I'm imagining Ron saying "turn this stupid fat rat yellow!" and Peter being like I BEG YOUR PARDON

The Weasleys going to Egypt again might also be due to the events of last book. They just found out Ginny has been under a strange curse for a whole year, and Dumbledore likely didn’t explain much to them about the effects, to keep horcruxes secret, especially since he himself is only now figuring their existence out. So Arthur and Molly take Ginny to Bill, who is a professional curse breaker, just to make sure she’s definitely fine.

Prefects are hall monitors, and head boy and girl is class president. Also, my head canon is Dumbledore picked Percy to be head boy because he knew Percy would tattle on Ron for everything, which would tell Dumbledore what Harry was up to, an unknowing mole.

The idea of Sirius Black doing a crossword is just so amusing to me

I’m sure you guys know this but on those copies of the Harry Potter books the giant snake connects them all. If you line them up in order from 1-7 it makes one giant art piece which looks very cool. On the Deathly Hallows the snakes head is shown. It’s honestly very cool to look at.

It must've been a ton of work to turn this around so fast, but I appreciate the effort and care for you fans. We would have understood a delay but you guys always take good care of us, haha. Would be fun to get that live show if we can, but if not, this is still great!

as someone who saw you in Boston, very sad the audio couldn't be recovered. but thank you guys for working so hard to get this out so quickly!! shout out to all of Ethan's hard work <3

I've noticed that Ron tends to demonstrate more concern for Harry during the summer holidays. He is so worried over not getting replies from Harry in book two to the point of bringing it up to his family. This results in Fred and George helping him rescue Harry via the car, while Molly and Arthur plan to get Harry themselves if they don't hear back by the end of the week. Ron also is quick to follow up on Harry's request to call, doing so during the first week.
Hermione, on the other hand, while she is concerned, doesn't think to ask her parents if they can check up on Harry or anything like that. And despite knowing perfectly well how to use a phone, it doesn’t occur to her to follow through with calling Harry until Ron has already warned her against it.

"You've reached the Dursley's, resident wizard speaking."

I’m highly impressed that this podcast did not AT ALL sound like the second time you discussed this chapter line by line together… you’re truly masters at your craft! Thanks for re recording it for us!

While I totally understand you wanted to get the live show online, I personally (as someone who was never going to the live show anyway, flying across the atlantic for a podcast just isn't an option for me) don't mind at all that we have this version instead. Live shows often have pretty bad audio quality, while this studio is really good! So it's absolutely fine this way.

Concerning the Weasleys' lottery win and trip to Egypt:
I always thought that was rigged, not by Dumbledore, but by Cornelius Fudge or the Ministry of Magic.  Think of it: an employee's daughter, from one of the Great 28 pureblood families, almost died, and the Ministry bungled by arresting Hagrid and letting Lucius Malfoy bully the school board into suspending Dumbledore.  Now Lucius, one of the Ministry's big benefactors, is exposed for bullying the school board, and rumors that he orchestrated the Chamber of Secrets events must be flying.  This gives a black eye to Fudge and the Ministry.

Now, their employee Arthur's daughter was entranced, kidnapped, and almost murdered by someone whom their investigation failed to capture.  Also two of Arthur's sons were affected: Percy's girlfriend and one of Ron's best friends were petrified, and another of Ron's best friends was injured in the rescue.  To keep Arthur (and Molly) from raising a stink and even suing the Ministry, Cornelius or someone in the Ministry arranges for the Weasleys to "win" plenty of money in the lottery, and someone encourages Arthur to take the family away on vacation.  After all, can't Ginny especially use a break after what she's been through?

Also, I also imagine McGonagall giving Ginny plenty of private counseling during the coming school year, something that Harry and maybe even Ron are totally unaware of.

Super trick question, because Wendelin was NEVER burned at the stake. The fire never touched her, due to the Flame Freezing Charm.

Dumbledore could have done legilimency on baby Harry 😂

Or he could have had Hagrid do a regular crime scene investigation. He’d be able to observe that James’ body was further away and that Lily’s body was in front of baby Harry. So from that it would be easy to assume that James was killed first and that Lily lost her life protecting Harry.

Dumbledore would have had to have known about Lily’s sacrifice before bringing Harry to the Dursleys, because he wouldn’t have been able to include in the letter that Harry is safest with Petunia if he didn’t know.

Binns to me is the embodiment of a stereotypical older British gentleman, especially of the war generation, who live by the rule "Keep Calm and Carry On" and nothing even death can't keep them from their routine and I love that for him

I’m sorry you guys had to basically redo this chapter but it is appreciated 💜💜 hope there aren’t any further tech difficulties like this the rest of your tour so u can just enjoy it

Arthurs face of excitement and laughter would not change from Ron telling him "its okay, we yell" to "its not okay, dont yell dad, dont yell" between the phone calls with Vernon and Hermionie.

I expect Arthur is more mischevious than we think, but he hides it well so he just looks like the muggle loving kooky dad. When actually, he is trying constantly to perplex people with questions he already knows the answer to:

"What exactly is the function of a rubber duck?" is not a question someone who has bewitched a car would need to ask, hes just trying to wind the kids up infront of Harry and see how Harry responds

I can confirm the Boston show did in fact occur. Y'all did great, it was such a fun evening with you both and your crew!

Personally with regards to how Dumbledore knows what happened at the Potter’s, I think it’s a bit simpler; I think there’s just an Auror investigation in which they collect baby Harry’s memory since he’s the only living witness and they see the scene, which then spreads like wildfire on the rumor mill, and then they take Harry to St. Mungo’s to run a million tests all day bc no one’s ever survived the killing curse and they’re assuming there must be SOMETHING wrong with him, and that’s why Hagrid doesn’t show up at the Dursley’s til the following night.

The Carlin brothers must have gone over all this in their live show, so it’s impressive to hear this conversation sound so natural as a first time discussion.