina Kann  38:28
Yeah, he doesn't care at all. But it's important to Mr. Weasley. Mr. Weasley's like, "I'm uncomfortable leaving this conversation without this social norm. You got to tell him bye, dude." Alright, so then Harry like goes to walk into the fireplace but -- dun dun DUN -- there's a gagging sound, and Dursley's on the floor--
 
Mary Clay Watt  38:53
Dudley.
 
Christina Kann  38:54
Oh, yeah. What did I say?
 
Mary Clay Watt  38:56
Dursley. NOOOO WHERE'D IT GO??? Every now and then in this recording you'll just hear--
 
Jason Hilton  39:05
No, it's the most exciting thing about this chapter, so.
 
Mary Clay Watt  39:09
The fly!
 
Jason Hilton  39:10
Tune in next time for the fly!
 
Christina Kann  39:15
Yeah, so Dudley is on the floor. He's basically choking on his own giant tongue. You look like you're getting sworn in.
 
Jason Hilton  39:25
She's just like waiting.
 
Mary Clay Watt  39:26
Oh. OH! What now?
 
Jason Hilton  39:30
Doubletap! Doubletap!
 
Mary Clay Watt  39:31
Oh, I got it. I got it. I'm gonna send you guys a picture
 
Christina Kann  39:36
Murder!
 
Mary Clay Watt  39:38
Murder she wrote! Murder she did. Okay anyway.
 
Jason Hilton  39:44
Murder she do.
 
Mary Clay Watt  39:48
Here, I'll send it in Discord, and then people will have context for this a week later.
 
Jason Hilton  39:53
Just send it now. No caption whatsoever. Just a dead fly. Everyone's going to be like, "Is Mary Clay okay?"
 
Christina Kann  40:12
Just say "no context spoilers for next week."
 
Mary Clay Watt  40:16
Okay, there we go.
 
Jason Hilton  40:18
Okay. All right back to Dudley's tongue.
 
Mary Clay Watt  40:22
Bitch. What now?
 
Christina Kann  40:26
Um, yeah, so Dudley is choking on his own giant tongue. He must be so scared. I'm so sad for him in this chapter.
 
Mary Clay Watt  40:36
This isn't something that is really a practical joke. Later -- I think in the next book -- they evolve this trick to have the cure attached to it. So it's not something that you're going to be stuck with forever. So I think that's fine and funny to trick your friends into eating some candy and then it's like, "Oh, your tongue's massive. Haha. Alright, here's the antidote."
 
Christina Kann  41:04
Later in the book, Neville just turns -- there's a line something like "Neville caused a minor disruption by suddenly turning into a large canary" because he ate a canary creamer or whatever. That's hilarious. This is bullying.
 
Mary Clay Watt  41:21
It's just a funny line.
 
Jason Hilton  41:25
No, he has to go to the hospital for this.
 
Mary Clay Watt  41:28
It's also the fact that they left the candy, and then, Arthur was one minute 30 seconds away from leaving. I think it could have been different if they were going to be with Dudley for the next, you know, day, where like, a wizard could come in and fix this immediately. But they gave him the candy, not knowing -- we find out later this is a test -- not knowing what it would do to him, they left this candy for him. That's just mean.
 
Jason Hilton  42:05
Yeah, but it's always with like that kind of cynicism that that JK Rowling does where--
 
Mary Clay Watt  42:12
Ooh, it's twitching.
 
Jason Hilton  42:13
Oh, God.
 
Mary Clay Watt  42:17
The cynicism that JK Rowling does, continue.
 
Jason Hilton  42:19
Yeah, where like, it's always like, these people are mean so it's okay to laugh at them. And it's okay to be mean to them. The pig tail was one thing. Him almost choking on his own tongue is a different thing. They wouldn't even know if he ate them while they were still there. So what if he ate them like two hours later and there was no wizards around?
 
Mary Clay Watt  42:42
Yeah, exactly.
 
Jason Hilton  42:43
And be like, "What the hell is happening?" This sounds horrifying, and it's probably for the best that they didn't put this in the movie because I don't think any kid would be okay with seeing a giant purple python coming out of a kid's mouth.
 
Mary Clay Watt  42:57
Oh, that's right. The movie just opens with like, Harry like having a bad dream?
 
Jason Hilton  43:04
Yeah. He's just at the Burrow. I think they were wise in saying, "We don't you don't need to know how he got to the Burrow. We just need him to be at the Burrow."
 
Christina Kann  43:14
Yeah. For sure.
 
Jason Hilton  43:15
Because I was looking ahead and I was like, "Oh God, the Quidditch World Cup doesn't even start for another 50 pages."
 
Christina Kann  43:23
Tell me about it. They don't even get to Hogwarts until, I think, page 130.
 
Mary Clay Watt  43:31
Yeah, it's crazy.
 
Jason Hilton  43:32
Wow.
 
Christina Kann  43:32
It's bananas.
 
Mary Clay Watt  43:33
They don't even leave the Shire till page 150. Same kind of energy.
 
Jason Hilton  43:41
When I was younger, this was probably the longest book I've ever read. I think it possibly still is. Is Deathly Hallows longer?
 
Mary Clay Watt  43:49
Order of the Phoenix is.
 
Christina Kann  43:50
Is it really? I thought this was the longest one.
 
Mary Clay Watt  43:53
No, Order the Phoenix is the longest.
 
Jason Hilton  43:54
Oh, so that's the longest book I've ever read, I guess. Because I don't think I've ever read anything over 800 pages.
 
Christina Kann  43:59
I've mentioned before that this is the book that made me believe as a kid that I could  read big books, because I could just destroy this.
 
Jason Hilton  44:09
It is pretty magical -- no pun intended -- how we kind of grew up to be their ages as the books were coming out. So it was like, "Ooh, we're 14 now, we can handle this kind of book." You know?
 
Christina Kann  44:23
Yeah. Yeah. I think the longest book I've ever read was one of the Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones Five, whatever the fuck that book is.
 
Jason Hilton  44:31
I mean, if you want to count Lord of the Rings as one book.
 
Mary Clay Watt  44:33
I was gonna say, yeah.
 
Christina Kann  44:34
No, I don't.
 
Mary Clay Watt  44:36
A thousand pages.
 
Jason Hilton  44:39
I've always wondered about getting that edition of Lord of the Rings. It's like all three books combined into one.
 
Mary Clay Watt  44:44
When I was a kid, I would go to the library and specifically pick out large books for the sole purpose -- This is something that like I'm really just realizing now -- for the sole purpose of being like, "Look at my giant book that I'm reading. Aren't I better than you and your fucking Frog and Toad?" What is it? Mr. Toad and Frog?
 
Christina Kann  45:07
There's the Slytherin in her. We're seeing the Slytherin side. It is Frog and Toad. They're friends, they love each other.
 
Mary Clay Watt  45:16
I was reading one of their stories to a kid last week was babysitting, snd it's just so delightful. I think Frog and Toad could easily be hobbits, you know? The whole plot of this story is that Toad made a list and it's like, "Wake up, get out of bed, get dressed," and it would be like, "And then he got dressed, and he crossed it off the list." And then it was like, "Go see Frog," and he would go and see Frog and then it was like, "And then he crossed it off the list." And it was just so simplistic, but I was like, "This is wonderful." The plot twist in the story is that he lost his list and was like, "But what do I do next? I don't have my list!"
 
Christina Kann  46:09
Relatable.
 
Jason Hilton  46:10
Frog talk and fly talk. This is great.
 
Christina Kann  46:13
I feel like my life is just an elaborate series of lists. Okay, so we're on the floor.
 
Jason Hilton  46:22
We're on the ground.
 
Christina Kann  46:23
With Dudley! He's having a bad day!
 
Jason Hilton  46:27
Is there anything like a detail or something you could talk about?
 
actual ghost probably  46:32
How bout now?
 
Mary Clay Watt  46:33
What was that?
 
Christina Kann  46:34
What was that?
 
Mary Clay Watt  46:35
Do you not hear that?
 
Jason Hilton  46:36
Sorry. Let me turn that off.
 
Mary Clay Watt  46:39
What the hell?
 
actual ghost probably  46:40
Can you hear me now?
 
Jason Hilton  46:43
A weird thing--
 
Mary Clay Watt  46:44
It's still going! I heard it. I heard something just say "Can you hear me now?"
 
Jason Hilton  46:48
Okay, my house is like kind of haunted, but it's not really. So what happens--
 
Mary Clay Watt  46:53
I can hear it.
 
Jason Hilton  46:54
You can still hear it?
 
Mary Clay Watt  46:55
It's still talking.
 
Jason Hilton  46:56
Oh my god.
 
actual ghost probably  46:58
*mumbles*
 
Mary Clay Watt  46:58
Hang on, be quiet for a second.
 
Jason Hilton  47:00
I can't hear it.
 
Mary Clay Watt  47:03
Shh. This is so freaky.
 
Jason Hilton  47:07
Wait, wait does it sound like a hillbilly voice?
 
Mary Clay Watt  47:11
Yeah!
 
Jason Hilton  47:12
Yeah, yeah, it's weird because I can't hear right now, but you can. It must be coming through my microphone or something. But okay, so what happens specifically in my house -- and I don't know why it happens--
 
actual ghost probably  47:24
*mumbles*
 
Jason Hilton  47:25
I pick up radio signals.
 
Mary Clay Watt  47:26
It's still go ing!
 
Jason Hilton  47:27
Yep. I hope like -- oh god, I hope my audio isn't recording it. Oh, darn it.
 
actual ghost probably  47:34
*mumbles about microphones*
 
Mary Clay Watt  47:35
I really hope that picks up on the recording.
 
actual ghost probably  47:38
I know that.
 
Mary Clay Watt  47:40
He said "I know that." Sir, can you hear us?
 
Jason Hilton  47:46
Probably not.
 
Christina Kann  47:48
Guys, I can't with this. I'm easily spooked.
 
Mary Clay Watt  47:52
It's like those urban legends you hear about a family's baby monitor, like a dude was listening in on their baby monitor or something, you know?
 
Christina Kann  48:02
Shut up!
 
Jason Hilton  48:03
Yeah, so what really happens is we pick up radio signals for some reason. I've looked into it several times.
 
Christina Kann  48:10
Have you ever talked to Sean about your audio haunting?
 
Mary Clay Watt  48:13
It's insane!
 
Jason Hilton  48:15
It is really weird because I do hear these conversations between people -- Sometimes, if I leave like my stereo on or my receiver on, I can hear it. My guitar amp picks it up.
 
Christina Kann  48:26
That's hauntening! That's a hauntening.
 
Jason Hilton  48:28
It's not haunting! It's really fucking annoying.
 
Mary Clay Watt  48:31
It's a haunting. Your house is haunted by a ghost who was like a radio DJ, I think.
 
Jason Hilton  48:40
It happened to me before. I pick up these guys who still communicate via like walkie talkie or ham radio or something.
 
Mary Clay Watt  48:47
Yo we were just talking about -- that's how we started the episode! We were talking about that we needed to end over sentences with "over>'
 
Jason Hilton  48:53
And these guys came to help us! How nice of them.
 
Mary Clay Watt  48:58
Okay, we were talking about Dudley's tongue and it's terrible. He's on the floor. He's choking.
 
Christina Kann  49:04
I'm choking because I've been laughing too hard. Let me take a sip of water.
 
Mary Clay Watt  49:08
That's so freaky.
 
Jason Hilton  49:09
Welcome to my life.
 
Christina Kann  49:12
All right. Where are we?
 
Mary Clay Watt  49:14
I can't wait. Christina, please tell me when you are editing this if it picks it up.
 
Jason Hilton  49:21
I hope it doesn't.
 
Christina Kann  49:21
I'm gonna have to make Sean sit in the room with me while I listen to it because I'm not brave enough.
 
Mary Clay Watt  49:26
It was around one hour, the one-hour audio.
 
actual ghost probably  49:30
I'm talking on the mic that came with the radio. Can you hear me?
 
Mary Clay Watt  49:34
Did you just hear--?
 
Christina Kann  49:36
He's talking on the mic that came with the radio!
 
Mary Clay Watt  49:39
"Can you hear me?" is what he said. I wish this was juicier.
 
Jason Hilton  49:45
I wish I could hear it.
 
Mary Clay Watt  49:51
Okay. Let's keep going through the chapter.
 
Christina Kann  49:54
I'm trying to hold it together.
 
Jason Hilton  49:55
They never talk about anything interesting. I can't even understand them sometimes. Oh, actually, sometimes I think they do know that it happens because I just randomly hear like *incredibly strange sound* like someone making these really weird noises on purpose. I feel like he knows that people can hear him. I don't know. I wish I could find this man.
 
Christina Kann  50:23
Oh my god, that is too scary.
 
Mary Clay Watt  50:25
It's so freaky!
 
Jason Hilton  50:26
I've lived in the house for three years and I wish I could meet this man and just punch him because he's interrupted so many things. It happened on my fucking soundbar for my TV! This fucking guy's voice would come in through it.
 
Christina Kann  50:40
Have you talked to your neighbors?
 
Mary Clay Watt  50:42
Have you talked to the FBI?
 
Christina Kann  50:44
And or the FBI?
 
Jason Hilton  50:46
No. I've looked into it. I've even got like these clips all over my microphones that are supposed to suppress any signals coming in. And it still doesn't -- it works. It happens less. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. But that's the only thing I've been able to do so far. I think it has something to do with the wiring in my house. It's really old.
 
Mary Clay Watt  51:07
Oh my god.
 
Jason Hilton  51:09
I don't know. But it happened to me a few times in my last apartment.
 
Christina Kann  51:13
Okay, we're haunted. We're haunted and I'm moving on.
 
Jason Hilton  51:15
It's Halloween. We're spooky.
 
Mary Clay Watt  51:17
Forge onward; forge onward.
 
Christina Kann  51:19
Forge onward. So next here's what happens: all hell breaks loose. And Petunia tries to pull Dudley's tongue out of his mouth. Question mark. Why?
 
Jason Hilton  51:29
Incorrect first aid procedure. If someone has a swollen tongue, don't rip it out.
 
Christina Kann  51:35
Yeah, that's just like so the wrong move.
 
Mary Clay Watt  51:37
You need to get it out of -- maybe not try to rip it out, but pull it out.
 
Jason Hilton  51:40
I don't think she was even aware it was tongue, though. out.
 
Mary Clay Watt  51:43
Yeah, I think that's what it is. Because they're just like, "He's choking on something. Get it out of his mouth."
 
Christina Kann  51:49
Ugh. Okay, so Uncle Vernon and Arthur Weasley start like screaming at each other.
 
Jason Hilton  51:57
It's mostly Vernon screaming.
 
Christina Kann  51:59
Yeah.
 
Mary Clay Watt  52:00
And Arthur's like, "I can fix it if you just let me."
 
Jason Hilton  52:05
But realistically, how can you be calm in this situation at all amd be listening to this dumb ass who blew up in your fireplace and poisoned your son?
 
Mary Clay Watt  52:14
Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily trust him at this point either.
 
Christina Kann  52:18
But the thing is that like magic is the only way that this could just be fixed. You know? I would be like, "Yes, fix this and then you can fuck right off."
 
Jason Hilton  52:27
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  52:28
But instead, Uncle Vernon starts throwing pieces of china at Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Weasley starts like zapping them out of the air.
 
Jason Hilton  52:38
That my favorite fat-shamey line in this entire chapter is "bellowing like a wounded hippo." "Uncle Vernon snatched up another ornament, bellowing like a wounded hippo." That's a new one.
 
Mary Clay Watt  52:49
Poor hippos.
 
Jason Hilton  52:51
He usually gets called a walrus, so she's diversifying a little bit. These were the magic beasts before they were fantastic.
 
Christina Kann  52:58
So Mr. Weasley yells at Harry to like, just go. So Harry's like, "Yes, I will. I will go."
 
Jason Hilton  53:06
Fair enough.
 
Mary Clay Watt  53:07
Well, he's debating whatever, and then something goes flying right past his head and like smashes. And he's like, "Okay, bye! See you next summer!"
 
Christina Kann  53:19
Yeah, literally. And um, that's that. He deuces.
 
Mary Clay Watt  53:25
That's the end of the chapter. That's it. Should have been combined, I think, with the previous chapter.
 
Christina Kann  53:31
I completely agree.
 
Mary Clay Watt  53:33
Especially cuz this is the book where the chapters really start getting long. I don't know if that's just like her formula of they get longer as the book goes on, and so she doesn't like having long chapters towards the beginning of the book.
 
Christina Kann  53:49
Yeah. We've also talked about different reasons. Maybe some people were starting with this books, since the series was just really starting to get famous when it came out. Or because the other books were so short, they're like, "Okay, don't worry, this is still easy to read," and it's a very slow couple of chapters in the beginning, before gaining momentum really quickly. I totally think that chapters two, three and four should all have been combined into one more concise chapter.
 
Jason Hilton  54:16
Yeah, like a little slightly condensed chapter. Even though, I mean, some of the details are kind of funny, I suppose. But yeah, just want to get to the tournament.
 
Christina Kann  54:27
Let's get to the point!
 
Jason Hilton  54:28
Let's get to the magic Nazis.
 
Mary Clay Watt  54:32
I was even happy to just get to the Burrow, you know? I'll settle for the Burrow.
 
Christina Kann  54:39
It's so bananas that this is called Back to the Burrow and we don't --
 
Jason Hilton  54:45
It's like Back to the Future. They don't go back to the future until the very, very end.
 
Mary Clay Watt  54:48
The very end, yeah. It's like Desolation of Smaug. Smaug doesn't show up until one hour and 52 minutes.
 
Jason Hilton  54:53
And he doesn't even get desolated until the next movie.
 
Mary Clay Watt  54:56
Oh, don't get me started stupid. I have a full probably combined one hours' worth of content just on that,
 
Jason Hilton  55:09
It really didn't need to be three movies.
 
Mary Clay Watt  55:11
Don't. I literally have an entire thing is so fucking series of episodes dedicated to this issue.
 
Jason Hilton  55:16
No I believe you.
 
Christina Kann  55:20
Hey guys? Hey guys?
 
Christina Kann  55:21
Harry Potter.
 
Christina Kann  55:22
This is actually -- this is the wrong podcast. I don't have anything better to say, though. Does anyone have any final thoughts about this chapter?
 
Jason Hilton  55:31
It was a slightly horrifying, but . . .  meh?
 
Christina Kann  55:35
It was definitely stressful.
 
Jason Hilton  55:36
It had the Weasleys, so that's a plus.
 
actual ghost probably  55:38
*mumble mumble* right down the street.
 
Jason Hilton  55:41
Oh are they coming back? Dammit.
 
Christina Kann  55:43
I just like can't get it together.
 
Jason Hilton  55:45
I don't blame you.
 
Christina Kann  55:46
Like, I can't endure the ghost voice.
 
Mary Clay Watt  55:49
This is Jason's blast appearance on the podcast.
 
Jason Hilton  55:55
Sir, can you please get off this line? We're hosting a Harry Potter podcast, we're trying to be serious.
 
Mary Clay Watt  56:02
It's a very serious podcast.
 
Jason Hilton  56:03
It's very professional.
 
Mary Clay Watt  56:05
A third of this episode was definitely not about me killing a fly.
 
Christina Kann  56:12
Alright, any final thoughts about this chapter?
 
Mary Clay Watt  56:15
No.
 
Jason Hilton  56:15
No. Ghost man was more interesting than this chapter.
 
Mary Clay Watt  56:18
I just want to add in for next week that one of my favorite favorite parts is when they walk out into the yard, and Bill and Charlie have the tables floating in the air and they're just banging them against each other, just because.
 
Christina Kann  56:33
Yeah.
 
Jason Hilton  56:33
I was wondering what that picture was about. I was like, "What happens in the next chapter?" I don't read very often. I don't know how to.
 
Mary Clay Watt  56:41
That's the end of the episode.
 
Christina Kann  56:46
No, no, no.
 
Jason Hilton  56:47
All right.
 
Christina Kann  56:48
Let's move on to plugs. I would love to start by plugging our Patreon. For as little as $1 a month, you can join our Discord community and support the podcast.
 
Mary Clay Watt  57:00
See that picture of the fly!
 
Christina Kann  57:02
Yeah, exactly. And for the $5 month tier, you get bonus episodes. And this month, we covered My Immortal, the fanfic and its lore. So that was incredibly fun. That was like the most fun I've had -- I love our bonus episodes. So I definitely recommend signing up for our Patreon. Link is in the show notes. Jason, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find you on the internet?
 
Jason Hilton  57:30
You can find me on Instagram @picturesofjay and Twitter @picturesofjay90. And you can find all of us at the Movie Night Crew Podcast, where every Sunday we review a different movie. So if you want to hear Tina and Haley and Brooke talk about anything that's not Harry Potter, then you can come, and we talk about a lot of different types of movies. We all just bring in our collective tastes and suggestions and force our friends to watch what we like. And sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, snd sometimes it's really funny. Not to burst my own bubble, but -- wait, that's not the right phrase. Not to toot --
 
Christina Kann  58:20
Toot your own horn.
 
Jason Hilton  58:21
Not to toot my own horn, but some episodes have been pretty good so far. I don't know how to advertise myself, by the way.
 
Christina Kann  58:29
You're doing great.
 
Mary Clay Watt  58:30
You did a great job.
 
Jason Hilton  58:30
But something to plug that's not my podcast. If you have HBO Max, I would recommend watching a show called At Home with Amy Sedaris. Do you guys -- are you familiar with that particular comedian?
 
Mary Clay Watt  58:43
No.
 
Jason Hilton  58:44
 It's like a fake cooking show, but it's like an old-fashioned cooking show from like the 1960s where they teach you how to do everything, but it's like, lame crafts and stuff. It's kind of a sketch show, but Amy Sedaris is really funny. She's a really funny comedian. If you watch Bojack Horseman, she plays the cat manager, that voice.
 
Christina Kann  59:09
Princess Carolyn!
 
Jason Hilton  59:11
Yeah, so that's her. She just pretends to be this person whose basically entire life is to do this, this cooking show or this home network show, and it's so old-fashioned. She's got a funny accent. She does multiple characters. It's really bizarre sometimes. If you like, kind of like Adult Swim humor sometimes, it's pretty funny. So if you can get HBO Max, there's three seasons of it. And it's a it's a funny sketch show. So that's my plug: At Home with Amy Sedaris.
 
Christina Kann  59:40
Hell yeah. Thank you so much. That's linked in the show notes. Mary Clay, there you are. Where can people find you on the internet?
 
Mary Clay Watt  59:47
Yeah, you can listen to That's What I'm Tolkien About wherever you get podcasts. Right now, I'm covering the Hobbit movies. You can follow me on Instagram @mc -- what? What is Instagram handle? Follow me on Instagram @meturndownforwhat and you can follow me on Twitter @mcwattsup. And it's funny you mentioned Bojack because that's what I was gonna plug. I watched Bojack for the first time this summer. I watched the first couple episodes years ago, and I was like, "I am not into this. I'm not feeling this." And then this summer, I was like, "I need to stop watching this same three shows over and over again. I'm going to force myself to watch a new show," and it was Bojack. I finished it and was like, "That was a damn good show. That was really, really excellent. That was amazing." So if you have not watched Bojack, definitely give the first season a try. Power through; it kind of takes a couple episodes to get into the world, get into the characters, and get some of the quippy humor, and also get familiar with the the depressing feelings that you'll get in touch with throughout the season.
 
Jason Hilton  1:01:13
That is a good post-2020 show.
 
Christina Kann  1:01:17
I've been your host Christina. You can follow me on Instagram @christinathekann. You can follow me on Twitter @christina_kann. You can follow me on TikTok @sproutsprivatestash. I would like to recommend that everyone watch The Way of the House Husband on Netflix. Haley plugged it several months ago, and it's a very silly little anime about this gangster-turned-house-husband who handles all of his housekeeping duties with the same intensity that he handled like, gang activities, like mob activities. And it's very hilarious. They're short little episodes that have like -- they're like bite size; they're not very much substance. But like, fun to watch, you know? Dope! Well Jason, thank you so much for joining us for this most silliest of episodes.
 
Jason Hilton  1:02:11
Thanks for having me on again.
 
Christina Kann  1:02:12
Yes. And Mary Clay, there you are. I'm so glad to have you back.
 
Mary Clay Watt  1:02:17
Hi, I'm here with the remains of the fly sitting next to me still.
 
Christina Kann  1:02:23
Alright gang, I gotta go finish reading "The Floo and You: Hooking Your Home to the Floo Network" before this book starts throwing china at me. Bye!
 
Mary Clay Watt  1:02:36
Bye!
 
Jason Hilton  1:02:36
That was great.
 
Christina Kann  1:02:39
The Restricted Section is a member of the Movie Night Crew Network, which features other amazing podcasts such as its namesake, Movie Night Crew, which is an extra chaotic podcast featuring the gang just shooting the shit about whatever movie they just watched.
 
trailer  1:02:52
All righty. It's movie night. Grab your popcorn, grab your coffee. Grab your friend. Grab a cat. And let's go! Who directed this? What year did it come out? Is that that girl from that show? Who wrote this? Was the cat? Who would you rather bang? Does this pass the Bechdel test? What about the Steve Buscemi test? Does a woman literally speak in this movie? Oh my god a dog. This reminds me of in Harry Potter. When Are we recording? What are the critics say? It's a guilty pleasure. What's your rating? Can you be quiet? Oh my god. Movie Night Crew. It's just like watching movies with your friends and then arguing about it after. Every Sunday wherever you get podcasts.
 
Christina Kann  1:03:49
The Restricted Section was created by me, Christina Kann, based on the book series by JK Rowling. All music by Ryan Kann. Logo by Michael Hardison. Support us on patreon.com/restrictedsection. For as little as $1 a month, you can gain access to our Discord community server, which is a really happy place to be, and there are other rewards as well, such as bonus episodes and Zoom happy hour hangouts. Be sure to follow us on Instagram @restrictedsectionpod, on Twitter @restrictedpod, and on Facebook @restrictedsectionpod. Also feel free to shoot us an email at restrictedsectionpod@gmail.com to share your thoughts, feelings, complaints, conspiracy theories, or even lavish praise.
 
Christina Kann  1:04:36
Alright, cool, well 1-2-3 byeee.
 
all  1:04:51
Bye!!!

​SPEAKERS
Cari, Lelia Hilton, trailer, Christina Kann
 
Christina Kann  00:02
"He held up the envelope in which Mrs. Weasley's letter had come, and Harry had to fight down a laugh. Every bit of it was covered in stamps, except for a square inch on the front, into which Mrs. Weasley had squeezed the Dursleys' address in minute handwriting."
 
Christina Kann  00:37
What's up, Pott-heads? Welcome to The Restricted Section, a show in which a bunch of nerds with potty mouths reread the Harry Potter series for the umpteenth time and discuss the way that the story in its themes have stayed with a generation into adulthood. Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't done the reading, don't worry. We did it for you. Here's what we're talking about today.
 
Christina Kann  00:57
Chapter Three: The Invitation. During breakfast one day, the text's extremely heavy-handed and deplorable fat-shaming is interrupted when Uncle Vernon gets some unusual mail. He brings Harry into the living room to share that Mrs. Weasley has sent a letter asking if Harry can join the Weasleys at the Quidditch World Cup. She has also included approximately 1 million stamps on the envelope because she doesn't know how Muggle mail works, okay? So Harry and Vernon go back and forth a little bit, and finally Harry uses his only leverage to get his way by threatening to write to Sirius Black who the Dursleys think is just an actual escaped guilty convicted murderer who is related to Harry. So yeah, so go Harry well done.
 
Christina Kann  01:43
Welcome to The Restricted Section, where using too many stamps is literally as bad as murder, you stinking witch! I am tickled pink to be joined today by my most euphonious friend Leila. Say hello to the listeners, Lelia.
 
Lelia Hilton  02:02
*singing* Hello to the listeners, Lelia.
 
Christina Kann  02:05
Oh my god, she knows what euphonious means.
 
Lelia Hilton  02:07
Of course!
 
Christina Kann  02:09
I literally googled "word that means good at singing."
 
Lelia Hilton  02:13
I could have not known what it meant but I just sing everything -- but yeah, I knew what it meant.
 
Christina Kann  02:17
Well, it's also like euphoric plus like phonetic? Mmm -- moving on. And I am so delighted that our special guest this week is Cari, co-host of Curly Critics over on WBNE. Say hello to the listeners, Cari.
 
Cari  02:33
Hi. I'm so excited to be here. I also did not know what that word meant that you said.
 
Christina Kann  02:38
Euphonious?
 
Cari  02:40
Yeah, I had no idea.
 
Christina Kann  02:41
Me neither. I had to Google a word good enough to describe Lelia.
 
Lelia Hilton  02:47
Please, do go on.
 
Christina Kann  02:50
So Cari, can you please tell the listeners what your podcast is all about?
 
Cari  02:56
Yeah, me and my best friend, Jade, have a podcast where we review things: books, movies, TV shows. Right now, we're going through the Harry Potter books.
 
Christina Kann  03:05
I was gonna say, they do cover some topics that you might be interested in, dear listener.
 
Cari  03:10
We're on book six right now, but our lives got really busy. So we're having to slow down. But that's the goal.
 
Christina Kann  03:16
Pacing yourself through the Harry Potter books is such a challenge.
 
Cari  03:21
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  03:22
I mean, y'all like Harry Potter. That's why you're here. I definitely recommend following them on Twitter because they're tweeting some pretty choice Harry Potter takes right now.
 
Cari  03:32
I'm just full of them all the time.
 
Christina Kann  03:34
So what is your Harry Potter history? When did you start reading the books? When did you watch the movie? Like what's going on?
 
Cari  03:42
Yeah, so I wasn't allowed to read them growing up, but all of my friends were. So finally I convinced my mom to let me read them when I was like 12. And I read all seven of them in seven days.
 
Christina Kann  03:56
Oh my god. That's like how the world was created.
 
Cari  04:02
I watched the first movie after the first book. Like I finished the first book and then immediately watched the first movie. And then I was like, "I cannot do this again." I just spent the whole movie being like, these are the things that are different. So after I read all of them, I watched all the movies.
 
Christina Kann  04:14
Right. It's good to have closure on the book series so you can enjoy the films as a totally separate thing. Yeah, getting too into the film discourse is rough because in the end, no matter what your complaints are, I'm gonna watch them.
 
Cari  04:32
It's true.
 
Christina Kann  04:32
I really enjoy them. But if we're gonna start taking notes, yes, I do have a pretty comprehensive list.
 
Lelia Hilton  04:40
I feel like, Tina, when the books came out, we were around the same age as the main characters. I don't know, Cari, I'm not sure how old you are. We don't have to talk about it. It's fine.
 
Cari  04:52
Much younger than you.
 
Christina Kann  04:55
I read the original trilogy when they first came out, and I was eight years old.
 
Lelia Hilton  05:00
Yeah. And I feel like when the movies came out, I was not thinking logically like, "I must finish every book." No, I was just like, I love thing. Thing comes out that I like. Let's watch thing related to thing.
 
Christina Kann  05:13
Yeah.
 
Lelia Hilton  05:14
I remember loving it. I was like, "They captured every detail."
 
Christina Kann  05:18
I do remember having great anxiety before every movie and coming out always generally relieved, you know? Generally like, "Okay, all right. No, that feels good. I feel good about that."
 
Lelia Hilton  05:29
Yeah, I think the only one I didn't feel that way about was the Order the Phoenix, obviously, but I didn't like the book that much either. Definitely Hallows Part -- Which one of the parts was better than the other?
 
Christina Kann  05:44
Okay, well, I'm gonna need some clarification on that.
 
Lelia Hilton  05:47
You cannot have it.
 
Christina Kann  05:50
So Cari, if you had to sort yourself, what Hogwarts house are you?
 
Cari  05:55
Ravenclaw.
 
Christina Kann  05:57
Okay, we tend to get a lot of Ravenclaws on the show. Don't know why. I guess they like talking about books. What part of the whole Ravenclaw persona do you relate with?
 
Cari  06:07
I really love knowledge, love learning. I'm getting my master's right now, so I'm just like, all the school. I just love learning. And I don't like less is really like learning for the application use of it, which is more of a Slytherin thing, getting knowledge and then using it. I'm just like, I want to know things, which is why I think I'm more Ravenclaw than Slytherin.
 
Christina Kann  06:32
Yes, it's the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake.
 
Cari  06:36
Yes.
 
Christina Kann  06:37
That's beautiful. I love it. We could do with a little bit more of that perhaos in this book series. So this chapter, what are we doing? It is chapter three of Goblet of Fire, The Invitation. I know I've said this in last week's episode, but it really is so bananas how stupid these first couple of chapters are, considering some of the chapters that happen later in this book that are just so dense.
 
Lelia Hilton  07:05
So dense. Yeah, I just finished rereading this actually on Sunday. It took me a long time to get through, which was surprising to me, because I feel like as a kid I ripped right through it.
 
Christina Kann  07:17
It is 735 pages.
 
Lelia Hilton  07:19
Yeah, but but Cari read it in a day.
 
Cari  07:22
No, I cannot do that now. It took me like two weeks to read Goblet of Fire and Order the Phoenix when I did them recently. And I was just like, "How did I do this as a child?"
 
Lelia Hilton  07:33
How did we? Because I just ripped right through it as well.
 
Christina Kann  07:36
I am totally with you. I used to read them in like a day. I think part of it is just like a genuine -- not just not having responsibilities as a child, but even furthermore, knowing that there's no weight of the world on you. There's no "I could be doing dishes." It's like, "I am eight years old. And I just all I have to do is read right now."
 
Lelia Hilton  08:02
Yeah, there's nothing else. You have no other responsibilities.
 
Christina Kann  08:06
Because honestly, I have been able to read a lot better recently than ever before. And it's because I have the kind of job where you just kind of hang out. And so it takes me kind of back to the good old days where I'm like, "Wow, there's actually kind of nothing else I could be doing right now. Like I'm not home. I can't be doing dishes. I'll just read 400 pages of Harry Potter."
 
Cari  08:28
Wow, I want that job.
 
Christina Kann  08:32
I mean, a Ravenclaw wouldn't be happy in this job for sure. It is not intellectually stimulating. But I have a good time. So it is morning time at the Dursleys' house. We get some pretty strong fat-shaming about Dudley like right away. It's not subtle. I think it's pretty uncomfortable. What do you guys think?
 
Cari  08:59
Oh, I don't like it.
 
Lelia Hilton  09:00
Yeah, it's never been something that I appreciated. I think I thought maybe thought it was funny as a kid the first time she made a fat joke, like maybe the first time.
 
Christina Kann  09:11
Yeah.
 
Lelia Hilton  09:11
But then she doesn't -- like she just can't -- Honestly, try to find one sentence about them that doesn't have some kind of fat or hog-shaped or whatever.
 
Christina Kann  09:22
Yeah
 
Lelia Hilton  09:22
There's not one there are other qualities and people even if they're despicable, you know?
 
Cari  09:27
Yeah. In this, it goes on for like two, three pages of just talking about how fat Dudley is.
 
Lelia Hilton  09:32
How fat is he?
 
Christina Kann  09:34
Yeah, on a narrative level, almost every time she mentions Dudley, she mentions how fat he is. But then also, the plot right now, this chapter, starts with us talking about how he's on a diet.
 
Lelia Hilton  09:48
A diet, yeah.
 
Christina Kann  09:49
Because his school nurse has raised concerns, which is super valid, but it's a health concern. Like, I can't imagine a writer making jokes to this extent about hypertension, or diabetes, or some other chronic health concern.
 
Cari  10:06
Just the diet itself makes me uncomfortable. This kid is so used to eating so much food and you're giving him like a quarter of a grapefruit. That's not enough food to sustain somebody.
 
Christina Kann  10:17
It's definitely not enough food. And then also, from what I understand from nutritional science, totally depriving yourself of stuff just make stronger cravings cuz it's like, "Wow, I get nothing now."
 
Lelia Hilton  10:31
I don't think that's how diets work. I think we can all -- we all have kind of -- at least I've definitely been up and down the road with diets.
 
Christina Kann  10:38
Wow. Same. That's exactly how I would describe it.
 
Lelia Hilton  10:40
What is it -- What did Golden Girls? -- *singing* Goin' down the road and back again. */singing* With diets.
 
Christina Kann  10:48
So euphonius.
 
Lelia Hilton  10:49
Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank "eu." E U.
 
Christina Kann  10:55
Thank you, phony.
 
Lelia Hilton  10:56
Thank you, phony. Us! Okay. Oh, God. Okay, I did diets before, but one thing that you never do, you always think like, "You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna wake up tomorrow, and I'm gonna make myself for breakfast a smoothie." And you're like, "That goes really good." You're like, "I like smoothies. This is yummy." Lunch. "I'm gonna have a kale salad with chicken on it. Okay, like I meal prepped this, I can handle it." And then dinner comes, and you're like, "I'll have chicken and brown rice." And you're like, "I just absolutely will not do that." Or if you do that, you end up -- I would end up eating like a full two sleeves of Oreos.
 
Christina Kann  11:40
Like, it's fine, because I had this healthy dinner. Yeah, for sure. It's really just the way that this woman correlates the fatness with -- it's like so obviously supposed to be painting him as a bad person.
 
Lelia Hilton  11:58
Yeah, it's like fat is bad.
 
Christina Kann  12:00
Yeah. And it's like, he can be a really shitty person and fat in a way that is like, not related.
 
Lelia Hilton  12:08
Yeah. And I don't know if it's just HER?? I listened to last week's episode. Or if it's like a thing in England, like if body conscious stuff and maybe like curve culture and stuff like that was never . . .  I don't know. I just feel like it's really a lot. It's just so much to correlate, like "This is an evil family and look how fucking fat they are." That's like, kind of the tone I get from her. I don't know. I guess we're supposed to hate them.
 
Christina Kann  12:46
Yeah, it kind of feels just so old-school to me, the way that old-timey like superstitions are like "Oh, well God's cursing them with fatness for being evil."
 
Lelia Hilton  12:59
Yeah. Oh, man.
 
Christina Kann  13:04
For some reason in my notes I wrote several specific quotes that I simply will not read, but they all end with WTF in all capitals. So everyone in the family has to be on the same diet as Dudley. So everyone gets -- this is so ridiculous -- a grapefruit quarter per person. Like at least let everyone have their own grapefruit. Come on.
 
Lelia Hilton  13:30
Yeah, it's a fruit. It's not even sweet fruit.
 
Christina Kann  13:33
It's like not even good fruit. It's like the punishment fruit. Do you guys like grapefruit?
 
Lelia Hilton  13:39
No.
 
Cari  13:39
No.
 
Lelia Hilton  13:40
I like grapefruit flavored things.
 
Christina Kann  13:42
Yeah, me too! Oh my god. The pamplemousse La Croix is my favorite.
 
Lelia Hilton  13:46
I do love me some pample.
 
Christina Kann  13:48
Or like a pomona.
 
Lelia Hilton  13:49
Ooh, what's that? I've had that before.
 
Christina Kann  13:51
It's a margarita but with grapefruit juice.
 
Lelia Hilton  13:54
Yeah, I love those.
 
Christina Kann  13:56
Oh, yeah. Wow, I forgot to confess that I broke the cardinal sin of The Restricted Section and I drank margaritas before recording. We've run into trouble with that before, but I think I'm holding it together pretty well.
 
Lelia Hilton  14:10
Where did you go? Did you go to that awesome little restaurant that's near you?
 
Christina Kann  14:15
Yes. Panchos.
 
Lelia Hilton  14:18
Oh, that's a different one. Like Pancho Villa?
 
Christina Kann  14:20
Are you talking about a little Mexico?
 
Lelia Hilton  14:23
No,
 
Christina Kann  14:24
There's a lot of Mexican restaurants. Are you talking about the Annex?
 
Lelia Hilton  14:27
No.
 
Christina Kann  14:30
Then I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
 
Lelia Hilton  14:31
It's like one that you that makes good margs and you and Haley go all the time.
 
Christina Kann  14:35
Um, Little Mexico?
 
Lelia Hilton  14:36
Okay, yeah.
 
Christina Kann  14:37
This is not great content. Our listeners mostly don't live here. Cari definitely doesn't live here. That'd be surprising.
 
Cari  14:44
Nope.
 
Lelia Hilton  14:44
Sorry, Cari.
 
Christina Kann  14:46
Um, yeah. Wow. So Harry is a skinny kid. So his privilege as a skinny kid is that he has a whole stash of sweets upstairs that he got his friends to send him, and he just gets to eat it all. Because he's skinny, and he's the good guy.
 
Lelia Hilton  15:02
Yeah.
 
Cari  15:03
Wow.
 
Lelia Hilton  15:04
And he's a most unusual boy!
 
Christina Kann  15:13
I just feel like it's all an extension of the setup from the last episode. But finally we're about to get to the action because the doorbell rings.
 
Cari  15:24
Yay.
 
Christina Kann  15:26
Yay indeed. Uncle Vernon answers it, and it's the mailman being like, "Dude, look at this funny letter. Remember, three years ago, when those letters were like attacking you? And like there was owls sending them through your chimney and they were rolled up in the egg cartons or whatever?" Just kidding. The mailman probably didn't know about that. But I do feel like Vernon has mail trauma.
 
Lelia Hilton  15:52
Oh, for sure.
 
Cari  15:53
I feel like the Dursleys are so like, "We have to make sure that we look properly and we don't say the wrong thing." But I feel like none of their neighbors care.
 
Christina Kann  16:01
Wow.
 
Cari  16:03
Like, the craziest things could happen. And then the Dursleys would just be like, "Oh, no, people are gonna find out!" And their neighbors are just like, "Oh. Okay. Owls."
 
Christina Kann  16:12
It has literally never occurred to me before that the neighbors might not care.
 
Lelia Hilton  16:17
Me neither. I'm like "They must because the Dursleys are so concerned."
 
Christina Kann  16:21
Yeah, yes, exactly. Like, wow, that's my new headcanon, that they're just surrounded by like college students and like, no one gives a shit.
 
Lelia Hilton  16:30
They're just whatever, man.
 
Christina Kann  16:33
Wow, that would be very funny. Um, okay, so Uncle Vernon is grumpy now, because of the mail, and he takes Harry into the living room. He reads this letter to Harry. And it's Mrs. Weasley writing to Uncle Vernon very politely to ask if Harry can come visit them and go to the Quidditch World Cup. A couple of things: I probably would have written earlier in the summer. Because it's just like a week away. Right? Or no, it's like, a day away.
 
Cari  17:12
Yeah, day away.
 
Christina Kann  17:13
She has no idea how long Muggle mail takes. Um, so yeah, I probably would have started at the beginning of the summer asking permission, believing that it would have taken some convincing, you know?
 
Cari  17:27
Yes.
 
Lelia Hilton  17:28
Yeah.
 
Cari  17:29
I mean, they're gonna come anyway. So.
 
Lelia Hilton  17:31
Yeah, well, I don't think there's anything that they could have done to make the Dursleys be like, "You know what? He does deserve this. She said it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. Like, heck, let's get little Harry go." Like, that's just not happening.
 
Christina Kann  17:50
It's very cute. Um, the letter is absolutely covered in stamps. She had to go to the Muggle post office to mail this anyway. Why not just go into the postmaster of Ottery St. Catchpole and ask how to put a stamp on a letter?
 
Christina Kann  17:54
At the end of the letter, she says "I do hope we've put enough stamps on," and like, she did.
 
Lelia Hilton  18:00
It's pretty cute.
 
Cari  18:19
She spends so much money on stamps. Stamps aren't cheap!
 
Christina Kann  18:24
Wow, I wonder how many stamps like that would be. probably like 30 stamps... times.... How much do stamps costs? Wait, I'm gonna refer to my stamps. Um, my stamps, just say "forever." Okay, that's useless, dammit. If only there was a math person here. Oh, well, moving on.
 
Lelia Hilton  18:46
It's funny because they did it to like, be -- they're like, "We must be inconspicuous!" You know? Like, "If I went in there and ask the postmaster, what's his face, how does one apply a stamp?" She was like, "They're going to know! They're gonna know something's off with us. They're gonna find my family." She has a lot at stake. So she's like, "Let's just like -- we know stamps are involved somehow. Let's just cover the sucker. Then the no one will think anything's out of the out of the ordinary."
 
Cari  19:18
If anything, she just made a lot of people's days because everybody who held that letter was like, "Wow, this is funny."
 
Lelia Hilton  19:26
It's true.
 
Christina Kann  19:28
I have mailed things to our friends like Mats in Norway, and I feel like Molly Weasley when I'm stamping up those envelopes. I'm like, "Okay, this needs like $5 of stamps to get to Norway." That is very valid that Molly, I'm sure, wants to stay on the DL. But for what it's worth, Molly, my boss asked me literally last week how to prepare an envelope to be mailed. He genuinely had no idea; it was very endearing and ridiculous. Okay, so there's like considerable back and forth between Harry and Vernon. Harry is full sass.
 
Cari  20:14
I love that for him.
 
Lelia Hilton  20:16
Yes, me too.
 
Christina Kann  20:20
Honestly, Daniel Radcliffe made Harry too... uh...
 
Lelia Hilton  20:26
Passive?
 
Christina Kann  20:28
I was gonna say "placid," right? What does mean?
 
Lelia Hilton  20:31
Flacid?
 
Christina Kann  20:32
No! Not flacid! Define placid -- with a p! It means "not easily upset or excited." Yes, it's the word I was looking for. He's just very milquetoast in the films. But little Harry's so sassy in these books.
 
Lelia Hilton  20:54
He is.
 
Christina Kann  20:55
And finally he uses Sirius Black as a threat. So Vernon gives him permission, because he's like, "You have a convict godfather. And that is alarming to me."
 
Lelia Hilton  21:10
I mean, at least he has something he can use to get basic necessities or not be killed.
 
Cari  21:20
I feel like nothing makes Sirius happier than knowing that he's being used as blackmail against Harry's aunt and uncle. Molly's letter talks about like, "I'm sure Harry's told you about this." Does she just not know that Harry has a horrible home life with the Dursleys? Like I feel like she should know that.
 
Lelia Hilton  21:41
Does he ever get into it with them? I can tell by her behavior -- well, no, that's because of what happens later in this chapter. No. I mean, I feel like Harry hasn't said anything.
 
Cari  21:51
But in Chamber of Secrets, they literally came and rescued him. So Ron at least knows what's going on.
 
Christina Kann  21:57
I think Ron knows what's going on. I think he probably doesn't realize this is textbook abuse and other adults should be intervening, because Ron is a little dense. So I feel like Molly has only gathered some of it, but also, she's not in a good position to do anything other than wait for something bad to happen. You know what I mean?
 
Lelia Hilton  22:22
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  22:23
It's a bad position to be in. And honestly, if I were in Molly Weasley's position, I would probably misbehave more about it. If a child that I loved was getting abused, I'd go murder somebody.
 
Cari  22:36
Or at least break him out every summer.
 
Lelia Hilton  22:39
Yeah, be like "We know you hate him. We invite Harry to stay with us every summer."
 
Christina Kann  22:45
Here's the thing: Dumbledore insists that for the love magic, okay to like, carry on--
 
Cari  22:53
I hate it.
 
Christina Kann  22:54
Yeah. Harry has to go home every summer. He has to go be with blood every summer.
 
Cari  23:02
Yeah but for how long?
 
Christina Kann  23:04
Exactly! "Can I just shake her hand and be on my way?" like, Why does he have to be there all summer?
 
Cari  23:12
But then he doesn't. Later on, he's there for like two weeks and then he leaves.
 
Christina Kann  23:17
Yes! Why isn't there some alternative? But it's like, "Oh, we just have to trust Dumbledore because he said this is how it has to go."
 
Cari  23:29
Never trust Dumbledore.
 
Christina Kann  23:32
Absolutely not. I was out of town at a wedding this last weekend, so I was staying at a hotel, and I got cable for the first time in like five years. Obviously, they were doing a Harry Potter marathon, because that's what cable does.
 
Lelia Hilton  23:49
Yes.
 
Christina Kann  23:50
And I was getting ready for this wedding, so I was watching it so half-assedly. And it was books six and seven. And it was so dramatic, so intense. Sean -- bless his heart -- my husband, Sean, was asking me these questions. And I was like, "I certainly don't have the time to get into this right now." He was being like, "Wait, but Snape is really a bad guy. Right? And they they didn't know all along?" And I'm like, "I can't even begin to engage in this philosophical discussion with you. I'm curling my hair."
 
Cari  24:29
It depends on how you define a "bad guy."
 
Christina Kann  24:31
Exactly. That's exactly why I don't casually watch movies six through eight. I either have to watch them the way that I watch Hamilton, with like, my entire soul. Or not at all. I can't just be casually watching the later movies.
 
Lelia Hilton  24:54
Well, yeah, they're so heavy. I remember I was at the beach with my family. I was at the Outer Banks with my family one year when Deathly Hallows Part One came out. I went to go see that with my cousin who's five years younger than me, and she was like "You guys are so into this Harry Potter! Maybe I'll start!" And she started with Deathly Hallows Part 1. For whatever reason I was like, "Hell yeah! You'll love it!" and on the way there I'm like, "So this is what happens until then."
 
Christina Kann  25:29
Oh my god! That is simply not the recommended path.
 
Lelia Hilton  25:32
No. She was like, "Are you crying?" I was like "Yes!"
 
Christina Kann  25:38
You reminded me -- this is not entirely related -- but you reminded me that I have this traumatic memory of also watching a movie with family at the Outer Banks. I have a pretty lame uncle, and he was like pretty drunk at the Outer Banks while we were watching Catching Fire. It might have been the first time I had ever seen it, or maybe it was my first time since it had been in theaters, but I was very engaged and watching it so intensely, and the whole room was just quiet and watching Catching Fire. Except for my drunk-ass uncle kept being like, "Wait, wait, wait, is that Jennifer Lawrence?" He asked it like 15 times out the movie. "Wait, wait, wait, who? Wait, what is she doing?" Through the whole movie! "Can you just yeah, go drink your Red Stripes somewhere else?"
 
Christina Kann  26:31
Okay. Wow, where even Where are we? Harry is like skipping happily up to his room. Hedwig is back. She wasn't there in the last chapter. The last chapter had absolutely nothing going on in it, including Hedwig wasn't even there. Pig--Pigwidgeon -- Ooh, I've never said that one a lot before. Pidwidgeon?
 
Cari  26:58
That sounds right.
 
Lelia Hilton  26:59
Yeah. Because they call him Pig, right?
 
Christina Kann  27:01
Yeah, Pig. That's a really cute name for like a tiny little owl.
 
Lelia Hilton  27:05
It is!
 
Christina Kann  27:07
A cat named Pig would be really cute.
 
Lelia Hilton  27:11
But it would have to be a skinny cat because if it was fat then that you would just be like HER??
 
Cari  27:17
It would be an evil cat.
 
Christina Kann  27:23
My adorable chubby cat Penny, I think, would be an adorable Pig.
 
Lelia Hilton  27:27
She would. She's not like chonk.
 
Christina Kann  27:30
She's not morbidly obese, but she's definitely a lump if I've ever seen one.
 
Christina Kann  27:36
Yeah, a little potate.
 
Christina Kann  27:37
Yeah, a potate. A tater tot. So Pigwidgeon is there with a follow up letter from Ron. I really think they waited a week for a response and they didn't hear one because they hadn't even gotten the letter yet because Muggle mail is slow. So I think he was like, "Well, it's been a while. I might as well send a follow up letter."
 
Cari  28:00
But the letter also makes it seem like he wrote that as soon as they got the tickets.
 
Christina Kann  28:04
Oh, yeah, no, you're right.
 
Cari  28:05
I read it and I was like, "How fast is the Muggle mail?" Or maybe it's just how slow Pig is.
 
Christina Kann  28:13
He tries so hard. I love him. He's one of my favorite characters, I think. I just love people who try so hard. But they're in the country. I feel like Muggle mail couldn't go that fast.
 
Lelia Hilton  28:28
Yeah, no, absolutely not. That was a little bit of a bloop. A little bit of a blooper. Bloop her.
 
Christina Kann  28:39
That one was rough, but I laughed heartily at it, so I guess it was good.
 
Lelia Hilton  28:44
Thank you.
 
Christina Kann  28:45
So Ron makes it clear that they're planning to come get Harry on Sunday no matter what.
 
Cari  28:52
Excellent.
 
Christina Kann  28:56
There's not a lot going on in this chapter. I'm trying to stretch it out. Well, so this is kidnapped. This is like a planned kidnap.
 
Cari  29:07
Is it kidnapping if Harry goes willingly?
 
Christina Kann  29:10
I think technically yes if his guardians say no.
 
Cari  29:15
Well, they said yes. So it's fine.
 
Christina Kann  29:16
Yes, indeed. It's silly that they don't even mention how they're going to come get him. And also Harry doesn't wonder how they're going to come get them.
 
Lelia Hilton  29:29
Oh, sorry. I accidentally started reading it again.
 
Cari  29:34
Is this the one where they come through the fireplace in the next chapter? That would have been important to know. You probably should have mentioned that.
 
Christina Kann  29:42
I guess they just like can't fathom a home without an actual ongoing fire in the hearth at all times in case Amos Diggory needs to drop by to talk about Mad-Eye Moody or whatever.
 
Lelia Hilton  29:55
Right.
 
Cari  29:56
The Floo Network feels like such a invasion of privacy all the time.
 
Lelia Hilton  30:00
Yeah, that's fucked up.
 
Cari  30:02
It's not like somebody's knocking at your door. They just show up.
 
Christina Kann  30:06
Yeah, I wonder if there's any security in the Floo Network, if there's anything to be done if you don't wish for visitors. Or can you like block someone?
 
Lelia Hilton  30:19
I think you would just have to block everyone or have it open for everyone. I think those are your only two options.
 
Cari  30:26
So don't make any enemies.
 
Lelia Hilton  30:28
Yeah, not even one.
 
Cari  30:32
Or just don't have friends, if you have an enemy.
 
Christina Kann  30:35
It just would be such a nightmare in the Weasley household, for example, because they would need to have it on because he has a ministry job. And they have a lot of things going on. They would need to always let people come in. But there's so much going on that someone could just straight come into your home and it might be that no one notices, you know?
 
Lelia Hilton  30:54
Yeah.
 
Cari  30:57
That's the real reason Harry has to stay at the Dursleys', because they don't have working Floo Network, so Voldemort just can't come in and kill Harry in his home.
 
Christina Kann  31:06
Oh my god. Wait a goddamn second. I mean, like what, in later books, prevents Voldemort from just stepping into the Floo Network and stepping out in your living room and murdering you? And then stepping back into the fireplace? I'm so confused!
 
Lelia Hilton  31:24
That's a pretty big -- that's a pretty big hole there.
 
Christina Kann  31:28
Wow. Wow, what do I even do with this information? Voldemort, I got a plan for you. Okay, great. So Ron's like "Yeah, we're coming to get you. Don't even worry about it. Hermione is coming and I invited her first, it's no big deal. Don't read into that." Hermione spends a lot of time at the Weasleys' considering that she is an only child who got like swept away into this world of like magic. I feel like my parents never would have permitted that.
 
Cari  32:09
No, not for that amount of time. You don't see her for the entire year, and then she comes home for like two weeks in the summer, and then is like, "I have to go again." And she's lying to them because there's no way she's actually telling them what's happening.
 
Lelia Hilton  32:21
Yeah. How does that work with Hermione's parents? Do they know she's a wizard? A witch? Sorry.
 
Christina Kann  32:29
Yes, they do. They I mean, I think you need parental consent -- god, I hope so. But also, we saw her parents in Diagon Alley in Prisoner of Azkaban.
 
Lelia Hilton  32:41
Oh, yeah.
 
Christina Kann  32:41
So they definitely know. I think that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, possibly wined and dined Mr. and Mrs. Granger, and were like, "Hey, our kids are friends. I know this must be hard for you. We're here to answer any questions." I like to think that there's a friendship there that we just don't get to see.
 
Cari  33:02
That would be nicer than Hermione doesn't tell them anything that happens at school and just comes up with excuses every summer to leave.
 
Christina Kann  33:08
Yes.
 
Cari  33:10
Although, there's no way she's telling the truth, because then she'd have to come home and be like, "Oh, yeah, my friend Harry almost died because Voldemort was growing on the back of this guy's head."
 
Christina Kann  33:19
Oh, THAT truth. Surely she doesn't tell them all that. "Wow, all of my teachers are trying to kill everybody. There was a werewolf."
 
Cari  33:29
"I spent like two months petrified."
 
Lelia Hilton  33:33
Oh, my God. Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  33:35
Wow, I actually completely forgot about that. And we talked about that a lot at the time, when we covered it on the pod, like, the parents aren't being informed. What if someone else has mandrake potion? Just ready? and we don't even have to wait for the mandrakes to grow?
 
Lelia Hilton  33:57
Like someone in the ministry.
 
Christina Kann  33:58
Yeah. Like literally anyone. Maybe they grow in the wild. Whatever. Okay, we can't do this.
 
Lelia Hilton  34:05
We're past that book.
 
Christina Kann  34:06
We're reading Ron's letter. Basically, the only other thing Ron says is that Percy has started a job with the Ministry of Magic. And Ron is like, "Please literally don't even mention it because I cannot stand to hear him speak of it."
 
Lelia Hilton  34:21
Yeah, they're so mean to Percy.
 
Christina Kann  34:24
Percy is a gigantic prick.
 
Lelia Hilton  34:27
Yeah, I know.
 
Cari  34:28
But they don't help the situation. It was almost inevitable with how they treat him.
 
Lelia Hilton  34:33
Exactly. How is he not supposed to act like what they project him to be?
 
Cari  34:38
He's also the only sibling to not have a partner.
 
Lelia Hilton  34:41
Yeah, it's so sad.
 
Cari  34:43
So he's just like on his own.
 
Lelia Hilton  34:45
Well, Ginny. Well, she's a girl, so she doesn't count.
 
Cari  34:49
But Ginny and Ron are close enough in age that they can hang out together.
 
Lelia Hilton  34:53
Yeah, yeah, you're right.
 
Christina Kann  34:56
Yeah. Aw, that is a little tragic. But also, be a better friend and maybe you'll have better friends. Whatever happened to Penelope Clearwater? Percy and Penelope Clearwater is like a thing in Chamber of Secrets right because Ginny saw the making out or whatever.
 
Cari  35:17
*suggestively* Or whatever.
 
Christina Kann  35:21
And then in Prisoner of Azkaban, we were wondering on the pod, did he dump Penelope Clearwater so he can focus on being Head Boy and getting all his NEWTs or whatever? But she popped up again. But I think in this book, finally, he has fully ditched her to pursue his career because we don't hear about her again.
 
Cari  35:44
Poor Penelope. Maybe she ditched him.
 
Christina Kann  35:49
Wow, I wonder if Harry Potter dot wiki dot whatever has a career listed for her? Oh my god, I read this wrong. Oh my god. I'm skimming through Penelope Clearwaters' page, and I read it wrong. It says, "Sadly, she did not end up marrying her Hogwarts boyfriend, as Percy eventually married a woman named Audrey and had two children with her." But I read it as "Penelope did not end up marrying Percy because she eventually married a woman named Audrey and had two children with her," and I was like WHAT? RIP, that did not happen. It doesn't have a career listed for her. Oh, well. She surely ditched him.
 
Lelia Hilton  35:50
I feel like that's more likely.
 
Cari  36:34
She's very successful.
 
Lelia Hilton  36:40
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  36:42
Like many a high school relationship ends, she probably was like, "You should grow up a little bit. Call me later when that happens." I think that some of these characters are so serviced by the films. Obviously we've talked at length about how Snape is like -- Alan Rickman does so much for that character. But some characters, the films -- kind of like we were talking about with Harry -- it takes some layers away. And I think Percy was one of those people that the films turned into just like a straight-up caricature. He has next to no lines. He pretty much only matters in the first movie because he's like "First years, this way!" or whatever. And he has such an arc in the books. I wish we could see more of Percy. You know what I want? I want to see Percy hanging out with Bill and Charlie and no one else. Like what is going on there? Because when they go to the Quidditch World Cup, the kids and Arthur go ahead, and Percy, Bill, and Charlie can Apparate so they come later. And what are they talking about while they're hanging out the three of them?
 
Cari  38:01
I feel like Percy would be really quiet around them. Because Bill and Charlie are big personality, really cool guys, and then there's Percy.
 
Christina Kann  38:09
I feel like they're nice to him but maybe a lot for him.
 
Lelia Hilton  38:15
Or he is a lot for them.
 
Christina Kann  38:22
I totally agree. I don't think he would act the same way when these two people, I think, more than anyone, see you exactly for what you are. I don't think there's nearly as much bragging and grandiose -- Percy the Prefect. So anyway, he works at the Ministry. Don't mention it. Harry sends his little RSVP back to Ron. And he adds a little addendum to his letter to Sirius Black. He's like, "If you want to contact me, I'll be at Ron's house." Not that -- I mean, these magical birds can find Sirius just like vaguely south, so I'm sure they can find Harry at Ron's house.
 
Cari  39:09
I've always wondered about that. How the birds know where to go.
 
Christina Kann  39:13
I don't know.
 
Lelia Hilton  39:13
Yeah, I know. Well, even in real life, like how the fuck do carrier pigeons work? What kind of sorcery is that? How big can their brains even be?
 
Christina Kann  39:25
I don't know. Maybe it's like their number one imperative, you know?
 
Lelia Hilton  39:29
Yeah, it is crazy -- you already talked about in the last chapter -- that Sirius sent Harry's letter with a tropical bird. Which to me implies that he just like found a nearby bird and was like, "Go! Fly this to my godson!" And the bird is like a *squawk* and like did it.
 
Christina Kann  39:56
Let's say he's in Brazil. Does he go to a Brazilian wizarding village and seek out a post office? A magical post office? Or does he just like go into the woods and try to convince this toucan--
 
Cari  40:17
Do all birds have the ability to carry these letters? Or is it just like magical birds?
 
Christina Kann  40:23
Or birds of a certain size and intelligence. Not a parakeet, but like, a flamingo? Sure.
 
Lelia Hilton  40:31
The flamingo -- they did to kind of describe it like a flamingo, right?
 
Christina Kann  40:35
Yes.
 
Lelia Hilton  40:35
That's crazy to me. That is not what I would have thought by "tropical bird."
 
Christina Kann  40:39
They're not like a good flyer, are they?
 
Cari  40:42
I didn't even realize flamingos could fly.
 
Lelia Hilton  40:45
How funny would it be if they were flightless birds?
 
Cari  40:47
I think -- Wait, okay. This is the third time we've had to Google something. Are flamingoes flightless? No. The answer is no, they can fly. I watched a lot of nature documentaries and I've never seen a flamingo fly in those. I've only seen them walk back and forth in the little swamp like idiots. So I'll believe flamingos can fly when I see it.
 
Lelia Hilton  41:20
Yeah.
 
Cari  41:23
So Hedwig is like, "Bye, I know exactly where Sirius Black is. I got this. Don't even worry about it." Didn't she just get there? Hedwig like just rolled up after like days of being missing I think. And then he's like, "Okay, bitch, go."
 
Lelia Hilton  41:48
To a long journey.
 
Christina Kann  41:50
Yeah, let her chill overnight or whatever.
 
Lelia Hilton  41:53
There's no time.
 
Christina Kann  41:54
There's no time. So then Harry eat some cake. And is like, "I'm a luck, luck, lucky boy." And that's how the chapter ends. Lelia, what was your favorite part of this chapter?
 
Lelia Hilton  42:10
I thought Mrs. Weasley's letter was very sweet and cute. I loved the bit with the stamps all over it. I thought that was quite delightful. I was like, "Aw, more magic versus Muggle mishaps." We love to see it. Yeah, that's really what stood out to me. What about you, Cari?
 
Cari  42:31
I liked when Harry gets the permission to go, and he like walks up to Dudley and he's like, "That was an excellent breakfast, wasn't it?" I love it when Harry sasses Dudley.
 
Lelia Hilton  42:43
Yeah, spicy.
 
Cari  42:44
Because Dudley has no brain cells, so he can't even come up with a comeback.
 
Christina Kann  42:48
Yes. There's that legendary moment -- Oh, man. I forgot the joke though -- I always get myself into these situation. When he's like, something about practicing swirlies on Harry, and then Harry's like, "I'm not sure the toilet has ever had anything as gross as your head in it," or whatever. That's the thing, Harry can be sassy to Dudley and we can come to hate him through that lens rather than you're describing him as a disgusting person.
 
Lelia Hilton  43:18
Yeah, we can hate him because he's cruel and mean and dumb, versus he's all of those things because he's fat. Almost it kind of seems like that.
 
Christina Kann  43:31
Yeah.
 
Cari  43:32
It just seems like she ran out of descriptors for the Dursleys. And it's just like, "I'll just keep using this whale analogy." And the fact that Vernon Dursley's least face is purple over and over again.
 
Lelia Hilton  43:43
His "piggy eyes." What the fuck are "piggy eyes"?
 
Christina Kann  43:46
Luckily, that's something that gets kind of lost in translation in the films because they cast -- I mean, no child -- I've never seen a child in my life that is wider than he is tall, which is how they describe him.
 
Lelia Hilton  44:00
That's a cartoon character.
 
Christina Kann  44:01
Yeah, so they had to get a regular, normal-sized boy to play him and I'm glad for that. He's shitty just because he shitty in the movies.
 
Lelia Hilton  44:11
Yeah, I feel like I've seen that actor in other things recently, and I'm like, "Dudley, what you doing?"
 
Christina Kann  44:16
He's making a comeback. He's been in some cool shit. He was in The Old Guard. That was such a good movie.
 
Lelia Hilton  44:21
Oh, yeah.
 
Christina Kann  44:22
Well, and also The Queen's Gambit.
 
Lelia Hilton  44:27
That's what I saw him in. Right, right.
 
Christina Kann  44:29
I mean, he's great. He's great now that he's -- you know, every child actor has to kind of like break free of that role. That one defining role.
 
Lelia Hilton  44:40
Yeah, some are unable to or you know, may grow up and find that they're not talented. *coughing* EMMA *coughing* But, um, you know, that's just one man's opinion.
 
Christina Kann  44:52
My favorite part of this chapter was probably reading Ron's letter because I really love Ron. Every time I read the series, I'm like, "Oh, yeah, Ron is great!" And I get really defensive of him because the films do him so dirty. Just imagine Ron. Imagine the kinds of things he's interested in. Imagine him trying to sit down and do homework. But then, imagine him sitting down and lovingly writing a letter to Harry. It makes me so happy. And he's such a little cutie, and his little letter is so cute.
 
Lelia Hilton  45:29
Yeah, their friendship is developed so nicely, all three of them. Well, not Hermione really. But Harry and Ron are developed so nicely in the books. And they do just kind of make him seem like the joke, I feel like -- like the punch line, a little bit in the movies.
 
Christina Kann  45:45
Brooke recently shared in our Discord server a really excellent video that broke down -- I mean, I think we all can agree that Ron was done dirty in the movies. But it's such a big issue that it's hard to get into it further than that. They just failed him at every turn. So this video took the time to really break down all the different ways in which the writers insisted on serving the narrative rather than his character. I'll put a link to that in the show notes because it was great. I never watch videos. I hate being shown videos. Don't send them to me. And this was a 35-minute-long YouTube video, but I just watched it, and I was there for every moment of it. #justiceforRon. Okay, cool. Any last thoughts about this chapter before we wrap it on up?
 
Christina Kann  46:18
I thought the description of Harry's clothes, that were Dudley's clothes -- I had never realized before how big they were on him.
 
Lelia Hilton  46:50
It had to be folded up five times.
 
Cari  46:52
A sweatshirt went all the way down past his knees.
 
Christina Kann  46:56
That is like so ridiculous to even imagine.
 
Cari  47:02
Can't you shrink those with magic? Harry can't because he is underage, but when he goes to the Burrow, can't he be like, "Hey, can you make these fit?"
 
Christina Kann  47:12
Wow. Yes. And probably Molly Weasley is the kind of person who would just do it for him without -- "Sweetie, come over here. We're gonna fix your clothes. Okay?" Yeah, these little details are cute, but then they never get brought up again. And it's like, "Wait, this doesn't actually track in the greater narrative.
 
Cari  47:30
Did you realize that you made a magical system where you can do anything with magic?
 
Christina Kann  47:36
Exactly. That's why, in our last episode, we were wondering whether or not Sirius Black had a wand at this point. If he has a wand when he's in hiding. Later in the books, he comes back from south from Brazil, and it's not clear if he has a wand. But he is super hungry and desperate and raggedy looking. And he definitely, I think, could have done better with a wand.
 
Lelia Hilton  48:07
Like, why are you starving on the streets, bro?
 
Cari  48:10
Well, even if you had a wand, you can't like transfigure your food. So he would have to steal it.
 
Christina Kann  48:17
You can like -- what's the word? -- like multiply it? They do it in Deathly Hallows a little bit.
 
Cari  48:23
Oh, yeah.
 
Christina Kann  48:24
So he could like multiply one family's meal, and it's like fine. They get less nutrition in their meal or whatever, for this meal alone. But I get to eat, you know? I think he could have been more creative and done more things if he had a wand.
 
Cari  48:39
You're right.
 
Christina Kann  48:40
But maybe the only way to get a toucan to deliver -- I mean a flamingo. Flamingo, right, is what we decided?
 
Lelia Hilton  48:48
Yeah.
 
Christina Kann  48:49
Is to have a wand and like magic them.
 
Cari  48:54
Also, how did he get to wherever he was? Brazil or whatever.
 
Lelia Hilton  48:59
Yeah, I was thinking that too.
 
Cari  49:00
Did he swim?
 
Christina Kann  49:01
No, he took Buckbeak! Over the ocean!
 
Lelia Hilton  49:05
That's kind of nuts.
 
Christina Kann  49:07
I mean, surely, surely, he must have gone up through Greenland and down the coast. There's no way he just sailed straight over the Atlantic. Is there?
 
Cari  49:19
I don't think so.
 
Christina Kann  49:21
We don't know how fast hippogriff can go, I guess.
 
Lelia Hilton  49:25
Yeah, but that's insane. Like over an ocean? Your bird cannot stop to eat or drink or stop flying.
 
Christina Kann  49:36
You just gotta like piss off the side of the hippogriff into the ocean.
 
Lelia Hilton  49:40
It would hit you in the face.
 
Christina Kann  49:45
Okay, all right, I'm wrapping it up. Let's move on to some plugs. I would love to start our little plug session by plugging our Patreon. This month's bonus episode just dropped this past Saturday, and it covered My Immortal, the legendary Harry Potter fan fiction. That episode was extremely good. I recommend it with my whole heart. So please check out our Patreon, which is linked in the show notes. Cari, where can people find you on the internet?
 
Cari  50:19
You can find me on Instagram and Twitter @carissazwerg. You can find me on TikTok @carizwerg. You can check out my podcast, Curly Critics Pod, on all the socials.
 
Christina Kann  50:37
Hell yeah, I love their show so much. Obviously, I love all of our WBNE -- I call you guys cousins, you know? Like we're doing the same thing, just next to each other. Yeah, Curly Critics is covering Harry Potter right now, and it's such a good time. So I highly recommend it. Do you have something you've been watching, reading, listening to, whatever lately that you think that listeners of our podcast would enjoy?
 
Cari  51:03
Yeah, I want to plug the show Lucifer on Netflix. It's a crime show where the devil comes to LA and befriends a detective and they solve crimes together, and then heavenly shenanigans ensue.
 
Christina Kann  51:21
Heavenly shenanigans!
 
Lelia Hilton  51:23
That's like, um, what's the David Tenant show?
 
Christina Kann  51:25
Good Omens.
 
Lelia Hilton  51:26
Yeah, Good Omens.
 
Christina Kann  51:29
Heavenly shenanigans. Put that on my tombstone.
 
Cari  51:33
The last season is coming out September 10.
 
Christina Kann  51:37
So it came out this past weekend from when this show airs.
 
Cari  51:41
Yes.
 
Christina Kann  51:43
A little look behind the curtain, guys. We record this in the past. Awesome. Thank you so much. Leila, where can people find you on the internet?
 
Lelia Hilton  51:54
Hello, I'm Lelia. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter @leelz4realz. You can find me on Sunday nights with some of my friends doing another podcast, which is what I'm going to plug this week! Yay. I am plugging the Movie Night Crew, our network's namesake. It is just me and Tina and a handful of our friends watching films. There's no rhyme or reason. We literally spin a wheel many times, and what it lands on, we watch. And then afterwards, we have a conversation about them. Sometimes we end up roasting the film the entire time, many times we do. It is bawdy and dirty and fun. And it's a great time. Lovingly produced by my husband, whose name is Jason.
 
Christina Kann  52:55
And he will actually be on next week's episode.
 
Lelia Hilton  52:58
Oh, yeah. Well dang. Yeah. He puts a lot of care into taking out all of our "like, what, um," and all of our awkward silences.
 
Christina Kann  53:09
It's just crazy how many times I tell people they can't eat while we're recording. It just happens anyway.
 
Lelia Hilton  53:16
Like, "You know what I should do right now? Chow down on a sandwich." Anyway, yeah, check us out, if you like this podcast, especially, you may recognize some of your Potter friends and get to hear him in a different type of environment, but also very similar.
 
Christina Kann  53:34
If you listen to this podcast, and you're like, "Wow, I like it, but it could be a little more chaotic."
 
Lelia Hilton  53:42
Have we got a show for you!
 
Christina Kann  53:46
Well, thank you so much for your lovely plug. Not that I'm biased. I've been your host Christina. You can follow me on Instagram @christinathekann. You can follow me on Twitter at @christina_kann. You can follow me on TikTok @sproutsprivatestash. And this week, I would like to recommend Cadence of Hyrule, which is a game for the Nintendo Switch -- maybe other platforms, I don't know -- but definitely the Nintendo Switch. It is a Legend of Zelda universe game that incorporates literally EDM. It's like two of my favorite things. As you're moving around this map, you have to move to the beat. It's extremely fun. My husband, Sean, is a DJ, and we're both Legend of Zelda enthusiasts. It was an extremely fun, not really that hard game. It's not nearly as involved or plot-oriented as other Legend of Zelda games. It's a total Nintendo vibe. I really recommend that. So wow, Lelia, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with us today.
 
Lelia Hilton  54:52
Anytime babe!
 
Christina Kann  54:54
And Cari, we are so grateful for you being our special guest today. It was an absolute pleasure to finally meet you and to get to talk about Harry Potter, which we've both been talking about separately a lot lately.
 
Cari  55:05
Yeah, it was so much fun to be here.
 
Christina Kann  55:07
Hell yeah, and I hope we can get you back on for another chapter of Order of the Phoenix.
 
Cari  55:13
Yeah, another really long book.
 
Christina Kann  55:16
Really long and really depressing, so we'll take all the friendship we can get to get through it. Awesome. All right, gang. I gotta go finish reading "Muggle Mail for Beginners" before this book folds itself into a paper airplane and flies away. Bye!
 
Christina Kann  55:37
The Restricted Section is a member of the Movie Night Crew Network, which features other amazing podcasts such as its namesake, the Movie Night Crew, which is an extra chaotic podcast featuring the gang just shooting the shit about whatever movie they just watched.
 
trailer  55:50
All righty. It's Movie Night. Grab your popcorn, grab your coffee. Grab your friend. Grab a cat. And let's go. Who directed this? What year did it come out? Is that that girl from that show? Who wrote this? Where's the cat? Who would you rather bang? Does this pass the Bechdel test? What about the Steve Buscemi test? Does a woman literally speak in this movie? Oh my god, a dog. This reminds me of in Harry Potter, when-- Are we recording? What do the critics say? It's a guilty pleasure. What's your rating? Can you be quiet? Oh my god. Movie Night Crew. It's just like watching movies with your friends and then arguing about it after. Every Sunday wherever you get podcasts.
 
Christina Kann  56:46
The Restricted Section was created by me, Christina Kann, based on the book series by JK Rowling. All music by Ryan Kann. Logo by Michael Hardison. Support us on patreon.com/therestrictedsection. For as little as $1 a month you can gain access to our Discord community server, which is a really happy place to be, and there are other rewards as well, such as bonus episodes and Zoom happy hour Hangouts. Be sure to follow us on Instagram @restrictedsectionpod, on Twitter @restrictedpod, and on Facebook @restrictedsectionpod. Also, feel free to shoot us an email at restrictedsectionpod@gmail.com to share your thoughts, feelings, complaints, conspiracy theories, or even lavish praise.
 
Lelia Hilton  57:30
*singing* Hello to the listeners, Lelia.