Impulsivity: Sectumsempra (Book 6, Chapter 24)
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Chapter 24, Sectumsempra. Exhausted but delighted with his night's work, Harry told Ron and Hermione everything that had happened during next morning's charms lesson, having first cast the Muffliato spell upon those nearest to them. I'm Vanessa Zoltan. And I'm Courtney Brown. And this is Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.

Everybody, if you hear particular delight in my voice and my heart today, it is because we are joined by Not Sorry Programs Manager, Courtney Brown. In between Matt leaving and Casper joining us, we are having some very special guests hold down the fort. And Courtney, you came to us as a listener.

Yes, I did come as a listener. So thank you for accepting my demand to be on the podcast now that I am an employee. I consider one of the great successes in my life, hiring you. So now I get to show you off to everyone. Courtney, can you just tell people a little bit about what you do at Not Sorry? Yeah, absolutely. I am the programs manager at Not Sorry. So planning pilgrimages and working with our pilgrims closely, helping facilitate our virtual programs.

adding support for live shows in person, anything that's not totally podcast specific or engineering or producing is something that I might know a little bit about or touch in some way. And it's really fun, creative content work.

Well, I'm so grateful that you came on today. You even had an idea for our Every Flavored Bean. You and your lovely husband, Cody, every year host a Christmas party that is Harry Potter themed. Exactly. And so tell the people what our Every Flavored Bean is, please.

Yes. So for every flavored bean, I'm going to share a staple cocktail recipe that we have used at all of our Harry Potter Christmas parties. And it's a special potion name that might be relevant to this particular text.

And sorry, can you just tell everybody the name of the cocktail recipe book that you use? Oh, yes, of course. We keep all of our cocktail notes in an advanced potion making notebook. And the Half-Blood Prince has obviously left his notes in there, which is why the cocktails are so good. Exactly. If you want to hear that recipe and that conversation, you can head to patreon.com slash Harry Potter Sacred Decks.

Courtney, you are telling our story today, and it is on the theme of impulsivity.

What is your story? Okay, so I'm thinking about impulsivity in relationship to my childhood. And so growing up, my mom was a stay-at-home parent. And during the summer, we had this routine that was anchored in our library summer reading program and pool days at our neighbors and discount Tuesdays at our local AMC theater, which was nestled in our indoor shopping mall. And as a single-income family,

These activities felt really special to us, but also financially accessible. So we leaned on them a lot. And one particular day, the manager of the AMC, who happened to be a friend of my parents...

invited us to the movie theater for a private viewing and opened the theater before it was open to the public. And so we could watch an entire screening by ourselves. So it was my sister, my mom, me, and then the manager and his two daughters. We ran around the theater. We were changing seats like every 10 minutes. We are having as much popcorn as we want. We're

We're not really watching the movie. We're even invited into the projection booth to start the film. It was so fun. We just felt like the entire place was ours. But I knew even then as a kid that this experience was really unique and it took a lot of planning and thinking ahead, an invitation from a friend, my mom coordinating this play date. And it wasn't something that probably a lot of moviegoers can say that they've experienced.

On another day, we go back to the movies, just my mom and me, and it's an extremely hot summer day. I remember it being so hot, which is why she picked this indoor activity. And I don't even know what movie we chose, but it was a perfect movie. We walked out of the theater with all of this joy, excitement, excitement.

like just reflecting and talking about our favorite parts. And as soon as we stepped outside into that blinding light out of the mall, she looked at me and said, do you want to go see it again? Oh, wow.

And I just looked at her and I'm clocking this in my nine-year-old brain and thinking, wait, we can just go right back in. We can do this again. It felt like a, but wait, there's more moment. And I tell these two different instances side by side, because even though the first moment

part of the story where I got to go and experience something maybe other people hadn't was really special. It took a lot of planning and it was for more than just me. And this second piece of our movie saga of the summer was all about impulse. It was all about feeling something and pivoting in the moment and having this spur of the moment decision

That becomes something really exciting and really memorable. And I remember like acutely in my body, this adrenaline rush that everything I thought we were going to be doing that afternoon wasn't going to happen anymore because my mom was impulsively saying, we can just walk back in. It's discount Tuesday. We can see it again right now. There's another showing. Let's go again. And because it was so uncommon for us and a total surprise to me,

It just felt extremely special. And it's kind of one of the places that I've landed for today's theme conversation about how that cinematic joy came from a moment of complete impulse by the person I was with. Yeah. Those moments where you watch your parent do something unexpected. I've told this story on the podcast, but like my dad once picked me up from school in the middle of the day and said, let's go to the beach.

And it blew my mind. Of course. I was like, where did you just go to the beach? Yes. It's just, it's the taste of freedom and comfort in one. Right. And you're like, I am safely, totally going to blow my mind. And the etymology of impulse, it comes from the Latin in polere, which means to push. Right.

And I think that it's something that you're like just on the verge of being able to do. And for some reason you push over, right? We can always be irresponsible. You can always pick up your kid and take them to the beach. You can always take your kid to a second movie, but you don't because we're responsible people and truancy is illegal and can't afford to go to two movies every day. But there's this little push and you decide to be just a little bit irresponsible. Yeah.

And I think we really see that in the chapter that the word push, I do think comes up in most of the impulsive moments in this chapter. Yeah, I agree. I think of the word urge, which might also kind of go with push that kept coming up for me as well. Yeah. And usually we resist those urges, but every once in a while, it feels like a fairy blows at your back and you're like, I just gotta, I just gotta do it.

This is not an impulse. This is something that we prepare for, we train for. We've spent years of our lives getting to this moment, and that is the 30-second recap. Courtney, I will go first. Do you mind counting me in, please? No, I honestly have dreamed of this moment for so long. I'm so happy for you. I will count you in. Are you ready? Here we go. Three, two, one, go. Go.

So Harry is so excited because Katie Bell is back. And so they're going to really win, uh, um, at the Quidditch match. And then, uh, he's following Draco around and he, uh,

follows Draco into the bathroom and Draco and Harry get into this mini duel and Harry goes suck them Sempra and rips Draco up. Snape heals Draco. Then Harry has to hide his book. He doesn't get to do the Quidditch match, but they win and he kisses Ginny. And that's the most important thing that happens in the whole series. That was one of my worst 30 second recaps in a little while. Did you do badly because you knew I was going to prepare and practice a 30 second recap? Is that why? Yeah.

Sadly, because so much happens in this chapter. I know. I was really trying to do the math of like, I really want to cover the Draco fight. I really want to cover detention. And I really want to cover the kiss. And that's like three whole things. Yeah. And I didn't even get to detention. So are you ready to do your recap now? I'm ready. Little Miss Perfect. Let's try it. Okay.

On your mark, get set, go. Okay, so Harry says horcruxes to Ron and Hermione and now they know Double Door's plan and Lavender is sad about Ron and Dean is sad about Ginny and Harry has like this puberty monster thing in his body and he really wants Ginny as a girlfriend really bad and Gryffindor Quidditch team roster is shaking up because of Katie Bell and Harry is still hunting Malfoy's rumor requirement and oh my gosh,

Malfoy's in there with Moaning Myrtle and then Draco sees Harry and tries a curse but Harry shouts Sectumsempra and Draco's body is slashed up so Snape fixes him and then Harry has to show his fake potions book and Snape knows that Harry's lying and then Harry misses the game against Ravenclaw because of detention but Gryffindor wins and Harry kisses Ginny and Ginny kisses Harry and is that everything? Did I do it? You did a great job. You're a cheater.

Everyone knows they heard the buzzer go and you talking right over the buzzer. The buzzer. Oh, man, I thought I was going to hear the buzzer in my head. And I didn't. So Courtney, there is a great moment of impulsivity in this chapter. And that is, I'm just going to read it to you because it's so important. Why would I try to put this into my own words?

Harry looked around. There was Ginny running toward him. She had a hard, blazing look in her face as she threw her arms around him. And without thinking, without planning it, without worrying about the fact that 50 people were watching, Harry kissed her.

And those withouts, right, are really important. Yeah. And the big unspoken without in this one quote is that Ron is standing right there, which has been such a barrier to this impulsive behavior for Harry. Right.

Here in the chapter, Harry says to himself, "Should I pick Ron or Ginny?" As if kissing Ginny is an attack against Ron. He really sees this as being opposed. And the reason that I really love this moment in our theme of impulsivity is because it is both impulsive and it's not. Harry has been thinking about kissing Ginny all school year. He has been into her forever. Ginny has been into Harry forever.

And this is a sort of mutual impulsive moment, right? Ginny doesn't usually run into Harry's arms and, you know, wrap herself around him. And so there is this, like...

brick on brick, like they're really growing enthusiastic consent impulsivity. But the other thing is, I read an article when I was buying my house that often people know as soon as they walk into a house without, you know, obviously barring a bad report or whatever, oh, this is the house that I want.

And that it feels impulsive in the moment, but usually you've gone over your budget ahead of time. You're only looking at a house that like has certain requirements and your whole life you've been doing research. You've been going into other people's homes and feeling what you like and what you don't like. And so there are these huge decisions that we make in ways that

are incredibly impulsive in the moment and yet are based off of long periods of time of deep contemplation. Yeah, absolutely. Well, in thinking about like imagining yourself as one of the Gryffindor characters,

you know, house members standing there seeing it, not knowing the history, not knowing that shared comfort between Jenny and Harry, it may seem even more impulsive than it actually is. Right. Because, oh, wait, what? Where have I been? I thought Jenny was with Dean. I thought that, you know, Harry was single. And now all of a sudden they're smashed together in this really like public display of affection and care. And it feels so good to them, but it's probably feels even more impulsive to some of the people who could be

watching it, observing it, perceiving it differently than the two who are engaging in the act, right? Right. This must look incredibly impulsive to Ron. Right. Ron didn't know. Ron did not know. He was in denial. He did not know. Hermione knew. Hermione was waiting on bated breath for this kiss, but Ron was like, what? I don't know if that nod Harry perceives as, well, go on then, is more like, what? I don't know. We'll see.

Hermione is like, this is not impulsive. This is a long time coming. Vermil Devane is there like, what? How dare you? And Ron is like, never in my life did I think either of you two people had lips. I don't understand. You like each other? What? You like people? I know. So sweet. And I think that this is something that

I know that's happened to me with my parents and that as a parent, something that your kid does can look impulsive from the outside. Ellen just decided to join the board for the neuroscience club and it came out of nowhere for me. I was like, since when are we interested in neuroscience? And she's like, no, I've been really interested in it since the ninth grade. And it wasn't something she talked about.

But apparently this was an interest. And that doesn't mean that this wasn't the sort of push for Ellen, right? Like now it's a formal interest of hers and she's joined this club. But it's fascinating when things look like they're impulsive from the outside. And we can be really quick to judge, like how dare you do that out of nowhere?

when really... Exactly. The push was there for the two of them to have this moment because they're on an emotional collective high with a group of people they care a lot about. There's so much buildup whenever it comes to Quidditch and the houses competing all year, every year, every season. And so, I mean...

I just can't imagine their first kiss having been a moment that was like quiet, secluded on their own. Like Harry has been kind of wanting to get Jenny on her own. It makes sense that it happens when everyone is swept up in a moment of celebration that they would finally get a chance to kiss each other. And I...

And I just love Harry because rather than being mad that a girl caught the snitch and stole his glory, he's so into it. He's so into it. It's really cute. Yeah, it's really cute. She's so good at Quidditch and I love it.

She can take the snitch. I love knowing that he imagined her celebrating with her ex. Like, oh, she's going to end up back with Dean when they win, if they win. And instead, it was the catalyst for the two of them to finally have their moment together. Swoon. So happy for them.

So there's another moment of impulsivity that we can kind of explore a bit with Harry and another character in Draco. So Harry has the Marauder's Map and has been scouting Draco's whereabouts for most of the book since they arrived back at Hogwarts for the semester. And I can tell because Harry is so fixated and so suspicious.

of Draco. He has this urge, this impulse to constantly find out where Draco is, to try to see what plan he might be scheming behind his back. I think that there's also this extra push in Harry because no one quite believes him that Draco could possibly be capable of doing something super evil. No one of his same age wants to believe that Draco could possibly be dubbed a Death Eater or that he's been sucked into such an evil force.

You know, that hopefully there's still some protection over the kids at the school from their parents' choices. All of that, though, is completely lost on Harry. He just believes within himself that Draco is doing something, is up to something. And when he finally finds Draco,

And Draco, it's almost like a validation of this impulse to check the map over and over. And then it leads to the two of them meeting in the duel, right? Which usually would have been a scheduled thing, right? A duel between wizards is something you would decide, just like a duel between swordsmen. You would decide we're going to meet, we're going to have this event, they're spectators. And instead it's an impulsive fight, right? It's a bathroom fight, just like high school students.

have now all the time. And when Draco sees Harry come into the room and whips around, he casts a curse right away that's an unforgivable curse. And that feels impulsive because that's not dark magic they've been practicing as Hogwarts students. Right. Right.

I love this because we're getting to another definition of impulse, right? There's impulsivity, but then there's like this impulse to constantly check something that is more like obsession or addiction based, right? Which...

is not one of the ways we've talked about impulse so far, right? It's the impulse to keep checking your phone, even though like you would have gotten a notification if anything happened on your phone and an impulse to check if your door is locked, no matter how many times you've checked if your door is locked. And it's really interesting that in this scene,

we see those two together because I think we can see it two ways. One, that if you are feeling in a heightened state about something, you are going to be impulsively checking, right? Like thinking about it in a compulsive way. And

that will lead you to be more on edge and therefore act impulsively. Right. Or I think we can think about it covertly as if you've been compulsively checking something, you're going to be quicker to do something impulsive. So if for whatever reason, one night I'm spooked in my house and I keep checking the lock and keep checking the lock, you know, a raccoon runs by and I'm more likely to scream, right? Because I've been sort of working myself up.

And I think Harry and Draco have both of those things coming to a head here, where Harry has really been revving himself up, and then...

impulsive thing happens from his point of view where Draco attacks him. He says crucio in an attempt to torture Harry and Harry at first tries levy corpus and it gets blocked and then he tries sectum sempra and slashes Draco like to bits, right? Like he just gets gouges all over his body and starts

bleeding and that's mixing with the water because they've like hit a pipe. And so there's water and blood and it's just this incredibly, incredibly violent thing. Harry first tried this like kind of non-violent move, right? Just like a way to end the fight.

But that doesn't work. And so he does this spell that he doesn't even know what it does, except that it is for your enemies. Right. Which this is an impulsive place to try that spell for the first time. It is. And the text also tells us like Draco instinctively drew his wand. Draco was really ready also to fight Harry. Right.

In the same way that we've seen Harry building all of this up in search of what's going on with Draco, we don't know as the reader until later that Draco has been planning and planning and planning for a really big event, a mission, if you will. And so it is what draws out that impulsivity in his actions as well. And he goes straight for violence because he's in such a heightened state of protecting himself and surviving, essentially. Yeah.

Yeah, it really mirrors the beginning of the book, right? Because on the Hogwarts Express, Harry is stalking Draco and hides and Draco catches him and attacks Harry. And this time again, Harry is still following Draco and Draco catches him and then goes to attack Harry. And this time Harry is, quote unquote, ready to fight back. And so this really is like,

this big, impulsive, teenage, violent, horrible thing happens. But it's a pot boiling over that has been

at a, I was going to say simmer, but like at a rapid boil for a long time. And so again, it's this like, like your story, your mom had a ton of infrastructure in place in terms of taking you to the movies as part of your Tuesday summer thing, but right, like something pushes and then an impulsive thing happens. Right. And so I'm just wondering if like most impulsivity is actually about something boiling over. Is this like,

actually quite small push, but something that we've been thinking about in one way or another for a long time. Right. Like what opportunity needs to be in place? What spaciousness around that circumstance creates the room for that impulsive behavior? And that impulsivity of Harry, right, leads to the necessity of more impulsivity, right? Because Harry didn't plan the sectum semper spell, Snape comes in because there's a violent thing, right? And then Harry has to keep acting impulsively. Right.

Right, which is what corners him basically into a lie with one of his professors when he comes face to face. I am thinking about how if you are already building on an impulsive act and then you're forced to account for it, you have to choose to either fess up or cover it up. And Harry springs into action quickly again, that same tension that we've already seen where there's this buildup of knowing the room of requirement is available to him to hide his culprit text, right?

but he has to involve Ron and borrow a book. That's an impulse. Hey, give me your book quick. I need a place to find my book. I need a place to find my book. The Room of Requirement appears

I guess essentially on an impulse, like, you know, here it is. Here's the place where you're allowed to place this thing that your professor can't see. And it feels bad, but he sticks with the lie through the entire conversation. He never backs down from Snape's questioning. He never changes the story. He stays with that story. Once the impulse to lie to his professor has been put in place, he has to just stand by it and justify it.

And that's why we're scared of impulse, right? Because we're worried that we're going to get ourselves into trouble that we're going to have to deal with later. And we think that upon further thought, we're going to be able to make better decisions. And I think that's why we try to teach our kids not to do something impulsively and want to be more considered in our actions. Because, yeah, then...

Then you rip someone to shreds and you have to deal with the consequences. And your whole afternoon is doing not things you planned on doing. And you miss your Quidditch game. Or any of the other Saturdays of the entire semester. Exactly. Exactly. One impulsive move.

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Bye.

I think one other place that we can think about impulsivity is kind of like a through line from the beginning of the text, like going all the way back to an earlier chapter where Harry is having to impulsively brew a potion for Slughorn. And that's what links him to the Advanced Potions Making book that belongs to the prince, the Half-Blood Prince in the first place. And so when Hermione finds out about what has happened between Harry and Draco, she has some thoughts.

She has some thoughts because she's had thoughts this entire book. And they're not new thoughts. They're not new thoughts. They are things she has been saying. And of course, that frustrates everyone around her. But the point being, your earlier impulse to use this book when we didn't really know what it was, despite the evidence that like spooky, cursed books have, you know, plagued our group of friends before. Yeah.

This is not the first time. Right, exactly. This is not the first time. So let's use like our lived experience to inform ourselves. And because Harry doesn't do that, Hermione has a bit of an I told you so moment. And I don't think that that is an impulse. I think it is...

Yeah, so Ginny snaps, right, and goes,

And Ginny just can't take it anymore, right? She's like, enough with the sanctimony. The boy I love was almost unforgivably cursed. How dare you, madam?

Exactly, exactly. And the truth is that impulse is probably one of the ways that he was able to save himself from harm. It's also the way he caused harm that he didn't mean to cause, but it served him in a way. And that's a tough thing to wrestle with. There's just, there's not a black and white answer there.

Yeah. But what's so interesting is that I find this to be true, right? If someone snaps at me, it can feel like an impulsive thing. And then immediately my thought is, how long have they been feeling this way? Right? Because when someone acts impulsive,

in a way that's out of character, you're like, this is probably something that's been on their mind for a really long time. And so either this is something that Jenny has found frustrating about Hermione for a long time, or she's like, this is a totally different circumstance. And this broken record that you play about the half-blood prince, that is no longer appropriate here. But what's funny is that it continues, right? Hermione...

he's calm and is like, of course I'm glad Harry wasn't cursed, but you can't call that a good spell. Look where it landed him. And I would have thought that you'd be upset about this given that it hurts your quidditch chances. And this is where I'm like, Jenny. Jenny. And I think it's because she's really upset that her love was almost seriously injured. Yeah.

But she goes, oh, don't start acting as though you understand Quidditch. You'll only embarrass yourself. And that seems to be based in temper. Right.

Also, Jenny is defending the impulsive behavior because in that moment, which is this whole idea of impulsivity, this push, this urge, in that moment, it's what had to be done. There isn't the forethought. There isn't the idea of the consequences that will come later. There was no way for Harry in the boys' bathroom to plan for all of the Quidditch games he was about to lose access to because of his detention. There was only the decision to be made to be

block himself from a spell that was being cast and to cast one back in that duel. Yeah. It's just interesting to me because this is, again, another form of impulsivity, right? We've been talking about all of the ways that simmering can turn into boiling over or something can happen all of a sudden that can make you have to act impulsively. But this is like, you

You are just stressed, right? And we know this. Stress leads us to making bad decisions, right? Our energy is actually a finite resource and maturity takes a ton of energy. And so if you are stressed because someone you really care about was almost tortured, you're not going to be your best self and might act impulsively in a way that you wouldn't normally act and in a way that you might not be proud of later.

Right. And the impulsivity that Ginny exhibits here is pretty effective. Hermione stops talking. I mean, this is where the conversation stops. So it works. It works in this moment. I think Ginny oversteps here. I want to be clear. But I do love when people are like, hey, this is an extraordinary circumstance. Your usual record, not for here. I like people who are like, this was an emergency. We got to change our behavior. Rude, but good vibe. Yeah, agreed.

Ginny is perfect. Courtney, we are going to do our sacred reading practice of Florilegia today in which we are each going to share a sentence that sparkled up to us from the chapter and put them in conversation with each other. What sentence sparkled up to you? So the sentence that I chose says, it did not occur to Harry for a second to disobey. Where is that from in the chapter? So this is a moment when Snape tells Harry to wait for

for him and Harry is just standing in the boys bathroom which the floor is just drenched in blood and water and Harry is frozen in place by this violent act that he's just committed and calculating how this could have happened thinking about next steps and waiting for Snape to come back and essentially you know dole out his punishment and what about this sparkled up at you

I think that the way that the sentence is phrased actually sparkled up at me. It did not occur to him for a second. So after he's being told to stay, to wait here, it's like, yeah, I wasn't going to go anywhere. Here I am with a classmate that I almost killed. Like there's nowhere for me to go but to wait and see like what the adult in the room is going to do in this moment. Because Snape has just rushed in and helped.

Even though he's helped in an angry way, he's saved Draco right in front of Harry's eyes. And so just the mental computation that's happening with Harry in that moment made it really stand out for me because he's just had a really traumatic and high adrenaline event. And now he's just standing and waiting. Yeah.

Yeah, it also implies that it does usually occur to Harry to disobey Snape. And to question authority in general. I mean, yeah, he's done it with other professors. He's done it with Snape, but not in this moment. In this moment, he is frozen. Yeah, and which gets to what we were talking about at the end of our theme conversation. Like, this was an emergency, right? This was something so big that people are acting out of character. Right. Yeah.

So I picked the sentence, he attempted it whenever he was in the vicinity, but no matter how he reworded his request, the wall remained firmly doorless.

And so this is Harry walking by the Room of Requirement. At this point, he isn't stalking Draco as much. It's just whenever he's nearby, he's going to take the opportunity to just try to open the Room of Requirement to try to see what Draco is up to. And it spoke to me of like something almost superstitious or religious, right? Like if an ambulance drives by, I always like,

take a moment to just wish well the person who's in the ambulance or any sort of superstitious move that I do, right? Like in Judaism, if you like drop your prayer book or whenever you bring it in or out of a box, you're supposed to like kiss the prayer book.

religious. It's just something that was drilled into me as a kid. And I just unpacked my box with my prayer book in it. And I kissed my prayer book, right? Like just these, these things that are like in your DNA and that you just sort of like do automatically. And that stalking Draco has become that to Harry. It's become something so drilled into him that,

That it's like a prayer, right? It's like a devotional. Yeah, an incantation. Yeah, an incantation. He cannot help it. And it's obsessive, but it's also almost ritualized at this point.

Right. And it's practical. He's in the vicinity. You know, if I walk by the mailbox, I should open it and see if there's any mail in there. Yeah. Yeah. Peter's grandmother had a rule like you never leave a room with empty hands. Right. Like there's always something to move. You can always clear a dish, bring a dish.

And like now, anytime I like walk through a doorway, I'm like, oh, no empty hands, right? Just these like ways that space can remind us to do certain actions. Yeah, as a signal. Yeah. Yeah.

the two sentences together okay it did not occur to harry for a second to disobey he attempted it whenever he was in the vicinity but no matter how he reworded his request the wall remained firmly doorless i love these two sentences together yeah what do you like about them

Because it's like he's been ordered to attempt it every time he's in the vicinity, but the order has come from within the house, right? Like, it's like a compulsion, right? It didn't occur to him to disobey this promise that he had made himself to always try. Because this is not an order that came from outside. Everybody has actually told him to stop. Dumbledore has told him to stop. Hermione has told him to stop. That it won't work. Harry has already done everything he can with Dobby and Creature following him.

And so this like is an order that comes from within, but it won't occur to him to go against his instinct. Yeah, it solidifies the impulsivity for Harry. The fact that this is, like you said, kind of baked in to the routine. It's standard practice. It's what he's just led to do and compelled to do maybe even.

Yeah, when my younger brother made it onto the varsity baseball team, his coach had a rule that during commercial breaks, oh my God, Courtney, this is coming back to me with so much anger. During commercial breaks, they should have either been doing push-ups or sit-ups. And it went on for years after Jonathan was no longer on the baseball team, a commercial would come on and he would just start doing push-ups and sit-ups.

And I was like, you are not on the team anymore. And he's like, I don't know. I just hear an ad. Right. I'm just like, I got it. I got to do it. Right. Right. Like our bodies just start remembering these things. Yeah. And yeah, at some point, like the calls coming from inside the house.

Right. Well, let's flip them. Okay. He attempted it whenever he was in the vicinity, but no matter how he reworded his request, the wall remained firmly doorless. It did not occur to Harry for a second to disobey. Yeah, this time it feels like he's been told specifically to leave the room of requirement alone.

Yes, it sure does. Do you hear that? It sounds like McGonagall has said, I've seen you out there. I know that you're looking and I'm asking you to stop. Please let this go. Like it's crippling your academics. It's distracting you from Quidditch. It's making you more irritable. And he's like, no, I'm still going to do it. Every time I'm near it, I'm going to just try and see if it opens for me. Just try one more time.

I hear it a little differently that the wall remained firmly doorless. It didn't occur to Harry for a second to disobey that this is the time he's going to stop is what it sounds like to me. Okay. The wall remained firmly doorless even this time. Okay. And so Harry is like, do you know what? It's not even, I'm going to give up. I'm going to give up, which we know is super not what happens with that.

I think that that happens too, right? Where for one reason or another, you just stop banging your head against the wall. Right. Usually it's because you've had some form of acceptance or another lead, you know? Yeah. That's what he needs. He just needs a lead from Draco and he just can't get it. Thank you so much for doing Floralegia with me. Yeah, of course. It was my pleasure. Hey, guys.

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Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com. This week's voicemail is from Julia. Hi, my name is Julia. I'm calling from Roslindale, Massachusetts. And I just first want to say how grateful I am for this podcast. I've been listening for many, many years.

I've been thinking a lot about Arthur Weasley as we move through the books. When he and the kids go to the Quidditch World Cup, they're not able to get a message back to Molly telling her that they're okay after the upset. And we see a bunch of other situations where the trio is not able to communicate in any safe manner with the adults in their lives. Owls that get intercepted, fires that are monitored, so on and so on.

But when we get to book seven, Arthur sends a patroness to let the kids know that the Weasley family is okay. And I have to think that he and Molly decided after the Quidditch World Cup or...

maybe after Voldemort's rise, that they needed a new unmonitored means of communication. And so over the course of that couple of years, he learned what must be a pretty complex bit of magic because Hermione, who quickly masters all sorts of things, struggles with this spell so much that she only says she thinks she can do it and we never actually see her try. I'm recording this about...

a week and a half after the presidential election in the U.S. and in this moment of worrying about what's to come and worrying honestly that a war is starting, I just want to bless anybody who is learning something new and especially learning something new about how to hold and build and maintain community, especially when our current means of communication feel like they could be monitored or under threat in the near future.

So a blessing for Arthur Weasley for the work that he's doing off page to safely communicate with his loved ones and a blessing to everybody thinking about that right now. Thank you for everything that you do. It has been a great comfort to turn to fiction with you in this particular moment.

Julia, thank you so much for this voicemail. I think that, yeah, being called in to communicate is always a really good thing. And I agree with you that no matter how stressed Arthur gets, this is something that he really prioritizes and can be a great model for us. So thank you so much for this great voicemail. Yeah. Thanks, Julia.

Courtney, we now get to offer blessings. I'm going to go first because I'm so excited about my blessing. Yay. Okay, let's go. You might not remember, but the first time we read through the series, I didn't bless men. I was really committed to lifting up women. I do remember. And I really loved that commitment. But I just remember so desperately wanting to offer this blessing however many years ago. And now here I am and I get to offer it. And that is for our beautiful Dean. Is having such love.

a bad week. And at least from what we see, he is handling it really well. He first gets dumped by Ginny for something he didn't do.

Right. They were on the rocks anyway. But Harry nudged her through the portrait hole. And she thinks that Dean was helping her through the portrait hole, even though she'd given him feedback that she does not need his help through the portrait hole. And so she breaks up with him because he's like, I didn't do that. And she's like, yes, you definitely did. And I like that just that stinks. He really didn't do it. And.

And, you know, relationships end. But that must be really frustrating. And he's heartbroken because he was dumped by the great Ginny Weasley. And then Katie Bell comes back. And obviously that's really good news. And he's happy that Katie is back. But now he isn't on the quit it team anymore. And he's just the opposite of Cormac McLagan. He's just like, yeah, I get it. Katie's back, right? Like he just gets it. And then in front of the whole common room,

Harry Potter, the boy who lived, kisses his ex-girlfriend. His so recent ex-girlfriend. And I just, like, we all have that feeling watching someone we like like someone else. And this

This child, this poor child just had such a bad week. And sometimes it can just feel like the world is turning on you when, you know, one more bad thing happens. And so I just want to say to Dean and to anyone who feels like the world has turned against him, next week is going to be better. You can't get dumped by Ginny again. Can't get kicked off the Quidditch team again. It's all uphill from here, kiddo.

Yeah, I'm just really sorry. Poor Dean. Yeah. Blessings for Dean. What about you, Court? Well, man, to imagine myself blessing Snape on my one and only chance ever on Harry Potter and the Sacred Text could not have ever done it. But here I am choosing Snape.

Severus Snape. I want to bless Snape and here's why. Okay. Yes. Defend this choice. I'll defend the choice. I don't find myself like particularly good in a crisis, but the way that the text reads Snape entering the bathroom and immediately tending to Draco, um,

There's a mess all around. There's blood all around. There's more than one person in the room. You're assessing a situation. You're figuring out who's hurt, who's in pain. And then knowing the spell or knowing the incantation, doing the vulnerable act, like it says, it almost sounds like a song when he's repairing Draco's body. And that feels like really sobering to me, understanding what needs to be done, taking care of it right away. I realized like,

This is giving a lot of credit to someone who can also be like really harmful to students. And I realized that the adults in the room in this entire series make a lot of mistakes, but there's just something like so sure about how he comes into the room and helps and heals before dealing with the consequences of the other person. And I really appreciate that.

like the urgency that he recognizes, the emergency that he recognizes and the way that he cares for Draco in that moment and, you know, gets him off to the hospital wing. So then he can honestly dole out what I think is a good punishment. I mean, Harry did something really dangerous to a student, to a fellow student.

And there's a lot of violence that is committed against the students of Hogwarts that they can't control. So if there's a little bit of violence that we can avoid that they can control, I want them to be able to do that. So I just bless Snape and everyone who is really good in a moment of emergency and who makes sure that the bad thing that's happened can be repaired to the best of their ability. I see that in Snape here in this chapter. I agree with 99% of what you said. I just...

Unforgivable curse. I know. I know. It's really tough. Snape didn't see that part. Or did he? How did he get in there so fast? I want to know that. Was he lurking? I don't know. But why isn't someone being like, yeah, but Harry was defending himself. Anyway, but I absolutely agree. And I love people who are good in an emergency. And he really does. And I also find that moment with Draco where he's healing Draco so striking. So thank you. Thank you.

Next week, we're reading Book 6, Chapter 25, The Seer Overheard, with special guest Jolie Doggett through the theme of jealousy.

Just a few announcements before we give our thanks. We have a slate of pilgrimages on sale, including an Anne of Green Gables pilgrimage with Caspar Turk Kyle, a Remains of the Day pilgrimage with Dana Schwartz, and an Upstream pilgrimage in the beautiful state of Montana. You can find out more about all of those at readingandwalkingwith.com. You can also, of course, get ad-free episodes on Apple Podcasts or through patreon.com slash Harry Potter Sacred Text.

This was a Not Sorry production. We are a feminist production company. We are sponsored by the Fetzer Institute. I'm the executive producer and we are edited and produced by AJ Aramas. Our music is by Ivan Paisao and Nick Bull and we are distributed by Acast. We'd like to thank Julia for their voicemail this week. Ariana Nettleman, Julia Argi, Nikki Zoltan, Casper Tricyle, Matt Potts, Anissa Ahmed, Danny Langley, and Stephanie Paulsell. And a huge thank you to the beautiful and brilliant Courtney Brown for joining us today.

Courtney, you're so cute with these notes. Okay.