Magical Theory, a Harry Potter podcast

Turn to Page 141, Flight of the Fat Lady. Today’s lesson is called Protected From Harm The chapter begins with the students engaged with Lupin as their new teacher, so much so that Malfoy barely finds any purchase while trying to insult him. Quidditch is a welcome relief for Harry, who is still flustered by being denied his encounter with the Boggart, and is frustrated by being denied the opportunity to visit Hogsmeade. During his isolation, Harry encounters Professor Lupin, and they discuss Harry, the Boggart, Lord Voldemort, dementors, and fear, as well as whether Lupin should trust the potion that Snape made for him. Hermione and Ron recount some of the highlights of Hogsmeade, while trying to avoid making Harry feel bad, when they stumble upon the entrance to the Gryffindor Common room - the portrait of the fat lady, attacked - apparently, by Sirius Black. Music: The Curious Kitten by Aaron Kenny #MagicalTheory #HarryPotter #podcast #WizardPhD ✨Like the podcast? BECOME A PATRON: https://patreon.com/wizard

Turn to Page 123, The Boggart in the Wardrobe. Today’s lesson is called A Time of Fear and Laughter The chapter begins with our trio in potions class, being harassed by Malfoy and Snape in combination. Neville is also a target for the Slytherin scorn, and he leaves class timid and shaky. Later, the Gryffindors have their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class with Professor Lupin, who leads them to a newly found Boggart. The Boggart will take the form of whatever its target fears most, and Lupin encourages Neville to face it first, as it turns into Snape. Neville manages to redress Snape in his grandmother’s clothes, and laugh at the Boggart. All of the Gryffindors face the Boggart, but as it comes to Harry, Lupin steps in and diverts the Boggart, leaving Harry baffled and annoyed. Music: The Curious Kitten by Aaron Kenny #MagicalTheory #HarryPotter #podcast #WizardPhD ✨Like the podcast? BECOME A PATRON: https://patreon.com/wizardphd Want a one-time gift instead? Contribute here and buy us a coffee: https:

Turn to Page 96, Talons and Tea Leaves. Today’s lesson is called Vague Fortunes The chapter begins with Harry ready for a new year at Hogwarts. He gets his new schedule, and sets off on his first day with Ron and Hermione. First up: Divination with Professor Trelawney. After Sir Cadogan helps lead them to the classroom, they begin learning about reading tea leaves to see a person’s future. Eventually, Trelawney herself reads Harry’s tea leaves and sees in them the Grim, a wizarding omen for death. Harry is very upset by this, as are the other third years, before Professor McG dispels the notion that Harry is doomed to die because Professor Trelawney proclaimed so. Later, our trio heads down to Hagrid’s first class as Care of Magical Creatures professor. He leads them in a lesson on Hippogriffs, beginning with Harry meeting Buckbeak, who allows Harry to fly on his back. Eventually Malfoy insults Buckbeak, who gashes his arm. This leads to a commotion, and eventually to Hagrid drunk, believing he will lose his

Turn to Page 69, The Dementor. Today’s lesson is called External Threat. The chapter begins with Harry preparing to take the Hogwarts Express back to school, amidst a backdrop of having found out more about Sirius Black. He wants to share with Ron, but is getting interrupted by the chaos of all the Weasleys, him and Hermione getting ready for Platform 9 3-4. He notices Mr. Weasley’s subtle protective positioning and eventually confesses that he overheard Mr. and Mrs. Weasley talking about Sirius Black. Mr. Weasley stresses that Harry not go looking for Black no matter what he hears, before the kids finally disembark. On the train, our trio sit with a sleeping Professor Lupin. Harry recounts what he heard about Sirius Black before the train stops prematurely and is boarded by Dementors. One Dementor inspects their compartment, before Harry hears screaming and passes out. Lupin gives the students chocolate to help them recover and they eventually arrive at Hogwarts, but not before Neville accidentally spills th

Turn to Page 49, The Leaky Cauldron. Today’s lesson is called Freedom and Security The chapter begins with Harry experiencing a freedom he’d never had before, wandering about Diagon Alley surrounded by witches, wizards, and all things magical. He checks out animals, equipment, books, food, and quidditch supplies. While he’s there he runs into several classmates before finally seeing Ron and Hermione, along with the rest of the Weasley family. Percy has been named Head Boy, Fred and George are as funny as ever, and Ginny seems to have fully recovered from her ordeal the previous year. Hermione purchases a new cat, Crookshanks, while Ron’s sickly looking Rat, Scabbers, tries new medicine. Everything is going well until Harry overhears Arthur and Molly discussing whether Harry deserves to know that Sirius Black is after him and would likely try to kill him at first chance. They hope that the frightening guards of Azkaban prison will successfully recapture Black before the worst happens. This news looms over Harr

Turn to Page 31, The Knight Bus. Today’s lesson is called Rules are Rules The chapter begins with Harry alone on the streets, his wizarding equipment in tow. Harry is taking stock of his predicament when he senses what turns out to be a large black beast watching him. As he nervously prepares to deal with it, he accidentally summons the Knight Bus, a form of transport for stranded witches and wizards. He hides his identity from the Knight Bus employees, Stan and Ernie, but not his ignorance about the wizarding world. Harry learns about Sirius Black, a deranged man who escaped from Azkaban and who killed 13 people with a single curse. Harry spends the rest of his trip to Diagon Alley dreading the legal realities he is facing for using underaged magic. When he arrives, he is stunned to find none other than Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge waiting for him. Fudge is apparently relieved to see Harry safe and sound, given Black’s escape, and nonchalantly disregards Harry’s use of magic to blow up his aunt. Harry

Turn to Page 16, Aunt Marge’s Big Mistake. Today’s lesson is called Bargaining Truth The chapter begins with Harry finding out that Aunt Marge, Vernon’s sister, will be staying at Number 4 Privet Drive. This is a dreadful realization for Harry, because Aunt Marge delights in harassing and abusing Harry, rather than ignoring his existence like the other Dursleys. Harry manages a negotiation with Uncle Vernon whereby he behaves and goes along with the lies Vernon has told Marge, and in exchange Harry will get his permission slip for Hogsmeade signed. Harry’s resistance to Marge’s abuses lasts until the final day, when she concludes that James Potter, Harry’s father, must have been an awful person to have had an offspring like Harry. This causes Harry to have an outburst of anger, and magic channels through that anger to blow Aunt Marge up like a balloon. Harry immediately decides that his best recourse is to runaway, so he hurriedly packs his things and leaves the house. Music: The Curious Kitten by Aaron Kenny

Turn to Page 1, The Owl Post. Today’s lesson is called Apart But Connected The chapter begins with Harry Potter back living at 4 Privet Drive, managing to study magic without the Dursley’s being aware. Harry was recounting his renewed isolation from the wizarding world and his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, when he realized that a new day had started as he studied through the night -- his thirteenth birthday. As Harry reminisced about Ron’s ill-fated attempt to call him on the muggle telephone, he spotted three owls making their way for his room: Hedwig, Errol - the Weasley family owl, and an unknown third owl. What began as another lonely and uncelebrated birthday for Harry, quickly turned to his favorite birthday ever, when he discovered presents from Ron, Hermione, and Hagrid. Harry finally goes to bed plotting how to get the Dursleys to let him go to London and Diagon Alley to shop for his school equipment. Music: The Curious Kitten by Aaron Kenny #MagicalTheory #HarryPotter #podcast #WizardPhD ✨Like

Today we are talking about metaphorical Chambers of Secret, and it’s our episode on book two as a whole, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Music: Happy Haunts by Aaron Kenny #MagicalTheory #HarryPotter #podcast #WizardPhD

Turn to Page 327, Dobby’s Reward. Today’s lesson is called Speak Your Fear. The chapter begins with Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart exiting the Chamber of Secrets and proceeding to Dumbledore’s office. They find a distraught Mr. and Mrs. Weasley there, along with Professor McG and Professor Dumbledore. Harry recounts what happened in the Chamber, culminating with Dumbledore revealing his expectations that Voldemort was involved. Dumbledore shares that Lord Voldemort was once a student named Tom Riddle, and that the diary must have bewitched Ginny. Harry and Dumbledore continue the conversation in private, and after Dumbledore shares that Voldemort must have imprinted on Harry, Harry admits that the Sorting Hat told him he would do well in Slytherin. Dumbledore highlights that it was precisely Harry’s insistence on not being put in Slytherin that illustrated the difference between him and Voldemort, and shows Harry that he pulled the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat. Finally, Lucius Malfoy shows up - D

Turn to Page 306, The Heir of Slytherin. Today’s lesson is called Nearly Immortal. The chapter begins with Harry nervously entering the Chamber of Secrets, prepared to close his eyes if the basilisk appears. He comes across Ginny’s unconscious body, and while trying to rouse her he encounters a strangely blurry Tom Riddle who declares that Ginny won’t wake and steals Harry’s wand. As Harry tries to comprehend what is happening, he manages to provoke Tom Riddle into revealing that he coerced Ginny into all sorts of actions over the year, culminating in having her take herself down to the Chamber. He tells Harry that the diary has been the medium through which he has intertwined his soul with Ginny’s, and that he is finally about to subsume her entirely. Riddle also declares that Ginny is merely a pawn in his new goal: to confront and destroy Harry, whom he is obsessed with...because he, Tom Marvolo Riddle, reveals, “I am Lord Voldemort.” During Riddle’s diatribe, Harry defends Dumbledore and declares that Ridd

Turn to Page 283, The Chamber of Secrets. Today’s lesson is called Things Forgotten. The chapter begins with Harry and Ron plotting how to evade the teachers’ vigilance and get to Moaning Myrtle. As they do, they learn that there will still be final exams, find Ginny to be nervous with a secret, and Lockhart frazzled. Eventually they persuade Gilderoy to let them go in the halls alone, but McGonagall spots them and they instead claim they were going to see a petrified Hermione. During that visit, Harry finds a crumpled paper in her hand, and upon reading it, discovers what Hermione had gone to read about before she was attacked. The creature in the Chamber of Secrets is a basilisk that has been using pipes to travel and parseltongue to speak. This lends even more credence to the idea that Myrtle was the girl who died, given that it was in the bathroom. They plan to tell Mcgonagall what they have found, but are disrupted by an emergency meeting of the staff, in which McG shares that Ginny Weasley has been take

Turn to Page 265, Aragog. Today’s lesson is called Missing Pieces. The chapter begins with Harry and Ron grappling with the sudden absences of Hermione, Dumbledore, and Hagrid. The school is enforcing strict rules upon the students in order to protect against further attacks, and these rules (and the seeming absence of all spiders) are putting a stop to Harry and Ron acting on Hagrid’s departing words. Eventually, however, they discover an organized trail of spiders while in Herbology, and resolve to follow the trail that night. After tracking to Hagrid’s Hut, they go with Fang into the Forbidden Forest. The trail of spiders leads to their getting captured by giant spiders who take them to Aragog’s lair. Aragog recounts Hagrid’s apparent innocence and his hatred of the beast inside the school, which culminated in the murder of a student in the bathroom. He casually announces that his children will now eat Harry and Ron, when the Ford Anglia bizarrely arrives and shuttles them to safety. Later that night, Harr

Turn to Page 249, Cornelius Fudge. Today’s lesson is called Distortion. The chapter begins with our trio reckoning with the information from Tom Riddle’s diary showing that Hagrid housed a creature in Hogwarts when the Chamber of Secrets was last opened. With the lapse in attacks, they decide it’s not necessary to confront him about it. On the eve of the next Gryffindor Quidditch match against Hufflepuff, Harry finds his belongings ransacked and only the diary taken. On the following day before the match, he hears the voice in the walls again, which seems to spark an epiphany in Hermione. She runs off to the library as Harry and Ron go down to the pitch, but before the match starts, Professor McGonagall announces the suspension of the match and asks Harry and Ron to accompany her. She shows them a petrified Hermione Granger and Penelope Clearwater, who were found only with a small mirror. In the aftermath of the attack, Harry and Ron resolve to visit Hagrid under the cloak of invisibility. When they arrive, H

Turn to Page 227, The Very Secret Diary. Today’s lesson is called Telling History. The chapter begins with Hermione recovering from accidentally transforming into a cat. All students return from winter break, and suspicion around Harry persists, despite no new attacks. Ron and Harry respond to a screaming Myrtle and discover that someone has thrown away a fifty-year-old diary belonging to T. M. Riddle - a name that Ron remembers from a special trophy at Hogwarts. Harry keeps the diary, despite its being blank and eventually he and Hermione speculate that it may be relevant to the last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened. Meanwhile, Lockhart introduces Valentine’s delivering dwarves, one of whom tackles Harry in the hallway and sings a musical valentine message to him. Ginny seems especially mortified, as in the melee, Malfoy steals the diary temporarily from Harry. Afterward, Harry recognizes that spilled ink covered most of his books, but not the diary. He decides to write in the diary, and is stunned whe

Turn to Page 205, The Polyjuice Potion. Today’s lesson is called Behind Closed Doors. The chapter begins with Harry entering Dumbledore’s office for the first time. As he waits, Harry tries on the Sorting Hat, who stands by its claim that Harry would have done well in Slytherin and then Harry watches helplessly as Dumbledore’s old bird dies. Dumbledore arrives and tells Harry that Fawkes is a phoenix, and they watch him be reborn from the ashes. Hagrid bursts in and declares that he will take the blame for the attacks instead of Harry, but Dumbledore settles the matter when he declares he does not think Harry attacked anyone. When Dumbledore asks Harry if he has anything to tell him, Harry bites his tongue. Over the Holiday, Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys make up most of the Gryffindors left, and enjoy the extra space and freedom. Even as the twins sarcastically pronounce Harry to be the heir of Slytherin and a dark wizard, our trio finish their brewing of polyjuice potion. Hermione’s plan goes very well,

Turn to Page 182, The Dueling Club. Today’s lesson is called Misunderstood. The chapter begins with Harry being released from the hospital wing, his arm healed. He finds Ron and Hermione in Myrtle’s bathroom, brewing polyjuice potion. The news over Colin’s petrification has circulated the school, but Harry tells them about Dobby’s time in the hospital wing, too. The trio execute a distraction in Snape’s Potions class to steal ingredients they need to finish the potion. Students at Hogwarts, like Neville and Ginny, are stressed about their safety, and Professor Lockhart decides to start a duelling club. Professor Snape, suspicious of Harry as always, pairs Harry and Malfoy together to duel. Eventually, Malfoy summons a snake, who Harry convinces not to attack Justin Finch-Fletchley using Parseltongue. Everyone is suspicious of Harry after that, since they only heard him speaking to the snake, not what he said. Further, Slytherin was famously a Parselmouth, piling more evidence on Harry. Things only worsen, whe

Turn to Page 161, The Rogue Bludger. Today’s lesson is called It Will Be Painful. The chapter begins with Harry buttering up Lockhart, so that Hermione can get him to sign out Most Potente Potions from the restricted section of the library. That proves easy to do, so the trio get the book and get to studying the potion in Myrtle’s out-of-order bathroom. The potion will take at least a month, which makes them all anxious about the dangers in the interim. Meanwhile, Harry and the Gryffindor quidditch team are set to play the Slytherin team. Immediately, something is noticeably wrong with one of the bludgers, which insists on attacking Harry instead of shooting about as it should. During a time-out, Harry insists that the twins leave him unguarded, so he can attempt to see the snitch. He succeeds, finds the snitch, and wins the game, but at the cost of the rogue bludger breaking his arm. Lockhart compounds the problem by removing all the bones in Harry’s arm. In the hospital wing, Harry takes skele-gro and event

Turn to Page 140, The Writing on the Wall. Today’s lesson is called The Whispers on the Wind. The chapter begins with Draco’s cruel words bringing more attention to the writing on the wall. Filch arrives and sees Mrs. Norris frozen, and accuses Harry as Dumbledore arrives, because Harry saw that Filch was a squib. Dumbledore calms Filch slightly, while taking Harry, Ron and Hermione to Lockhart’s nearby office to talk. The three claim they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Snape intimates that their absence from the feast and trajectory away from the Great Hall belie their guilt. Dumbledore declares that Mrs. Norris is not dead, but petrified, and that they will work on a restoration potion. Later, Hermione tells Ron and Harry that she wants to find out about the Chamber of Secrets, but cannot remember what was written about it in Hogwarts, a History. She turns instead to Professor Binns, the ghost who teaches History of Magic. He tells the class about the legend that Slytherin created a secret c

Turn to Page 122, The Deathday Party. Today’s lesson is called Sense and Sensitivity. The chapter begins with Harry walking through Hogwarts soaked to the bone after a rainy quidditch practice when he comes across Nearly Headless Nick, who is upset after being rejected from the Headless Hunt. As he tries to console Nick, Mrs. Norris and Filch discover Harry tracking mud through the castle. Filch demands Harry come to his office for punishment, but leaves quickly when Peeves creates a ruckus outside. As Harry waits, he finds Kwikspell in Filch’s papers. Filch returns and is devastated and embarrassed, and kicks Harry out of his office. It turns out that Nick got Peeves to create the distraction to help Harry, who agrees to go to Nick’s 500th deathday celebration on Halloween. Later, Ron and Hermione accompany Harry to the deathday party and witness some amazing scenes. They meet Myrtle, the Headless Hunt, and interact with Nick and Peeves. As they leave, Harry hears the same chilling, threatening voice as from