Stephanie: Hello, and welcome to episode 1 of Expecto Podtronum, a podcast dedicated to all things Patronuses.

I’m joined by five other incredible hosts. So let’s all take a few minutes, introduce ourselves, we’re gonna say our name, our house, our original Patronus, our current Patronus – because we all did a retake – and our favorite chocolate.

I’m Stephanie. I am a Hufflepuff. My original Patronus was a ragdoll cat. My new Patronus is a weasel. And my favorite is sea salt milk chocolate. [Ooh, good choice, good choice. Love it.]

Amy: I’m Amy. I’m also a Hufflepuff. This is where you all say, “Hi!” …Never seen Puffs? No? [Hi, Amy. Hi!] 

Stephanie: I used to watch Puffs obsessively. Oh my god, I love it so much. [Classic.] 

Amy: I’m Amy. I’m a ‘puff. [Hi.] Anyway, my original Patronus is the gray squirrel, and my new retake Patronus is the Basset Hound. And my favorite chocolate is milk chocolate with peanut butter, because anything chocolate and peanut butter is amazing. [Truth. Always a good choice.]

Carolyn: All right, and I’m Carolyn and I’m a Slytherin. Ooh, very evil. 

My original Patronus is a tortoiseshell cat, which I thought was a calico cat, but we are recording these out of order, so that’s going to be an interesting episode. [Laughter] My new Patronus is a wild hare, so I got a rabbit this time. 

And my favorite chocolate is dark chocolate with peanut butter, because that’s the best combination ever. But I am also, like Amy, anything chocolate and peanut butter is usually not a bad… I’ll take it. [It’s true.]

Liz: Well, I’m Liz, and I’m a Ravenclaw. My original Patronus was a Manx cat. And my new one is a wildcat, so essentially, I’m a cat. And we probably already knew that, honestly. 

And my favorite chocolate is dark chocolate with caramel. ‘Cause I don’t know, it just…it works well, salty-sweet wise. [Ooh, very nice.] 

Carolyn: My little would agree with you.

Lucy: I’m Lucy, and I complete the houses, so I’m a Gryffindor, and– [yay!] yay! And my original Patronus was St. Bernard, and now my new one is a salamander. So I’m very curious to see if that actually fits me. 

I am actually not a huge fan of chocolate, but I can have like a little bit of like, milk chocolate with caramel. I do like caramel and chocolate…but I don’t normally eat chocolate. But when there’s a Dementor, I will be eating it. [laughter]

Carolyn: Has anybody tried the…Wizarding World apparently now has white chocolate and dark chocolate, chocolate frogs? 

Amy: Yeah. I haven’t tried them yet, but I did see that. 

Liz: I need to try them, honestly. 

Stephanie: We’ve gotta take a trip.

Carolyn: We got the dark chocolate ones when we went. And they’re really good. Really? They’re delicious. This is a lot of chocolate. It’s not a one-sitting. 

Liz: So why didn’t you bring any back? 

Carolyn: I did, but my kids ate ‘em! 

Liz: But did you bring them for us? 

Carolyn: No, I’m sorry. We’ll just all have to go to the new park together and record a live episode there. 

Liz: I’m sending you friendship bracelets and you can’t even save me like, the little hand of the frog… 

Carolyn: Oh no, oh no, oh no, you don’t! You know you’re getting swag! [laughter]

Lucy: This can be a blooper, but my sister and I, last night, was just like, we have so many friends in America, let’s just do a road trip because they’ll probably all host us [yay! Yes! You’re invited!], and we’re planning out where everybody lived. [I have a-Map it out.] 

Liz: I don’t have an extra bedroom, [Do it.] but my sister does. 

Sidney: I do! 

Lucy: Yeah, [I don’t-] we’re mapping it out, and we’re just like, oh my god, we basically always have a friend in almost half of the states in America. 

Sidney: Yeah, ultimate road trip!

Carolyn: I don’t have a big house, but you have a room. 

Lucy: We’ll end in Orlando because that’s where we have to go to the new park. So, this might be the plan for when we do that.

Carolyn: Sounds like a plan to me. [Haha, yeah.] 

Lucy: Or it will just happen either way because we want to see everybody, so. [Laughter]

Sidney: Alright, so finally, last but not least is me. I’m Sidney. I’m also a Slytherin. 

And originally I was hoping that my Patronus would be something that wasn’t embarrassing. So I took the test and I got a Thestral, which was way cooler than I could have imagined. And then…before this episode, when I went to retake it, it said that my new Patronus is a field mouse, which I am…[laughter] not pleased about. That’s considerably less cool, but hopefully it still says okay things about me. I guess we’ll find out on the field mouse episode. 

I like all kinds of chocolate. 

Liz: That feels like a downgrade, what? Rude!

Sidney: It does, I know! I was offended. Pottermore, how dare you? 

Carolyn: At least you didn’t fail and get your Patronus mixed up with a totally different type of cat.

Stephanie: Which is also a Patronus. 

Carolyn: I swear to God, I googled it everywhere under the sun and it was like, ‘a tortoiseshell cat is a calico cat. So therefore, you’re basically…’ I was like, whaaat? 

Sidney: I have a tortoiseshell cat somewhere out there, I can go get her for you. 

Carolyn: I would love to see the difference.

Sidney: But no, I wouldn’t say that this is not a failure. Because I feel like something in my life somewhere has to have failed for me to downgrade from a Thestral to a field mouse, but I guess we’ll see. I like all kinds of chocolate, you can’t go wrong, favorite is always dark chocolate, though. 

And with that, we have wrapped up the host introductions. Let’s get into our main discussion for today.

Stephanie: Before we start deep-diving into all of the animals, their personality types, their characteristics, and a whole bunch of fun segments, we’re just going to take this episode to first explain what a Patronus actually is, and then we’re gonna give you a little sneak peek of some of the segments, how they’re gonna work, and what to expect from us. 

So in the simplest of terms, a Patronus is the most powerful defensive and most difficult charm in the wizarding world. Most people cannot produce a Patronus, let alone a corporeal Patronus, which is the one where you can actually see the creature and tell what it is. Non-corporeal is just the mist that is expelled from the end of the wand, creating a barrier, more or less, between you and the Dementor. 

Amy: Yeah, also according to Pottermore, now Wizarding World Digital, it’s not only “good” wizards who can produce a Patronus. A few wizards of, quote, “questionable morals” have also been known to produce Patronuses, like Umbridge as an example. 

Carolyn: I was going to say, Snape? 

Liz: Gross. 

Amy: Yeah, yeah. 

Liz: Gross. Boo. 

Amy: So it’s thought that this is probably because they truly believe in the righteousness of their cause and find a certain happiness in their way of being, which is enough to produce the spell. Some dark wizards, though, tend to become desensitized to the effects of Dementors, since they’re around them quite a bit as allies, so they sometimes view the Patronus as an unnecessary spell.

Carolyn: I feel like they’re just trying to justify the little kid who pulls the wings off the spider– [yeah] or, off the flies. 

Stephanie: I don’t want to think about wings on spiders…

Liz: I mean, I guess it’s good that they have so much conviction in what they believe, that they so firmly believe it? I guess that’s kind of decent? They’re not wishy-washy? 

Amy: [Chuckles] Okay, well, we’ve got that…going for them. [Laughter] Sure, Liz. [Laughter]

Liz: Ever the optimist.

Stephanie: There’s a sticker idea for you Carolyn, winged spiders. 

Carolyn: Yeah, I meant flies.

Stephanie: I know what you meant, but I’m just terrified by a flying spider now. 

Liz: They’re probably only in Australia. [Laughter]

Lucy: Yeah. Honestly, fair. 

Lucy: So the etymology of Expecto Patronum is pretty simple. Like most spells in the Wizarding World, it is Latin. 

So patron means protector or guardian, and then expecto in Latin means to await. So therefore expecto patronum basically translates to “I await a guardian,” which basically is what it does! It is your guardian, it protects you and it’s all things cool. 

And then this is very interesting–and we do talk a lot about it, and you’ve probably heard already, that your Patronus can change. And It can be anything that makes your Patronus change. For us, it’s most likely just growing up? We probably took the test when it first came out 10-plus years ago. And now we’re all at a different stage in our lives. So of course the Patronus is going to change for us. Your House has probably changed as well. 

But other reasons why it can change, which is a big thing we see in the Potter books, is big life events. Like falling in love or someone dying. 

Liz: That’s depressing.

Amy: Makes sense, though. 

Liz: It does. 

Sidney: I just want to pitch in on the etymology. It should be pretty easy to figure out what this means because we use the words patron and expect in English. So if you’re expecting a patron, then you are expecting, you know, we all know what that word means, expecting someone to support you. [Yeah.] We are expecting some patrons on our Patreon. Shout out to that. So I await your guardianship by joining our Patreon. [Laughter]

Liz: I love it. 

Sidney: Okay, carry on. Sorry. 

Stephanie: Best plug ever. [laughter]

Liz: Love it. 

Liz: We all probably know what our Patronus is used for, but in case we’re not quite sure, we want to have a little history moment. They are mainly used to protect us against Dementors, but also Lethifolds. If you’re like me and you frequently forget Lethifolds exist, [sigh] but they do and they’re scary. And a Patronus can help you, they can help you protect yourself against a lot of other dark creatures. Like Grindylows, are technically considered dark creatures. I don’t know if you could cast one underwater, though. That’d be cool. 

Lucy: Oh, this is when I wish I did magic so I could test the theory. [Laughter]

Liz: We need to test the theory. Someone test it for us. Thank you. 

Lucy: I have so many theories from this that I want to test, but I can’t. 

Sidney: Harry casts spells under the lake during the Triwizard Tournament. Is that in the book, or is it only in the movie? I can’t remember and I don’t want to look ignorant, but. 

Liz: I think it’s in the book, isn’t it? 

Carolyn: I think that’s in the book. [Yeah, it is.]

Sidney: Yeah, he definitely repels the Grindylows underwater. 

Liz: Yeah. But is he doing like, a spell or is he just shooting sparks at them? 

Sidney: No, no, in the movie at least he says a spell. Okay. Casting a spell underwater might require you to be able to speak, so it might require you to have the bubble head charm or Gillyweed, [true] which is what Harry’s using right there, [mm-hmm, true] but he does speak a spell and cast a spell underwater. So if you’re a good enough wizard, you should be able to. 

Lucy: Or is it wandless magic? Non-verbal. [Non-verbal, yeah!]

Carolyn: Non-verbal, that’s the one. See, seventh year, they’re supposed to be able to do that.

Liz: I’m for it. So theoretically, you should be able to cast your Patronus underwater. We will try the theory and get back to you. [Laughter]

Lucy: You know what I’m just thinking now? Imagine if the wands were like our technology, and if you put them in the water they’d short-circuit. [Oh!]

Carolyn: Aren’t they all supposed to be water-proof now?

Stephanie: And then you have to put it in a bag of rice. [Laughter] 

Carolyn: If my phone shorts out in the water…

Sidney: Have you tried turning your wand off and turning it back on again? [Back on.] 

Liz: Have you like, hit the bottom of it? Just go, thump thump…

Sidney: You need to sign out of your wand and sign back in, into your gold account to access the premium features. [Laughter]

Liz: Ew. Gatekeeping! [Laughter]

Liz: Alright. The Harry Potter Lexicon has a wonderful little thing that I’m just going to read in its totality so I don’t mess it up: 

“Lupin describes a Patronus as a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the Dementor feeds upon – hope, happiness, the desire to survive – but it cannot feel despair as real humans can, so the Dementors can’t hurt it. Catalyst Spangle, an 18th-century charms researcher, wrote in his masterwork, Charms of Defense and Deterrence, that the Patronus is the ‘awakened secret self that lies dormant until needed, but which must now be brought to light.’”

I’m kind of vibing with that. [Mm-hmm, yeah] It feels very philosophical in a way. 

Amy: I like the wording of “the awakened secret self.” [Mm-hmm]

Liz: Yeah. But I also don’t like that wording slightly, because it implies that if you cannot cast a corporeal Patronus, that you don’t have a secret self? And I feel like everyone has a secret self. 

Sidney: It’s also interesting for our later discussions that there’s a lot of debate about whether the Patronus represents you or represents what you need. [True, it’s true]] So is your Patronus part of you, or is it complimentary to you? Is it your awakened secret self? Or is it your companion?

Liz: Mmm yeah, could we maybe call it like, your subconscious? ‘Cause I feel like our subconscious is really good at protecting us from different things, right? Like locking memories away and stuff. So it feels like a manifestation of that in a way. 

Amy: Which, actually, that kind of seems to be the way that Spangle is leaning in his research. Some additional information from the original Pottermore writings is Spangle explaining that the animal form of a Patronus is supposed to be that secret self. So it’s actually kind of rare for a witch or wizard to produce a Patronus in the form of their favorite animal. And he explains why that is. And this is a direct quote, supposedly, from Spangle. He says:

“It is my firm belief that such a Patronus is an indicator of obsession or eccentricity. Here is a wizard who may not be able to hide their essential self in common life, who may indeed parade tendencies that others might prefer to conceal. Whatever the form of their Patronus, you would be well advised to show respect and occasionally caution towards a witch or wizard who produces the Patronus of their choice.”

Amy: So, he seems to think that the Patronus should kind of be a surprise in its form? Because you’re not necessarily… If it’s not a surprise and it’s something you expect, it takes away from that aspect of the hidden part of you that then needs to come out. So, yeah. Kind of interesting.

Sidney: Yeah. I think I would be really, really intimidated by someone who had the sort of willpower and magical control to be able to decide what kind of Patronus they wanted to have and then make that happen. That would be really…kind of scary because I’m just thinking about the strength of character that would be required. You don’t really get to choose your Patronus. 

There are some Patronuses that are rarer than others, like extinct animals, and for some reason owls, and the one that we’re probably the most aware of, is magical creatures, such as a Thestral. These are supposedly really rare as Patronuses, but again, you don’t get to choose your Patronus and it might change on you. Unfortunately. [Yeah. Laughter] 

Carolyn: I want to know how you would know… How are you supposed to know the person could pick their Patronus, for that matter? Are they… They say here at the end that you should be showing them respect because that’s… super powerful, and while I agree with that… I don’t really know how you’re supposed to tell, just looking at someone producing a Patronus. [Yeah.]

Stephanie: Which makes it all the more nerve-racking. 

Lucy: I guess that’s the same, like if you can choose your Animagus, which I’m assuming you can’t. I guess that’s the same… Because we do have an episode planned, is your Animagus and your Patronus linked? Because they are coming, deep inside of you. So I’m assuming you won’t be able to choose your Animagus either. 

Sidney: When I’m thinking about characters within the series who might’ve been able to do this, I have to think about Dumbledore because his Patronus is a phoenix, which is one of the rarest and most special magical creatures, and he owns a phoenix. So, is that really representative of some secret hidden part of him, or is he just powerful enough and controlled enough to be able to make it happen anyway? [Yeah, yeah, right.]

Lucy: I think in a later episode we mentioned that it also could have related to him gaining the Elder Wand. [Mmm.] 

Sidney: So you’ll have to listen to the rest of the show to find out. 

Lucy: Yep.

Liz: It also makes me think of Lupin, though. Because doesn’t he purposefully cast an incorporeal Patronus because he doesn’t want to expose…it would clue people into the fact that he’s a werewolf?

Carolyn: Was that? Wait, was that? 

Liz: Am I remembering that correctly? 

Carolyn: I thought it was a Boggart. [Yeah, I think so, yeah.] 

Amy: But I think that’s really interesting, though, because if he could control the form of his Patronus, he probably would have for that reason. 

Liz: Yeah, He would change it. 

Amy: And he couldn’t. So he’s taking the step of doing an incorporeal in order to cover it up. It’s interesting.

Lucy: But if you think about how someone learns how to do a Patronus, it’s trial and error on your happiest memories. So he just chooses a non-powerful memory, and then… [That’s true. Yeah.] I don’t think he’s controlling it that much. I think it’s just what memory he chooses. 

Sidney: There is a little bit of a question of how much, control goes into producing a Patronus. We’ve said earlier that it’s a really challenging spell to cast. And we do know how you cast it. We have the incantation. It is expecto patronum. You say this while thinking of one of your happiest memories. And…there is a little bit of a question of whether there’s a wand movement, whether you can control the output, whether you can cast it more strongly or less strongly. We don’t really know for sure what wand movement you’re supposed to do, because when we have the scenes of Lupin teaching Harry how to cast a Patronus, it doesn’t say that there’s any particular wand movement. And some of the games when you cast a Patronus, it has a wand movement that you’re supposed to do, but we don’t really know for sure whether that counts as canon. 

Carolyn: I don’t think they’re the same in every game either. 

Sidney: It’s not, yeah. 

Amy: Yeah, no. 

Sidney: So I guess it’s just…choose whatever you want to do. In the movies, usually when Harry casts a Patronus, he just kind of sticks his wand out and yells the spell. But… 

Lucy: I feel like that’s a lot with most of the spells though, in the movies. They do just point and hope for the best. Unless…

Sidney: That’s movie lore. So back to that question of Lupin and whether he is controlling the output by controlling what memory he’s using. It is a possibility. Some memories are happier than others. And we know that when Harry fails to cast a strong Patronus, it’s because he’s not thinking of a memory strong enough, or he’s not feeling it strongly enough. Does anyone have any thoughts on, what kind of memories that you would use to cast this Patronus? 

Carolyn: I agree with you, but I would also point out that once Harry can do it, he doesn’t even really think about it. It’s not like he’s constantly like, ‘What’s the good memory?’ You never see him not cast the corporeal Patronus again. That stag comes out every time he casts it.

Stephanie: I also feel like he has like a specific little memory bank where he goes, okay, so this memory gave me the feeling that I got, like, what I needed when I cast it, the corporeal Patronus. So I feel like he has this reserve going on in his head of memories with the same feelings and strength. 

Amy: Does he just always reuse the same memory from that first time he was successful? It’s just always the same one?

Sidney I mean, we do see sometimes in the books when Harry casts one, it tells us what he’s thinking of. And I know that the first time he tries to cast it and he fails, he’s just thinking of flying, of playing Quidditch, of flying on his broomstick. [Yeah.] And when he succeeds, it’s because he thinks about his parents. And he doesn’t have any definite memories with them because he was a year old when they died. He’s just kind of thinking about their presence and contemplating that. Later on, he casts a Patronus, and all he thinks about is Ron and Hermione and their friendship. So I don’t think that it has to be a specific memory. It’s just something that you remember that feels good. 

Lucy: Mmm. I feel like for me it’ll be anything that’s to do with being around my whole family, because we don’t live in the same state at all, and let alone in the same houses. So whenever we’re all together it’s always the best time ever. So I reckon… But I have no pinpoint of a specific memory. It’s just… being around them. It’s the joy and happiness of being around them. 

Liz: Yeah, I feel that. 

Carolyn: And I would probably agree with you, but I think this all makes me circle back to the first thing I said. And part of that could be Harry’s age versus Lupin’s age, but Harry never doesn’t. Once he can do it, it’s almost like, okay, I know all the steps. It’s just gonna happen.

Stephanie: Also, if it is an age thing, Harry could be a lot more show-offy than Lupin, where he’s like, ‘I need to cast the corporeal so everyone can see how strong and powerful I am.’ And Lupin’s like, ‘I don’t give a sh-[censored]. It does the same thing.’ [Yeah.] 

Carolyn: Also true. There’s a lot more that we don’t see in these books that could be factoring in. 

Sidney: All right, bonus episode idea. I’m going to go look through the books and figure out what memory Harry uses every time he casts a Patronus.

Stephanie: There is actually an episode, it’s episode 9 that’s examining uses of it in the books.

Sidney: Ooh, okay. 

Carolyn: That’d be a good one to put it on. 

Stephanie: Because there was also a whole big a-[censored] list of that in this document and I’m like, oh an episode. We don’t have time. [Laughter]

Carolyn: Alright, so with all of that said, what are our future episodes gonna look like? Each one’s gonna be about the same. We’re all gonna introduce ourselves, it’ll be a few of us on each episode. And we’re gonna start with an overview of the animal: basic biological things like size, weight, about how long they live, how many babies they maybe have, things like that. But we’ll also go into myths and folklore around it. 

And we’ll also have episodes that are not necessarily bonus episodes. Some will be Patreon-only, so please check that out as well, but things that are non-animal related. Maybe some comparisons to book references to Patronuses, memories, things along those lines. 

Then, after we’ve gone through – you know – the myths, the folklore, and the regular size and weight of an animal, we’ll be going into one, depending on timing, maybe two different segments. And we have a couple of different ones that we’ll rotate through.

The first one is “The Patronus is Right.” Does the Patronus fit the character we know it belongs to, or do we have theories about why we do and don’t think that Patronus fits? 

Amy: Another segment is, “Whose Patronus Is It Anyway?” And in that segment, we think about which character that we know of could fit this Patronus. 

Liz: One of my favorite segments is, “Is This Ginny’s Horse?” Which is, us simply evaluating out of all the different horses that are or could be Patronuses, which one is Ginny Weasley’s Patronus? Because in the films, she is depicted as having a horse Patronus and I just really want to know which horse it is. And I want to take everyone else along on that fever dream ride. [Laughter]

Stephanie: A horse ride? 

Liz: Mmm, that felt too on the nose.

Lucy: Our next segment is like “Is This the Horse?” It is, “Is This The Cat?” Where we work out, does this Patronus cat belong to Dolores Umbridge, or Professor McGonagall? 

Sidney: Next segment is “The Patronus Game,” where we talk about the Patronus and say, ‘Hey, would this animal really make a good guardian?’ Would this thing do a decent job defending me against evil magic?’Dark magic? Let me correct that. Would a field mouse make a good Patronus? Stick around and find out. [Laughter] I’m gonna vote no. [Sidney-] I’m gonna just vote no. 

Stephanie: Sidney’s not bitter at all. 

Sidney: I’m bitter. 

Carolyn: I think we need to have a Patreon exclusive of Sidney taking it a third time. See if we can get her away from the field mouse. 

Sidney: Okay, when I took all the tests again and it gave me Gryffindor and I was… I got Gryffindor and field mouse and. I was distraught. I don’t know what to do with myself. [Laughter]

Carolyn: I was upset that my wand wasn’t Malfoy’s. I have Draco Malfoy’s wand and I’m a Slytherin. I got Slytherin again. I did not get Draco’s wand. I was a little upset. 

Sidney: Rub it in, why don’t ya? [Laughter]

Stephanie: And then our last segment in rotation is “Patronus Feud,” where we take the Patronus we are discussing and a similar animal and kind of see which one would be the best Patronus, whether the Patronus that is a Patronus can defend its title and keep its Patronus status, or if the other animal probably is a better fit. 

Lucy: Yes, so that is everything that we have for our intro episode. We are so excited to share with you our first season of Expecto Podronum. And before our next episode comes out next week, which is the Snowy Owl, please join us on all our social media platforms. We are literally on every platform. So all you have to do is just type in our show name and you should be able to find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter…And like we’ve said many times throughout this episode, we are on Patreon where we have a lot of fun over there. So if you can support us, we’ll be very grateful. And in the meantime, please send us any questions or stuff you want us to talk about, and you can also find us on our email at expectopodtronum@gmail.com So that is goodbye from me. 

Amy: Until next time!

Carolyn: Bye everybody! 

Liz: Bye, everyone! 

Sidney: Goodbye! 

Stephanie: Can’t wait to take y’all on this journey with us. Remember, a piece of chocolate a day will keep Dementors away!

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