Harry Potter and the Sacred Text 5.10 - Luna Lovegood: Humility

Chapter 10 Luna Lovegood

Harry had a troubled night’s sleep. His parents wove in and out of his dreams, never speaking. Mrs. Weasley sobbed over Kreacher’s dead body, watched by Ron and Hermione, who were wearing crowns. And yet again, Harry found himself walking down a corridor...

Vanessa: I’m Vanessa Zoltan

Casper: And I’m Casper ter Kuile

Vanessa: And this is Harry Potter and the Sacred Text.

Casper: Vanessa, about two years ago I had the most unexpected thirtieth birthday. I spent it with a group of people. Half of them were my age. Half of them were mostly in their sixties, seventies and eighties--and these were Catholic nuns.

It was an amazing event, organized by friends of mine, called “Nuns and Nones,” bringing together Catholic women religious and kind of millennial non-religious people, N-O-N-E-S. And it was the most unexpected conversation I had thought we would have. I, frankly, thought I was going to have a nice couple of days talking to some sweet old ladies who had done some weird stuff around chastity, poverty and obedience, and that maybe they’d let us come live with them sometime as their houses were growing empty. But what happened instead was I met these women who had dedicated their lives to community and justice and spirituality in a way that moved me and inspired me more than anything that has happened to me in recent years.

And there was one thing one of the nuns said that really struck me. One of the millennials had talked about being very inspired by someone. And as she finished talking, this particular nun said, “Just like me.” And I thought, “What?” And I kind of asked her, “What do you mean?” And she said, “Every time you say something nice about someone else, you end it by saying, ‘Just like me.’ ‘She’s beautiful. He’s intelligent. She’s so adventurous--just like me.’ And every time you say something nasty or cruel or bitter about someone--‘He’s mean, she’s selfish’--you say ‘Just like me.’”

And it has just the most powerful impact. It comes up whenever I’m admiring other people who look really hot--frankly, that’s really when it really comes to use for me--and I’m like, “No, I am beautiful too. I am courageous too. I’m selfish too.” It’s been the most powerful tool of humility, and I think that’s what so many of these women have exhibited to me in my friendship since. I feel like they have master’s degrees in life in a way that I’m still in, like, middle school.

Vanessa: That is an incredible, mind-blowing thought experiment, and my first thought was, “I’m not ready for that.”

Casper: But like, even that, I’m like, “Yeah, just like me.” No one’s ready.

Vanessa: But do you know what I am ready for?

Casper: OOOHHHHHH.

Vanessa: On your mark, get set, go!

Tick-tocking sound begins.

Casper: Okay, so Harry and the gang leave for the train station but they go in groups. And um, Harry walks out and there’s this old lady on the corner, and oh my gosh, it’s Tonks! Who’s really great. And Sirius has come with them in dog form. And then, um, they arrive (un-spellable warp ​ noise, like you’ve just materialized through a solid wall on a train platform) onto the train and ​ things happen. Prefects Ron and Hermione have to go away so Harry’s like, “Oh, let me sit next to Neville,” and the thing explodes on his face! And then Luna’s there, like Loony Lovegood, no, she’s called Luna! And she’s reading something upside-down. And then Draco comes and says, like, “Hahaha, have you been DOGGING lately?” Ummm, and then they arrive and Hagrid is gone.

(Buzzer noise.)

Casper: Okay, Vanessa, here we go. Your turn. Three, two, one, start!

Vanessa: Everybody is like, “Sirius, behave better!” And, um, Draco, because he’s a prefect, threatens to--he’s like, “Now I can give you detention,” and Harry’s like, “Uh, no you can’t.” Luna definitely has a crush on Ron; she laughs way too hard at all his jokes and, like, knows who he went to the Yule ball with. Harry is pretty upset that he sort of has no other friends, because he has no one else to sit with when Ron and Hermione are in the prefects’ thing. And then they arrive and it turns out there are thestrals, and that they’ve been pulling the things all along, and Luna is like, “You’re just as sane as I am,” which is like a famous quote.

(Buzzer noise.)

I didn’t want to, like, overdo it, be like (drops voice to dramatic, Trelawney-esque) “You’re just as ​ ​ sane as I am.”

Casper: Vanessa, I feel like there’s only one place to start in this chapter as we explore the theme of humility. We meet Luna for the first time. You and I have been counting down to this moment. We love her in very divinity-school ways, (starts laughing) I think is fair to say. She ​ ​ exhibits so much that is counter-cultural to our three heroes. But where do you see this theme of humility in relationship to Luna?

Vanessa: So a moment that I was curious about Luna and her humility is about the Quibbler. You know, Hermione comes in and says, “Oh, the Quibbler, everybody knows that it’s nonsense.” I think that there are several options for response in this moment. She’s fourteen years old and we know that she is lonely, and this is sort of the first time that she’s getting to socialize with this new group of potential friends. And so I think that she could say, “Oh, yeah, I know, my dad’s the editor, so I read it.” She could minimize and distance herself. Instead what she says is just the truth. She doesn’t admonish Hermione, she just says, “My dad is the editor of it.” And I think there’s a way to see that as prideful, but I also think there’s a way to see that as humble. Of like, “I know that my dad works really hard on this, and I’m not going to minimize his effort in an easy moment of camaraderie.” I do think that humility is about appreciating other people’s strengths, to some extent, and it’s about seeing the invisible sacrifices and efforts of others, and how we’re all intertwined. Humility, to me, is an acknowledgment that we need other people.

Casper: I love that. But something about Luna and her relationship to truth-telling really struck me in this chapter. She comes out straight away, like, “Yeah, Padma didn’t really like being your Yule Ball partner, you didn’t dance with her.” She’s very unafraid to say truthful things. And I think where I see humility is, it’s not being used to lord over people, it’s not being used to make fun of people or even to undermine people. There’s an openness in her sharing of what she thinks of as truth. I really admire people who, when someone else is wrong, can say “here’s the truth” without making the other person feel wrong.

Vanessa: Totally. And it almost feels like she’s a servant of the truth. It’s like, “I am here to tell you the truth, and I am its humble servant. I will tell you hard truths and I will tell you kind truths.” And like, “It is not up to me which you should hear and which you shouldn’t.”

Casper: And so when, at the end of the chapter, she’s revealing the truth about the thestrals--you know, “You’re just as sane as I am”--we read it as a humorous line, but there’s actually something very generous in the way she’s saying that. Like, “You see the truth, just as I do.” So much of this book is about vision and prophecy and seeing things, and here it is. She sees the truth in a way that all these other busy, brave bodies around her don’t.

Vanessa: So I had an “aha” moment in terms of the thestrals and this theme of humility. Something that people will often bring up when we talk about treating the text as sacred is the quote-unquote “mistake” of the thestrals: that Harry has seen death before, why doesn’t he see the thestrals? And my answer has always been a very technical sacred answer, of like, “Well, he was too young to remember that he saw the death of his parents, so it’s not a conscious memory,” but I think humility might be a much more interesting answer. I think that something that is almost stereotypically true about young people is that they are unable to understand their own mortality. But the way that Harry watched Cedric die, he is entirely humble in the face of death now. He really understands that it could just as easily have happened to him. And so I think it’s not just about, “I saw a dead person, I now see the thestrals.” It is, “I am humble in the face of death because I have witnessed it, and now I see the thestrals.” Once you really see mortality, you can’t unsee it, right? Like, that’s a mark on you for the rest of your life. And it has gifts, like being able to see the thestrals. I like that distinction because I think it is different from saying, you know, “You have gone through a trauma, now you get to see things.” The thestrals aren’t a gift to those who have been traumatized. It is saying, “You’ve learned something, and now you get to see things.”

Casper: This is so interesting. It’s making me think that humility is, like, a particular geographic location in which you look at an image, and that you can swing to one side where you’re swinging into arrogance and you’re swinging into overconfidence, and so you’re seeing a skewed image; or you can swing to the other extreme, where you don’t feel worthy, where you think everyone else is better than you and you also don’t see a true image. And it’s in that kind of middle that humility gives you a perspective on things. And so, like, she seems to embody that in some way.

Vanessa: Yeah. I feel like the time that I hear the word “humble” most often nowadays is actually during the Academy Awards or any sort of awards performance.

Casper: YES.

Vanessa: Somebody wins an award and they say, “This is so humbling, I am so humbled in the face of it.” And I used to always think that that was just performative; that like you’d just been given this glamorous thing and you’re like, “Oh, I’m so humble.” (Casper chuckles) But I actually ​ ​ believe it. I believe that winning an award can make you realize, “Oh my god, I am not deserving of the legacy of this award, and yet I’m also so proud of it.” That it’s, “I worked hard. That doesn’t make me as good of an actress as Audrey Hepburn, she is a goddess!” But it also means that you finally see Audrey Hepburn as a human and not a goddess! Right? Being humble is--to your exact point--it’s about recalibrating. “I’m not better than death, but nobody is better than death.” So I wonder if, for Luna, it was, “My mom, who was everything, isn’t better than death, so I won’t be better than death.”

Casper: It’s making me think about--you know, we’ve just had this moment where Hermione and Ron and are raised, right? They’ve just received their Academy Award in a prefect’s badge. But maybe there’s also some grappling with their new power and responsibilities, especially as Pansy and Draco are already abusing their power by kind of baiting Harry. Ron’s like, “Well, I’m going to get in there before Draco does, I’m going to hurt his friends before he hurts mine.” You know, he’s not really navigating this new power with the humility that is needed.

Vanessa: Right. Yeah, and the thing that occurred to me was that you would think that the fact that Draco and Pansy, two people who they don’t respect at all, have gotten the same award as them, would be slightly humbling. Of, like, “Oh, I guess this isn’t that great of a thing. One person just makes a selection, and it’s Snape, who I don’t respect, in this case.” I think the fact that Pansy and Draco are A.) chosen, and then B.) allowed so easily to abuse this power would minimize the, like, glamor of the prefect’s badge. Anybody can be prefect, even Draco!

Casper: Well, so, can we just add this to a chapter of failed pedagogy at Hogwarts? I mean, who lets hundreds of children, in a fast-hurtling train across space and time, be without any sort of supervision? I mean, honestly.

Vanessa: And then the supervisors are prefects, who’ve been--there’s been no orientation!

Casper: Yeah!

Vanessa: I mean, they get their quote-unquote “training” from the head boy and girl, but there’s no authority. Right? Like, Dumbledore isn’t saying, “This is our school culture, this is what we believe in.” I’ve been a proctor now--this is my seventh year proctoring--and every year I resent it, but I have to sit through an orientation. And, like, the top deans come, and are like, “You represent the college on a cultural level, and therefore we all have to be on the same page.” And as annoying as that is, I also think it’s necessary.

Casper: That’s interesting, actually. So like, without knowing what to do, it’s actually hard to be humble. If you don’t know where the line of authority is, you don’t know where you can kind of give some grace or be a real stickler. They’re set up to fail.

Vanessa: Oh, yeah! Ron is basically like, “Well, I don’t want to be Percy, so I guess I’ll be Draco?” I don’t--like, he has no navigational tools as to how to handle this. What do you make of the moment that Hermione says to Fred and George, like, “Yeah, I could give you detention.”

Casper: Okay, so here’s a thing I want to talk about, which is the relationship between gender and humility. Because there’s a couple of moments, and I think this is one. So the twins are kind of testing their new boundaries with this person who’s younger than them, who’s like their younger brother’s friend, there’s a familial connection, but now has been raised in status and can kind of hand out some form of punishments to them. I feel like Hermione is having to...she doesn’t outright say, “Yes, I’m going to give you detentions,” but she’s also not letting them feel like they can get away with anything. Right? She’s pushing back to some extent, because if she didn’t, then that new status would mean nothing. She has to back up this new thing in a way a boy I don’t think would.

Vanessa: Yeah. It’s so funny: We went to synagogue every week growing up, and I only remember one sermon from my entire childhood. And god only knows what I was doing in temple that I don’t remember anything else. But the one sermon I remember--I was definitely eight or under--and I remember the rabbi talking about how important humility is amongst ourselves as Jews. That we as a tribe, basically, need to be humble with one another. But as a minority group, when we are outside of our tribe, that we aren’t to be humble, that we need to be protecting ourselves. And I think that a lot of those conversations happen, either internally or externally, as marginalized groups. Because even if you are humble, your humility will be seen as weakness--

Casper: Exactly.

Vanessa: --once you are outside of your group.

Casper: I think that’s exactly right. And I think that’s happening right here with Hermione, in that she’s like, “I cannot be read as weak, and so I have to push back.” And I mean, she navigates this so skillfully, because she doesn’t do it without risking the relationship. Ugh, Hermione is just so good.

Vanessa: And she doesn’t do it head-on, right? Like, she’s sort of under her breath, like--

Casper: Exactly.

Vanessa: “I could. Just want to remind you, actually I could.” She doesn’t say, “AND I WILL! You better watch out!” But she’s just like, “Yeah, that’s right, and don’t you forget it.”

Casper: Yeah. Exactly. So I want to think about the twins a little bit more. They are the only ones, except possibly for Ginny, who don’t become prefects, and they’re the ones who are most disruptive intentionally to the school system. Right? Ron and Ginny are incredible heroes, and of course the older kids are as well--apart from Percy, at least for a long time--in fighting Voldemort. But the twins are really the ones who take on the school administration. And so I think there’s something here--and this is what, again, I learned from the nuns, is that the more you’re elevated in positional power, the harder it becomes to actually defend the mission or the integrity of an institution. If you are, you know, the school president, you have to follow the dollars and the fundraising much more than the mission because it’s literally your job. If you’re a priest, or if you’re a bishop, or if you’re even the Pope, your job becomes institutional maintenance. Now, if you’re a nun, if you’re a woman in the Catholic church, you have very very little positional power. And so you can have more integrity to the cause in a way that I think the twins are going to have, especially during this book. They stand for what the school should be for and are willing to risk much more because of their humble position. Does that make sense?

Vanessa: Yeah. I mean, arguably they’re not risking as much.

Casper: That’s right!

Vanessa: In that, part of that is maintaining a sense of nothing to risk. Right? I mean, throughout my entire twenties, I completely intentionally did not own things. And so every time I would move, there was no risk. Moving took no effort. It was two suitcases.

Casper: So smart.

Vanessa: And now in my thirties, that is LONG gone, right? There’s more to risk, which means I’m stuck more, which means I’m more comfortable. My books are around me. I have a dog now, so I have more joy in my life. But it also means I can’t just move across the world because an opportunity comes. There’s a real loss in that. And yeah, they’re obviously so bright, and so able to do anything. If they wanted to be prefects and rule-followers, they could have been. They have made this choice.

Casper: Right. Exactly.

Vanessa: So Casper, we don’t usually do this, but I would like to go back to the beginning of the chapter.

Casper: Yeah!

Vanessa: So it says very early in the chapter that Harry feels so excited because he really is going back to Hogwarts.

Casper: Right.

Vanessa: And it seems almost as if, the way it’s written, that he didn’t believe it until the day they’re leaving. He’s really going to get to go back. Which is a very humble thought. Every other student just, all summer, is like, “I’m going back to Hogwarts this fall.”

Casper: “Just another day!”

Vanessa: Right! And because it was taken away from Harry, he has this newfound humility and appreciation that he probably hasn’t had since year one, that he gets to go back to Hogwarts. And it just occurred to me that humility comes from perspective--again, to the point you made earlier. And I think that humility also leads to gratitude, because I think Harry has realized going to Hogwarts is a privilege, not a right, and it’s not something he is entitled to. Just like none of us are entitled to water coming out of the faucet. Right? That is contingent upon rainfall and pipes and plumbers and so many things that I can’t even think of all of them. And I think we don’t intentionally cultivate enough of a sense of humility to be grateful for the tiny millions of miracles that make our lives possible. And I think that Harry’s clear humility in this moment I think is going to make him more grateful for his time at Hogwarts in general. And I just think we should all be more grateful all of the time. I know I should be.

Casper: Yeah, I mean that’s what I love about humility as a practice, right? It’s not just a fleeting feeling. There’s so many ways in which spiritual traditions try to cultivate that sense of humility, that sense of right-sizedness in the world.

Vanessa: “Just like me.”

Casper: Right! Exactly. Like, that’s something that you can say over and over to yourself until it just becomes a way of looking at the world. I mean, and what’s beautiful about it is that everything nice that happens is like a gift rather than an expectation. But that takes incredible discipline and cultivation for that to happen. But that’s what really struck me about these nuns, was that if you make a vow of poverty--which is not to say that you’re going to live without access to decent food and living, but it’s about giving up your right, your ownership, of private property. Right? Saying that “I will put into communal ownership the things that were previously mine and to try and live simply with what I need, not what I greed,” you know? I don’t do that, but there’s something in me that knows that that kind of life would offer perhaps even more riches than what I have now.

Vanessa: I mean, like, the question is what prevents us from doing those things. I know that I, like, should be out on the streets yelling about teachers’ wages every day. Is it a lack of humility? Have I just entirely digested “I am somehow more entitled to my money than that other person”? I like to think that it’s fear, but I don’t know what prevents me from being that person.

Casper: I mean, I think this chapter has so much to say about that, right? If you live that way, you get called “Loony Lovegood.” Right? There’s real loss associated, with status and what people think of you, with how society treats you. And frankly, if you become too dangerous, you get killed. That happened to Martin Luther King, that happens to Gandhi, it happens to Jesus. If you stand up in a way and point out the inequality in a way that really threatens dominant systems, you’re gonna get taken out.

Vanessa: And if you do it in an isolated way, you also don’t get taken seriously.

Casper: Right.

Vanessa: So it’s like, what good is it actually doing? Right?

Casper: And that’s, I think, the question that’s super painful. It’s still the right thing--

Vanessa: Yeah.

Casper: And I’m just too scared to do it.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Casper: For good reasons, right? People depend on me, or what about my partner, and if you have kids--I mean, my goodness, it’s an impossible choice. But it makes me respect Luna all the more, even if at this point in her adult development she’s still kind of doing it because her parents have done it. But there’s just something so disarming about Luna’s presence that shifts the whole conversation of this book, which--I just love that.

Sacred practice music plays.

Casper: Vanessa, this week we’re continuing with Lectio Divina, and in fact this is our final time for a little while. Inside I’m crying. This is the sentence I found: “Loads of stuff,’ said Neville ​ proudly.

So step one is orienting ourselves in the narrative of the chapter. What’s happening when Neville says proudly, “Loads of stuff”?

V: Does Harry ask him what he did this summer?

Casper: Close. Neville’s really excited--

Vanessa: Oh,about the plant! I do know the answer! Neville, like, proudly shows everybody his new plant. And Harry is like, “I don’t get what’s so great about that. It looks like it’s not even that pretty a plant, and can it do something, Neville?” And Neville is like “YES!”

Casper: “Loads of stuff!” I love that it’s called a Mimbulus mimbletonia. Is there anything more ​ ​ Neville out there that that? I don’t know. Yes! Ten points for you!

Vanessa: Well, eight points, because I needed a minute.

Casper: So stage two of Lectio is to start to think allegorically. What images, or stories, or songs does this remind us of? “Loads of stuff,” said Neville proudly. What does it remind you of? ​ ​

Vanessa: This is probably too meta, but it reminds me of treating something as sacred.

Casper: OOOH.

Vanessa: So I just saw the movie A Star is Born, and I’m obsessed with it, and I’ve been talking ​ ​ to all my friends about it. And there are, like, fair criticisms of this movie, but because I am so trained in treating things as sacred, any problem with the movie I can immediately justify, and be like, “No, that actually makes it even more interesting! And here’s why, and maybe this, and maybe that--” And I think that Neville is treating this plant as sacred, and he’s like, “It can do so much,” to such an extent that he doesn’t see the ugliness of the plant. He only sees the beauty in it. What about you?

Casper: Yeah. I’m feeling like this is a classic kind of nerd moment. Neville’s been probably on his own for most of the summer, right? We know he doesn’t have siblings, we now that he’s not maybe the most socially skilled person at this stage of his development. And so the moment someone shows any interest--and literally the question that Harry asks is “Does it, er, do ​ anything?” which is not the kind of prompt that you would really go in with, but he can’t help ​ himself. He’s like, “YES, it’s AMAZING.” Actually there’s something very humble about this. He’s trying to impress--well, he’s trying to convince Harry that it’s interesting and worth his attention, but he’s not trying to be cool about it. He’s kind of like Hagrid with all of these dangerous and weird and often unfortunate-smelling animals. This is exactly the same. Neville’s doing it with plants.

Vanessa: Well, and he’s exactly like Harry is with Quidditch! Right?

Casper: Yes!

Vanessa: It’s just that there are certain things that it’s culturally cool to be nerds about and there are other things that aren’t. My brothers are so into sports, it is ridiculous. David and Jonathan, if you are listening, you are RIDICULOUS. They own so much paraphernalia for their teams and get into a sad mood if their team loses, but for some reason it’s cool to be a sports fan, and then it’s like, “Oh, you’re such a nerd for loving Jane Eyre,” or something. And it’s like, you know? We all just love the things we love.

Casper: Okay, but I just had a breakthrough because of what you said. Sports so often is a means for men to have a conversation with each other. Like, Harry and Neville are friends, but like, have they ever had a meaningful chat about anything? Is this Neville trying to find a way into building his friendship with Harry?

Vanessa: Yeah! He’s like, “You and I can garden together!”

Casper: Okay. Step Three is to ask: How does this passage remind us of something in our own lives? And I’ll just read it one more time. “Loads of stuff,” said Neville proudly. ​

V: So, I just think that this reminds me of me in every sense of my life. I’m a kid who would become obsessed with things and then not understand that other people weren’t obsessed with it. So I got really into Doris Day when I was, like, six, and then watched every Doris Day movie. And this is not what other girls were doing during sleepovers. I just didn’t understand that it was weird to love the things that I loved. And then my entire--entire--first grade class was in the ​ ​ Brownies, which is like the junior level of Girl Scouts in the United States. And I didn’t like it, because I would rather be watching Neil Simon movies and Doris Day movies and things like that. And so I was the only kid in the first grade who wasn’t in the Brownies. And I just really see myself in Neville, of not understanding that other people aren’t into the same things as you, and that makes you weird. I did not understand that that was strange. And I think the joy of being an adult is finding people like you. It turns out Ariana was raised on a lot of the same movies I was, and she will stay in with me on a Sunday night and watch an MGM musical that I loved when I was a kid. For those of you who are still in your teenage years at home, it gets better, and you find other nerds. (Casper chuckles.) That’s the nerdiest rant I’ve ever gone on on this podcast, ​ ​ right?

Casper: That’s pretty nerdy.

Vanessa: Yeah. What about you, Casper?

Casper: It reminds me of when I was very small, my dad had gone on a business trip to the German city of Stuttgart, and he brought me back a t-shirt. I can see it now: It was white with--oh, that’s interesting, rainbow-colored lettering. Okay, maybe something’s falling into place ​ ​ here. And it was very big, and I felt like, having an oversized t-shirt as a small child--it felt like this sign of adulthood and the future, and now clearly all sorts of gay references. (Both start ​ giggling.) But there was something in this t-shirt that I was really proud of it. I wouldn’t wear it ​ outdoors, I would only wear it inside. You know how, as a kid, you develop all those kind of rules about things that you have? Anyway. It’s reminding me of that.

So Vanessa, I feel like we’ve learned a lot about ourselves today. (Both crack up.) Let’s go to ​ ​ step four, which is where we feel called by this text. What is it saying to us today? “Loads of ​ ​ stuff,” said Neville proudly.

I guess this isn’t revolutionary, but I feel called to--you know, when you learn about something new, to try and see it through someone’s eyes who loves it. To try and imagine yourself what it would be like to be fascinated and obsessed and excited by this thing. Sometimes I look at some science things and I’m like, “I don’t understand this. Is it worth my attention?” And I’m like, “No. Someone has spent their life thinking about this question.” How about you, Vanessa?

Vanessa: I mean, I’m going to go off yours, which is: Anything can be interesting, so maybe what I want to do is choose what I’m interested in a little bit more. It would be really great of me to become obsessed with how to be a great ally in conversations about race. I care about that, but I have not gotten obsessed by it and read six books about it. And instead, what I do is wait to be inspired into obsession, when really I should be choosing my obsessions. I’m so good at being obsessive; why not direct that power? I saw A Star is Born and within six hours, I read two ​ ​ articles and listened to two podcast episodes about it. I should do that with things I care about but that aren’t necessarily, like, as shiny.

Casper: This week’s voicemail is from Pieta.

(Voicemail beep) Pieta: Hi, Ariana, Casper, and Vanessa. I’m Pieta, and I’m from Finland, and I just binge-listened all the episodes in a matter of two weeks or so, so I’m loving this podcast. I have a little story to tell and a blessing to give inspired by your lesson on memory.

My grandmother has Alzheimer’s and is dying. She doesn’t know me anymore, and it is heartbreaking. As she is losing her memory, I’m trying to keep my memories of her closer to me. Little things she has given me--like, I have a scarf that she wore to my parents’ wedding. I try to keep it close to me whenever I miss her, I need strength, or am sad. She was the wisest person I have ever known. Having something of hers gives me comfort.

My blessing today is for Kreacher. He’s hoarding those things in the Black House that remind him of his family, those people dearest to him. So my blessing is for everyone who has a hard time letting go of memories of those they loved, who keep saving those things that remind me them those they loved most. It’s okay to try to find the strength to go on in those things.

I am loving this podcast. Thank you for everything and keep doing the good work. Bye!

Casper: Pieta, I was so surprised when your blessing came in that beautiful voicemail, and I’m thinking of Kreacher in a completely different way. Ugghh, does this mean I have to have sympathy for Kreacher? Yes.

Vanessa: Yeahhhh, you were gonna anyway.

Casper: That’s true.

Vanessa: This is a beautiful insight and I think helps us along that path, but as we learn more about Kreacher, Pieta’s exactly right. This is an incredibly sympathetic point of view that he has.

Casper: And especially that idea of how things become symbols for people, especially people who have gone and have disappeared.

Vanessa: The other, like, sentiment, Pieta, that you got to that I think is so beautiful is that it’s easy to forget, when we’re looking at an elderly person, the person who they were. And I think it’s so hard to both love them in their elderly-ness, for who they are in that moment, but also for most likely the version of themselves that they would prefer to be remembered by, which is them just a few years ago, or twenty years ago, or fifty years ago. And that is a lot to hold when looking at just one person. And I think that is the beauty of blessing, is that it is an attempt to try to see the whole person. So I just want to offer a blessing to your grandmother, in who she is now and in who she was, and in her having been the wisest person that you know, and in now being who she is. She’s very lucky to have you.

Casper: Vanessa, that’s such a perfect lead into offering our blessings for today. I want to bless a character that’s really only named in these pages. We don’t meet him, but it’s Neville’s great uncle Argie. He’s the one who gives Neville this kind of unusual species of plant, and, you know, it’s just another person in this constellation of heroes or adults around Neville who calls forth this love for herbology, and we know that’s going to shape him so importantly. I guess anyone who can be a mentor, or offer a kind word or point in the direction of a good book or an interesting experience to a younger person who’s struggling to find their calling, or their vocation, their purpose--at least for these next few years. So a blessing for Argie and everyone who’s mentoring someone today. How about you, Vanessa?

Vanessa: Hear, hear. I’m going to offer again an obvious blessing, but for Luna.

Casper: Mmmmm.

Vanessa: And I talked about this a little bit, but I just want to bless her for the moment in which she protects her father. Her dad is an easily mockable guy, and she is at an age in which it’s just so easy to be trying to distance yourself from your parents. And the fact that she just doesn’t do that at all and proudly sticks by her dad, I think, just shows us what courage can look like in a small way. And Luna will lead us in courageous moments, both big and small, but I think that maybe one of the reasons this group of students becomes her friends is because she proves herself in this moment to be a loyal person. If the first thing that we learned about Luna is that she would be willing to throw her dad under the bus, then why wouldn’t she throw these other people under the bus? But it’s actually a trust-building moment, where she’s showing herself to be a very loyal and devoted person, and it proves to be true.

(Outro music begins)

Casper: You’ve been listening to Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and please support us on Patreon. There’s a link on our website. We love reading your reviews on iTunes and we’re grateful if you send us a voicemail to [email protected].

Remember, we’ve got some live shows coming up: tonight in Chicago; on the eighth of November in Austin; on the ninth of December in Boston, and then on the--

Vanessa: --Sixteenth of February--

Casper: --In Orlando, Florida.

Vanessa: Teamwork!

Casper: This episode is produced by Ariana Nedelman, Vanessa Zoltan, and me, Casper ter Kuile. Our music is by Ivan Pyzow and Nick Bohl, and we’re part of the Panoply network. You can find ours and other great shows on Panoply.fm.

Vanessa: Thank you, Pieta, for our beautiful voicemail this week. As always, to Julia Argy, Amanda Madigan, Bridget Goggin, and Stephanie Paulsell. We will talk to you all next week!

(Outro music fades)

Casper: He’s like “DUDE, CHECK OUT MY PLANT, BRO.”(sniggering) Probably not, because ​ ​ he’s English.

Vanessa: And not a dude! He’s, like, super not dudely.

Casper: Nerd bros are a thing!

Vanessa: They’re just nerds about surfing?

Casper: Maybe.