This week, we discuss: Quidditch-induced ball bruising; Snape/Filch slashfic; Lee Jordan for President; never tell Hagrid a secret; Voldemort’s eternal grudge against the Weasleys; holiday wish fulfillment; shagging in the Restricted Section; Hermione saves the world one piece of chocolate at a time; the logic of giving children priceless and powerful objects; why Dumbledore would never vote to confirm Betsy DeVos; Fred and George warm and fuzzies; the power of Dark Magic books; the Mirror of Erised makes us cry every damn time; why this book is basically the Perseus myth; Quirrell as Medusa; daaaayyyyummmm young Maggie Smith; Ray Harryhausen rules; the paradox of visible and invisible; fuck Greek patriarchal mythology; the Narcissus myth and queer literature; our “President” is an Obscurus; what Harry and the Virgin Mary have in common; how Dumbledore ranks trust; and is Dumbledore secretly Santa Claus? 

Welcome back to Advanced Muggle Studies! We are discussing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, chapters 11-14. I am Professor Seraphine, and I talk too much!

C: I am Professor Creed.

S: And you don’t talk enough!

C: I curse a lot though. And make porn jokes.

S: Yeah, we did a lot of that last week. But you know, it’s not my fault because I did not invent humping brooms. I just talked about it.

C: That was your fault.

S: Blame lack of sex toy options in the 15^th century. Today, we’re going a little less salacious, but be warned that we will go deep in the crazy zone in the next few chapters. Let’s start with something light: Quidditch!

Chapter 11: Quidditch

C: Who doesn’t love Quidditch?

S: I heard J.K. Rowling didn’t like writing Quidditch, so maybe she doesn’t.

C: I seem to remember from Quidditch Through the Ages that the reason people could ride on brooms and sit on them so long was that there was an Invisible Cushioning Charm that made them comfortable to sit on? And I don’t buy it.

S: That’s an amazing question, because I did wonder about that. There’s no seat. That’s got to be uncomfortable for long games…and the accidents that could arise from ramming someone too hard…

C: Yeah, all the men would have to decide – left or right?

S: That charm is an extremely useful bit of “after the fact this is a thing.” Quidditch is not easy on the genitalia.

C: How would men wear a cup on a broom? Would they need one? Why not wear helmets and face masks? It is a dangerous sport.

S: That’s way too much logic for the wizarding world!

C: There are giant balls flying at people’s faces! And not in a sexy way!

S: I can’t think of a way to make that sexy, so skipping. Aside from worrying about our various characters’ genitals, Chapter 11 starts in November, it’s getting cold, Quidditch season has begun, and Harry is playing his first official game: Gryffindor v. Slytherin. Harry’s stressed, but Hermione pulls through and lends him the very useful Quidditch Through the Ages, in which Harry learns not only are his balls safe, but also about Quidditch. 700 ways of committing a foul!

C: And all of them happened during a World Cup match in 1473. I love that.

S: For all the ridiculous use of Time-Turners, can we not go back to 1473 to watch that match? I want to see it!

C: If there were 700 fouls committed? That was a long-ass match. I don’t think I want to go back in time to see it.

S:  Don’t they mention in Goblet of Fire a match that lasted for months because no one caught the Snitch, and they brought in substitute players so they could get sleep?

C: I distinctly remember that.

S: I love that Quidditch is a disaster, like the rest of the wizarding world. At its best, it’s awesome. At its worst, it’s chaotic. That’s what makes this so good.

Seekers are the smallest, fastest, and most often injured players. Also, referees have been known to vanish and turn up months later in the Sahara Desert.

C: Harsh, man.

S: I love that detail. It’s a good thing that isn’t possible, though. The sports world couldn’t handle it.

C: How do you expect to draw good officials when sometimes they get banished to a desert? You’re hurting yourselves!

S: It better pay REALLY WELL. Maybe that’s why so much crap happens on the pitch. In the movies, everyone gets on the field and no one exercises any authority from then on. Ref does jack shit, adults sit around, see kids in danger and do nothing.

C: It’s the same problem soccer has, where there’s only one official on the field for more than a dozen players, and granted in soccer you’ve got the referee assistants supposedly keeping track of things, but you could stand to have a couple more refs in soccer and Quidditch.

S: Hermione’s a good egg. She’s trying to help, and the one way she knows how to do that is give Harry a book, which he reads – and it helps! She also makes these cool blue fires in jam jars.

C: That’s prettier than a regular fire!

S: I’ve noticed that I saw awesome too much. You gotta call me on that. Too much awesome.

C: I probably won’t notice. If you say it too much I’ve been hearing it for the last 20 years, and haven’t noticed it before. Not going to start now.

S: True. Damn. Well, they’re in the yard around Hermione’s blue fire and they notice Snape limping by. Snape picks a little fight with Harry, confiscates the book and takes 5 points because you can’t have books outside the castle.

C: Which is a load of shit, by the way.

S: Yeah. But going back to that theory about the relationship to books, I love that Harry and Snape’s first significant tangle outside of class is over a book. They go back to the common room but Harry wants his book. And he’s 11, and so has yet to learn what the rest of us know — this is a bad idea – but he wants to go talk to Snape. Oh, Harry. So young. So idealistic.

C: So naïve! Sweet summer child.

S: He goes to the staffroom and knocks, peers inside, and a horrible scene met his eyes. I just have to say, since I’m using the ebook version of this, this section comes at the bottom of the page. So this is what you see, and you have to turn the page to get the rest: “He pushed the door ajar and peered inside, and a horrible scene met his eyes. Snape and Filch were inside alone. Snape was holding his robes above his knees. One of his legs was –“ And you have to turn the page to find out what happened. Being with you on these discussions has warped my mind! I got to that part, did a spit take, and it was awesome.

C: BOW CHICKA BOW WOW!

S: Snape’s leg is bloody and mangled, Filch is helping him bandage it. Snape: “Blasted thing, how are you supposed to keep your eyes on all three heads at once?” So we know where he’s been. He sees Harry, gets mad, tells him to get out, but now Harry has a useful bit of information to bolster his biased theory that Snape is up to no good. He was at least near Fluffy. I find it interesting that Filch is bandaging him up – he’s clearly in on it.

C: Why not go to Madam Pomfrey? It’s baffling to me. I know that Filch maybe had to know because he can’t go in that room or corridor, but surely Madam Pomfrey is higher up the chain than Filch is.

S: I don’t know if they’ve let her in on this bit. I could see why Dumbledore would let Filch in, seeing that Filch needs to monitor students and the halls. If you’re Dumbledore and you’re putting a 3-headed monster in the corridor of a school, it would be useful to warn Filch to keep students out. And Filch may be an ass, but he seems trustworthy.

C: I have a point I would like to make. Earlier in this scene Hermione was checking Ron and Harry’s Charms homework. “She would never let them copy – ‘How will you learn?’ – but by asking her to read it through, they got the right answers anyway.” So in this scenario, I am Harry and/or Ron, you are Hermione, and this is our Physics homework.

S: OMG. The sad thing is, you trusted me to have the right answers to Physics homework, and I was still failing that class.

C: You were way closer than anybody else was. We still would have failed it.

S: Yeah, if it wasn’t for the jacked grading system. I did that too with another friend and Calculus homework. She couldn’t spell, I couldn’t Calculus, it worked out. Harry goes back to Ron and Hermione with his theory. Hermione’s not buying it, but Ron’s on board. And Harry’s got to put it on the back burner because Quidditch, and he’s nervou