The Real Weird Sisters (Alice and Martha) recap chapter three of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Be aware that the show may contain spoilers for events which take place later in the series.
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Another fun chapter.
1- The Smelting stick. What a bad idea.
2- I love that despite the Dursley’s attempts to eliminate magic from their life, the lady who watches Harry is a Witch (even if we don’t know this yet in the book) 🙂
3- Vernon moves Harry to the bedroom when he realises that the Wizarding world, (probably Dumbledore) is aware of how they are treating Harry. They knew it was wrong.
4- I just love the way Vernon takes the family all over the countryside in an attempt to hide from the letters. The line, “Daddy’s gone mad, hasn’t he” shows that even Dudley knows things are bad.
I love how Ms. Figg becomes a more prominent character later on in the series.
I think the Dursleys were so surprised because they were living in denial for so long.
I loved the anticipation in this chapter. I’m listening to the audio version posted by The Reader and I was stunned for a second when the chapter ended abruptly at the cliffhanger.
The milkman was under a confundus charm?! That had never once occurred to me, but it makes wonderful sense. I’m still far in your past, but I just started book two with you. I’m so glad you are sticking with it, the new podcast alerts from your feed the last few weeks, have put a smile on my face every time. Looking forward to catching up with you!
This chapter kills me because obviously Harry knows how he’s been treated his whole life with the Dursley’s, so when he goes to retrieve the mail, he should’ve slipped the envelope into his cupboard whilst walking by it to head into the kitchen. He should’ve known that the Dursley’s would not approve of him receiving mail from anyone! If he would’ve slipped it into his cupboard, read it and then confronted Vernon and Perunia, he would’ve at least known what it said.
I, like DaNiffler, was shocked at the genius of the theory that the milkman was Confunded! It’s these unstated yet logically assumed details I love about rereading the series!
I am loving listening to this podcast because it’s the discussions I love having with my friends about the series and you both go very in-depth! So many people I know love to rush through the words and sometimes forget the detail in each and every moment of the characters. 😀
A few thoughts I have been reading up on and would love to also share about this chapter. Dudley’s and Harry’s respective schools are Smeltings and Stonewall, which both may contribute to the theme of the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone. Just like Albus (white) and Rubeus (red) point to themes around the Stone (see JK’s article on Pottermore for this specific connection), smelting is a practice of metallurgy and Stonewall literally has the name stone in it. I also feel like these sort of themes buried in names becomes more complex and changes as the series goes on, but it blew my mind when I read it.
One last fact, JK has admitted that Spinner’s End is within Cokeworth, where the Dursleys and Harry are staying! Implications that the town is familiar to Petunia at least can be assumed as to why they even stayed at the Railview Hotel.