PotterCast 94: A left turn at Albuquerque Transcript

Part 1 (0:00 - 13:01)

Harry and the Potters: Harry Potter! Harry Potter! Harry Potter! Harry Potter! Hey, Potter People! Hey, Potter People! We always talking, you're always listening! We always talking! We're PotterCasting! Hey, Potter People! Hey, Potter People! We talk about the Harry Potter stuff. Yeah. We talk about the Harry Potter stuff. Oh, we talk about the Harry Potter...

Girl: I heard you made out with a goblin. Oh, my God!

Harry and the Potters: Hey, Potter People! Hey, Potter People! We always talking, you're always listening! Hey, Potter People! Hey, Potter People! We always talking! We're PotterCasting! Whaaaaaat?

Borders Ad: Today's PotterCast is brought to you by Borders. In May, thousands of Harry Potter fans descended upon New Orleans for the Phoenix Rising conference. Borders and your friendly PotterCast hosts were there to take in the sights and share a lively discussion of the series that bewitched the world. Listen in and watch the action yourself. Check out the Phoenix Rising/Borders Book Club Discussion at BordersMedia.com/HarryPotter or click the Borders banner at the top of the PotterCast page.

Melissa Anelli (MA): In each city that we go to on our crazy Summer '07 tour here, (JN: Mm-hm.) we decided that we're going to figure out which city knows their Harry Potter the best, i.e. which city can predict Harry Potter Seven better than anybody else.

JN: In five questions.

MA: In five questions.

Sue Upton (SU): In five questions.

MA: Who has it? Who thinks Albuquerque has it? (audience cheers)

JN: I don't know. You know we've only done this so far in...

MA: In Chicago

JN: In Chicago. And the Chicagoans seem to agree with most of my theories but maybe they're just that smart. I don't know. But, what did we have? We had our first question, I guess...

MA: I mean, you can't not ask this question. Harry live?

JN: Will Harry live? (audience cheers) Or will he die?

MA: Harry die?

Audience: (boos) No! Yes!

MA: Albuquerque is in the "die" camp.

JN: You know what's cool? I just noticed this.

MA: No!

JN: I don't know if this is a general thing, but the girls seem to think he's gonna live more and the guys think he's gonna die. Isn't it interesting? I've never noticed that.

MA: (falsetto) 'Cause I want him to marry me. (JN laughs) He's going to grow up and marry me.

SU: It's the boy who lived. The boy who lived.

MA: Right.

Audience member: In the story.

MA: Could be past tense. (audience claps and some cheer) Albuquerque, why? Why are you guys- I thought everybody would say that Harry would live. Is it 'cause it's so hot here? (audience laughs) (JN laughs)

SU: They're crazy from the heat? Is that what you're saying?

JN: Aw. Oh, gosh.

MA: Okay. Okay. Fine. Fine. We'll see how you do with this one. Snape good? (audience cheers)

JN: Snape is a very bad man.

Audience: (cheers) Yay!

MA: You guys are mean.

JN: Aw.

MA: Who thinks it's something in between? (audience claps and cheers)

JN: Interesting.

MA: Bad person but not working for Voldemort?

Audience Member: Yes! (audience cheers)

Isaiah: No.

MA: No? What do you mean?

SU: He's a good person. Sort of good.

MA: He's only working for Voldemort? This kid is so cute. We have to come here. I want to hear why. You're so adorable with the glasses and- (laughs) why?

Isaiah: First of all, because he killed Dumbledore on Voldemort's orders. And secondly, I think he did it on purpose.

JN: Hm.

MA: Okay.

JN: Okay. Pretty good, pretty good.

MA: Thank you. What was your name? Isaiah. Thank you, Isaiah. I think he did it on purpose too, if it helps.

JN: Yes. (audience laughs)

MA: (JN chuckles) Our third question, Harry Horcrux? (audience cheers)

JN: Okay.

SU: I think that one won.

MA: Harry not a Horcrux? (audience cheers)

MA: There's two big votes for no...

JN: Wait a second. That was confusing.

MA: Basically. Okay, if you think Harry's a Horcrux...?

JN: Okay, nobody.

MA: Yeah, you're wrong.

JN: (laughs) Okay. What else did we have? Will Harry- Harry, not everybody. Will Harry return for his seventh year of school at Hogwarts? (audience cheers)

JN: If he will return, say something, loud. (laughs) (audience cheers)

JN: There you go. If he won't return?

Audience: No!

MA: I think you think he won't return. You answer is no to everything. (audience chattering) Oh, man, this is going to be a good Q and A crowd. I can feel it. (JN and SU laugh)

JN: Sue likes this question.

SU: Is it about Hufflepuff?

JN: No.

MA: No. (audience laughs and claps)

SU: (sighs) Oh, I can't do this one. Will we go behind the veil?

JN and SU: If yes... (audience cheers)

SU: And we might hear from mister Sirius (JN laughs) Black who's maybe not... (JN: And if we won't go behind the veil, anyone?) And of we won't go behind the veil say- scream! (audience cheers)

MA: No, no, no, no, yes. (audience laughs) No, no, no, no, yes? That's Albuquerque? (SU: Yeah, I think that's right.) (JN: Okay, very good.) Okay, we'll see, we'll see.

JN: We'll tally it up.

MA: We'll get to that. Go now, she says. (laughs) (JN laughs) Woohoo! You guys are worse than New Yorkers! (SU laughs)

JN: (laughs) Okay.

MA: Okay. You do have better air. I have to give you that. You guys can't exercise in this air; it's like (breathes heavily) it's really thin. (JN: It's tough.)

JN: How many of you have listened to an episode of PotterCast, before? (audience cheers) One of the things we like to do is called Canon Conundrums. Where we talk about (mimicking Steve Vander Ark) Canon Conundrums, where we talk about one particular topic of the Harry Potter books that has been unresolved up to this point, or something we're hoping to be resolved in Deathly Hallows, or beyond, who knows. The topic we have chosen today...

MA: Well, we have been soliciting your ideas on the podcasts (JN: Yes.) so that we can pick them and we don't have to do it while we're on tour. (laughs) And the topic that we came up with today is- Sue, you want to?

SU: Okay, the dirty ratfink known as Peter Pettigrew, how did he- Scapers? Scapers?

JN: (whispers) Scabbers.

SU: Scabbers or Scapers? I don't know. {MA hisses) How did he get to be Ron's pet rat? How did that happen?

MA: Ask Paul, I think Paul knows.

SU: Do you know this, Paul?

Paul DeGeorge (PD): Uh no, I didn't think about it. (JN and audience laugh)

MA: Go with it, Paul.

PD: (laughs) Why would you assume I would know?

MA: I don't know, 'cause.

JN: He's a dirty rat, too. {SU: He's a dirty rat)

PD: If it involves making time-turner jokes, then I'm your man, but other wise... (MA: Okay.) (JN: Ooh!) (SU laughs)

MA: When we get to time-travel, we'll call you. Well, we got...I, yeah- how did he become Percy's rat? I mean, that's pretty random.

SU: Right. How did he come into the Weasley family? That's really, really interesting that- I mean did...?

Audience member: Percy's a rat.

MA: (laughs) (audience laughs) Because Percy's a rat. (JN: Very good.) (SU: Yes. But he'll be redeemed. He'll be redeemed.)

JN: How old would Percy have been when he got a hold of this rat? Ron had him since he was, how old?

MA: He was twelve at the time of Book Three. Percy was sixteen at the time of Book Three. Fifteen or sixteen? (SU: Fifteen.) Right, fifteen. So Percy was three when he got him. (JN: Oh, geez.) Two. Three? Two? Three?

JN: Now, what would have made him so special, that say, "let's give this rat to the Weasley family"? Because my thought when we first started thinking about this topic, is that if not one of the Weasley parents, it was somebody close to them that maybe would have gifted Percy this rat. (MA laughs) At a yard sale...? (audience laughs)

MA: Do you have a lot of them out here or something? (JN and audience laugh) Oh, yard sale, this rat with four toes, three toes? Two toes? (JN: No.) How many? Three.

JN: So, he's a rat? What do we know about him? He couldn't do anything special or anything he was just a regular rat. He didn't have any powers or anything. So, what would have attracted...?

MA: This guy is wearing a Gryffindor shirt, which means he must be called on right now. (SU: Yes, go on.) Just scream. What's your name? Where are you from? Where are you from? (laughs)

Audience member: (inaudible)

JN: From Santa Fe. (MA: Ooh.)

MA: We were there last night, hard to get to.

Audience member: (inaudible)

MA: A rat and a mole at once. So wait, who's the mole?

SU: That's Pettigrew. Pettigrew is a mole?

MA: He's going (unintelligible) on us. He's a rat and a mole. Get it? Get it?

SU: I got it. But see, I thought Pettigrew knew. That he wanted to- that he was obviously in fear of Voldemort. (JN: Sure.) And so he wanted to go near a family deliberately that had wizarding connections. So, like you said about him working, that he did- I think he just wandered into the garden one day. (JN: Yeah.) (MA: Okay.) And he showed up.

JN: That's very screwy, because usually when you see a rat in your house, is it your first instinct to take it in and be your pet? (MA: Yeah.)

Audience member: (inaudible)

JN: Yeah.

SU: I mean how is he going to go to...?

MA: But that's another question: As a rat, how does he convince them that this is a rat you want to domesticate? (JN: Exactly.) Who has a pet rat, besides... (Audience member: I do.) Well, you are a different young person. (SU laughs)

JN: Yeah. Well, he put himself for sale?

SU: Yeah, but how would he assure- (MA: Like Diagon Alley's Ebay?) wouldn't he have had to cast a spell to be sure that Percy would say, "Mom! Molly, I want this rat!"

JN: You know, my thought is maybe Wormtail was doing a bunch of rat tricks or something in front of everybody, like getting up on his hind legs or spinning around, something to make himself stand out.

SU: Yeah. What do you think?

MA: They have so many magical animals and everything, what made this rat- and, I'm sorry, we get a lot of leap of faith we-just-believe-it in J.K. Rowling's world, but how do they find the Weasleys, the people who would be best friends to Harry Potter? Plot twist. Oh, hold on, pick somebody because this is crazy. Here's another question about the rat; Her comment, by the way, was that maybe it was because they were poor and they were already looking for a pet because we've gone into the store and seen rats (JN: Yeah.) for sale and so they thought it would be an easy way to give Percy a rat, which makes sense. But here's another question: Do you think he did anything to Percy all this time? You know it had to be a little weird having this human dude whispering in his ear and stuff.

SU: Do you think (JN: That's true.) he maybe made Percy go to the dark side?

MA: I don't think he made him, but kinda weird to have Pettigrew in your bed for twelve years. (audience laughs)

JN: That is a screwed... (laughs)

SU: Eww.

JN: Do you guys think Pettigrew stayed in rat form the entire time (SU: No.) he was with the Weasleys, or did he venture off and take a little break sometimes?

MA: (chuckles) Hang with the ghoul in the attic? (SU: No.) (JN: No.) No, they weren't in the Order of the Phoenix. But don't you think it's a little- I mean, what was Arthur doing at the time? Wasn't he...?

SU: I think he was still a junior...

MA: He was in the Ministry.

JN: Yeah.

SU: But he was real low down.

MA: Do you think that maybe Percy found a family in the Ministry so he could keep his ear to the ground about what's going on?

JN: You mean Pettigrew.

MA: Whatever his name is.

SU: Well, I think...

Audience member: (unintelligible)

MA: Yeah but there's a lot of wizarding families.

JN: It just makes for a good story for him to have chosen the Weasley's, I guess.

SU: But see, I wonder though. Wasn't Pettigrew, he was a Marauder, right? And would he be not friends with Sirius, would he have not known about their relationship? Because obviously they didn't go hang out at Grimmauld Place, but...

MA: Did Sirius and Arthur know each other at that time?

SU: Well, but aren't they related, though? Would he have said, "My family...?" I dunno.

MA: No, right? They're different age tracks. Sirius and the Marauders were twenty-one or twenty when this all went down, (SU: Right) (JN: Yeah.) that's really young (JN: Fresh out of Hogwarts.) and they were well into their thirties at least, I think. Maybe forties. Okay, so the comment is that Arthur was powerful, has enchanted a car, so he's looking for a powerful wizard. I just don't know that Pettigrew and his ilk saw Arthur as powerful.

JN: Yeah.

SU: Well, when he kicks Lucius' butt, that'll be great.

MA: (laughs) This woman's waving her hand, right here. (Audience member: (unintelligible)) Ooh.

SU: That's right, the Prewetts! That's right!

MA: Molly's brothers were members of the Order. Both killed by Voldemort? Yes?

SU: Yeah. (JN: Mm-hm.)

MA: I think directly, so they were pretty powerful. (JN: Yeah.) (gasps) There you go, that's how they knew about them, had to be.

SU: That's a good point, (JN: Interesting.) that's a good point.

MA: Had to be. And he thought, "I bet these people will know the Boy-Who-Lived." Okay, the comment is that Arthur didn't enchant the car, it was just found. I thought he did. He did, and he created a loophole in the law so that- well the second part of her comment before was that she doesn't think that he found them any which way, and that it was just a coincidence, just a quirk, which makes a bad Canon Conundrums, shh!

JN: (laughs) Yeah, but does anyone out here probably know their geography, over there if, near Godric's Hollow...?

MA: Yeah, Ottery St. Catchpole is not near Godric's Hollow, (JN: Yeah.) I don't think. Ottery St. Catchpole is a little bit by Surrey, I think? According to The Lexicon.

JN: That would've been a long journey for a rat.

SU: "No note! You flew that car all the way to Surrey and back!"

JN: Okay, one more question here about the rat.

Audience member: Considering all the Muggles that died when Pettigrew blew up the street and blamed it on Sirius, is it that unlikely to think that Arthur, who was working in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office, might have been sent there? And if he had noticed, "Hey there's this rat kind of acting funny," wouldn't he have assumed, "Hey this might have been something I did, maybe the magic screwed up this rat?" And he might have noticed it and taken it home with him.

JN: That sounds pretty good to me.

SU: Oh, that's a great idea.

JN: That sounds very good.

MA: She did it. She solved it.

JN: I think that's the Conundrum.

SU: Yeah.

MA: What did you say? Did you not hear it?