Harry Potter and the First Time Readers

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Ch 10-11

Episode Summary

His parents had known Bathilda Bagshot; had Dumbledore introduced them? Dumbledore’s still got his Invisibility Cloak . . . There was something funny there. . . .? So join Jon, Jenn, Danny, and Kristen as they talk over chapters 10-11 of Deathly Hallows. They talk over some theories about what will happen, their impressions of the characters, and if Harry has the wrong birthday.

Episode Notes

Chapter 10 - Kreacher’s Tale

• Harry wondered whether they had fallen asleep holding hands. The idea made him feel strangely lonely. 
• The wardrobe doors stood open and the bedclothes had been ripped back. Harry remembered the overturned troll leg downstairs. Somebody had searched the house since the Order had left. Snape? Or perhaps Mundungus, who had pilfered plenty from this house both before and after Sirius died?

Q1 - Has someone been looking through Grimmauld Place?

• Thank you, thank you, for Harry’s birthday present! It was his favorite by far. One year old and already zooming along on a toy broomstick, he looked so pleased with himself, I’m enclosing a picture so you can see. You know it only rises about two feet off the ground, but he nearly killed the cat and he smashed a horrible vase Petunia sent me for Christmas (no complaints there). 

Q2 - Was there something behind Petunia’s gift?

• Bathilda drops in most days, she’s a fascinating old thing with the most amazing stories about Dumbledore, I’m not sure he’d be pleased if he knew! I don’t know how much to believe, actually, because it seems incredible that Dumbledore…

Q3 - What was this going to say? And why was Dumbledore using the cloak?

• He read the letter again, but could not take in any more meaning than he had done the first time, and was reduced to staring at the handwriting itself. She had made her “g”s the same way he did: He searched through the letter for every one of them, and each felt like a friendly little wave glimpsed from behind a veil. The letter was an incredible treasure, proof that Lily Potter had lived, really lived, that her warm hand had once moved across this parchment, tracing ink into these letters, these words, words about him, Harry, her son.
• They had had a cat . . . perhaps it had perished, like his parents, at Godric’s Hollow 

Q4 - Is this cat Crookshanks?

• His parents had known Bathilda Bagshot; had Dumbledore introduced them? Dumbledore’s still got his Invisibility Cloak . . . There was something funny there. . . .
• “Harry, do you really think you’ll get the truth from a malicious old woman like Muriel, or from Rita Skeeter? How can you believe them? You knew Dumbledore!” “I thought I did,” he muttered. “But you know how much truth there was in everything Rita wrote about you! Doge is right, how can you let these people tarnish your memories of Dumbledore?” He looked away, trying not to betray the resentment he felt. There it was again: Choose what to believe. He wanted the truth. Why was everybody so determined that he should not get it? 

Q5 - What is the truth here?

• This, then, was how Voldemort had tested the defenses surrounding the Horcrux: by borrowing a disposable creature, a house-elf . . . “There was a b-basin full of potion on the island. The D-Dark Lord made Kreacher drink it. . . .” The elf quaked from head to foot. “Kreacher drank, and as he drank, he saw terrible things. . . . Kreacher’s insides burned. . . . Kreacher cried for Master Regulus to save him, he cried for his Mistress Black, but the Dark Lord only laughed. . . . He made Kreacher drink all the potion. . . . He dropped a locket into the empty basin. . . . He filled it with more potion. 

Q6 - How much pity do you have for Kreacher?

• Kreacher knew how to open the concealed entrance to the underground cavern, knew how to raise the tiny boat; this time it was his beloved Regulus who sailed with him to the island with its basin of poison. . . . “And he made you drink the potion?” said Harry, disgusted. But Kreacher shook his head and wept. Hermione’s hands leapt to her mouth: She seemed to have understood something. “M-Master Regulus took from his pocket a locket like the one the Dark Lord had,” said Kreacher, tears pouring down either side of his snoutlike nose. “And he told Kreacher to take it and, when the basin was empty, to switch the lockets. . . .”

Q7 - What do you think of Kreacher’s Tale?

• “Kreacher, I want you, please, to go and find Mundungus Fletcher. We need to find out where the locket — where Master Regulus’s locket is. It’s really important. We want to finish the work Master Regulus started, we want to — er — ensure that he didn’t die in vain.” Kreacher dropped his fists and looked up at Harry. “Find Mundungus Fletcher?” he croaked. “And bring him here, to Grimmauld Place,” said Harry. “Do you think you could do that for us?” As Kreacher nodded and got to his feet, Harry had a sudden inspiration. He pulled out Hagrid’s purse and took out the fake Horcrux, the substitute locket in which Regulus had placed the note to Voldemort. 

Q8 - How will they open the locket?

Chapter 11 - The Bribe

• “Will you stop it!” she cried on the third evening of Kreacher’s absence, as all light was sucked from the drawing room yet again. “Sorry, sorry!” said Ron, clicking the Deluminator and restoring the lights. “I don’t know I’m doing it!” “Well, can’t you find something useful to occupy yourself?” “What, like reading kids’ stories?” “Dumbledore left me this book, Ron —” “— and he left me the Deluminator, maybe I’m supposed to use it!” 

Q1 - Any further theories on why Dumbledore left them these objects?

• “I had to Apparate very precisely onto the top step outside the front door to be sure that they would not see me. They can’t know you’re in here or I’m sure they’d have more people out there; they’re staking out everywhere that’s got any connection with you, Harry. Let’s go downstairs, there’s a lot to tell you, and I want to know what happened after you left the Burrow.”

Q2 - How does the Fidelius Charm actually work?

• “So, you came straight here after the wedding?” “No,” said Harry, “only after we ran into a couple of Death Eaters in a café on Tottenham Court Road.” Lupin slopped most of his butterbeer down his front. “What?” They explained what had happened; when they had finished, Lupin looked aghast. “But how did they find you so quickly? It’s impossible to track anyone who Apparates, unless you grab hold of them as they disappear!”

Q3 - How did the Death Eaters find him?

• “There were about a dozen of them, but they didn’t know you were there, Harry. Arthur heard a rumor that they tried to torture your whereabouts out of Scrimgeour before they killed him; if it’s true, he didn’t give you away.” 

Q4 - Does this make you think highly of Scrimgeour?

Q5 - What do you think of the Muggle Born Registration Committee?

• “I know,” said Lupin. “Nevertheless, unless you can prove that you have at least one close Wizarding relative, you are now deemed to have obtained your magical power illegally and must suffer the punishment.” Ron glanced at Hermione, then said, “What if purebloods and half-bloods swear a Muggle-born’s part of their family? I’ll tell everyone Hermione’s my cousin —” 

Q6 - How cute is Ron here?

•  “I’ll understand if you can’t confirm this, Harry, but the Order is under the impression that Dumbledore left you a mission.” “He did,” Harry replied, “and Ron and Hermione are in on it and they’re coming with me.” “Can you confide in me what the mission is?” Harry looked into the prematurely lined face, framed in thick but graying hair, and wished that he could return a different answer. “I can’t, Remus, I’m sorry. If Dumbledore didn’t tell you I don’t think I can.” 

Q7 - Danny during the liveread you said “Don’t do it.” Why?

• “Remus,” said Hermione tentatively, “is everything all right . . . you know . . . between you and —” “Everything is fine, thank you,” said Lupin pointedly. Hermione turned pink. There was another pause, an awkward and embarrassed one, and then Lupin said, with an air of forcing himself to admit something unpleasant, “Tonks is going to have a baby.” “Oh, how wonderful!” squealed Hermione. “Excellent!” said Ron enthusiastically. “Congratulations,” said Harry. 

Q8 - How’d ya guess that Jenn?

• “You don’t understand,” said Lupin at last. “Explain, then,” said Harry. Lupin swallowed. “I — I made a grave mistake in marrying Tonks. I did it against my better judgment and I have regretted it very much ever since.” “I see,” said Harry, “so you’re just going to dump her and the kid and run off with us?” Lupin sprang to his feet: His chair toppled over backward, and he glared at them so fiercely that Harry saw, for the first time ever, the shadow of the wolf upon his human face. “Don’t you understand what I’ve done to my wife and my unborn child? I should never have married her, I’ve made her an outcast!”

Q9 - Should Lupin have married Tonks?

• “Remus!” whispered Hermione, tears in her eyes. “Don’t say that — how could any child be ashamed of you?” “Oh, I don’t know, Hermione,” said Harry. “I’d be pretty ashamed of him.” Harry did not know where his rage was coming from, but it had propelled him to his feet too. Lupin looked as though Harry had hit him

Q10 - How did Harry handle this whole situation?

Q11 - What do you think was the truth about Ariana Dumledore?

• There was the sound of pattering feet, a blaze of shining copper, an echoing clang, and a shriek of agony: Kreacher had taken a run at Mundungus and hit him over the head with a saucepan. “Call ’im off, call ’im off, ’e should be locked up!” screamed Mundungus, cowering as Kreacher raised the heavy-bottomed pan again. “Kreacher, no!” shouted Harry. Kreacher’s thin arms trembled with the weight of the pan, still held aloft. “Perhaps just one more, Master Harry, for luck?” Ron laughed. “We need him conscious, Kreacher, but if he needs persuading you can do the honors,” said Harry. “Thank you very much, Master,” said Kreacher with a bow, and he retreated a short distance, his great pale eyes still fixed upon Mundungus with loathing.

Q12 - Isn’t is crazy how you can go from hating a character so quick to loving him?