We can leave the Christmas lights up til January

This week, we're bringing you a special Harry Potter x Taylor Swift Holiday show and tell episode.

Tis the damn season, so we’re bringing you a Harry Potter Holiday Special episode! This week’s Show and Tell episode brings together two of our favorite topics: Harry Potter and Taylor Swift’s lyrics. Jenn imagines “Look What You Made Me Do” as Snape’s song to Voldemort. Jodi makes the case that “Lover” perfectly captures Lavender Brown’s feelings toward Ron. And Maansi envisions “You’re On Your Own Kid” as an anthem about Harry Potter’s arc throughout the entire series. Whether you’re a fan of the books, the movies, or both, we fully dork out on this episode. Join us!

🎧 Listen above and ⬇️ scroll below to read Maansi’s extra credit about the many other options we had for Harry Potter x TS Music.

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🎒This Week’s Extra Credit - Brought to You by Maansi

I felt strongly about doing this week’s extra credit partially because back in the day, I was the co-founder and co-president of a very popular club at school called Magical Muggles (the unique name reflected our acknowledgment of the fact that we were not, in fact, magic, but also despite our muggleness, we were still magical because of our knowledge of the Wizarding World). BUT ALSO because I would often relate songs to various parts of the Harry Potter series and therefore had so many honorable mentions for this episode.

Source

Here are (magical number) seven of them:

1. “The Last Time” - Ron & Hermione, Book 6. Everyone’s favorite magical couple, who spends 6 books dancing around each other. To me, this song screams Ron & Hermione. Hermione, who was a little older, and just a little more mature, figured out her feelings for her best friend a little faster than he did. And especially with that whole Lavender Brown fiasco, it’s so easy to see her standing there, back at the Burrow, asking Ron to put her name at the top of his list.

   Find myself at your door
   Just like all those times before
   I'm not sure how I got there
   All roads, they lead me here
   I imagine you are home
   In your room, all alone
   And you open your eyes into mine
   And everything feels better

   And right before your eyes
   I'm breaking
   No past, no reasons why
   Just you and me

   This is the last time I'm asking you this
   Put my name at the top of your list
   This is the last time I'm asking you why
   You break my heart in the blink of an eye, eye, eye

2. “Closure” - Dumbledore & Grindelwald. This may be a bit of a stretch but something about the Dumbledore/Grindelwald storyline always felt unfinished to me. When Voldemort questions Grindelwald about the Elder Wand in prison, Grindelwald doesn’t reveal where the Elder Wand is. There’s a level of loyalty that Grindelwald takes to the grave that reminded me of the song “Closure.”

   It's been a long time
   And seeing the shape of your name
   Still spells out pain
   It wasn't right
   The way it all went down
   Looks like you know that now

3. “Everything Has Changed” - Marauders + Golden Trio. I spoke about this a little in this week’s episode, but an important theme in the Harry Potter series is the theme of love and friendship. The Golden Trio’s friendship is central to the series, but another group of friends that came before at the time of the first war was that of the Marauders. These friendships change the course of Wizarding history.

   All I knew
   This morning when I woke
   Is I know something now
   Know something now I didn't before
   And all I've seen
   Since eighteen hours ago
   Is green eyes and freckles and your smile

   James and Lily seemed like an unlikely pair, but from the first moment James sees her “green eyes and freckles,” he’s smitten. James was from an old Wizarding family, and Lily was muggleborn — together, their love quite literally changed Wizarding history.

   'Cause all I know is we said, "Hello"
   And your eyes look like comin' home
   All I know is a simple name
   And everything has changed

   The second stanza onwards also reminds me of the Golden Trio. From the moment they met on the Hogwarts Express, the three friends were inseparable. It was Harry’s eyes, the scar, and just a “simple name,” and their friendship would go on to defeat the greatest dark wizard of their time.

4. “The Lucky One” - Harry. Harry is the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, fame follows him around everywhere he goes from a time before he even realizes he is famous. To many, he seems like the lucky one.

   New to town with a made-up name
   In the angel's city, chasing fortune and fame
   And the camera flashes make it look like a dream

   You had it figured out since you were in school
   Everybody loves pretty, everybody loves cool

   Harry shows up to Diagon Alley (a town with a made up name), is often accused of chasing fortune and fame, even though it’s the journalists who have been flashing cameras in his face without him even knowing why he is so famous. People assume he’s always got everything figured out in school (youngest Quidditch player in a century and all that), popular without trying.

   It was a few years later, I showed up here
   And they still tell the legend of how you disappeared

   Did someone say Lord Voldemort? It sounds all too familiar.

5. “Gold Rush” - Ginny Weasley. I talked about this one in our aestheticism episode, but I always imagined this song to be a Ginny Weasley song. She liked Harry for so long, first idolizing him as a Wizarding World savior in the form of a childhood crush, and then crushing on him as her older brother’s best friend. But in the Goblet of Fire, when it’s clear Harry can’t be bothered to see her as anything more than his buddy’s younger sister, and he’s the popular Gryffindor hero, she decides she “like a gold rush” and backs off.

   But I don't like a gold rush, gold rush
   I don't like anticipating my face in a red flush
   I don't like that anyone would die to feel your touch
   Everybody wants you
   Everybody wonders what it would be like to love you
   Walk past, quick brush
   I don't like slow motion double vision in rose blush
   I don't like that falling feels like flying 'til the bone crush
   Everybody wants you
   But I don't like a gold rush

6. “Exile” - When Ron abandons the trio during the Horcrux hunt in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The Horcrux around Ron’s neck makes him question Harry and Hermione’s relationship. We know this because eventually, when he goes to destroy the locket, he sees the image of Harry with his arms around Hermione, an image which must have played in his head many times and drove him to abandon his best friends. As soon as he steps out of the protection of their camp, he can no longer find them again. They had to “pack up and leave.” Ron instantly questions what he’s defending if he’s not with Harry and Hermione, and so he spends all of his exile trying to get back.

   I can see you standing, honey
   With his arms around your body
   Laughin', but the joke's not funny at all

   And it took you five whole minutes
   To pack us up and leave me with it
   Holdin' all this love out here in the hall

   I think I've seen this film before
   And I didn't like the ending
   You're not my homeland anymore
   So what am I defending now?
   You were my town
   Now I'm in exile, seein' you out

7. “That’s How You Get the Girl” - When Ron finally rejoins the trio on the Horcrux hunt after abandoning Harry and Hermione. He’s trying to make up for walking out on his friends and goes out of his way to think of Hermione and stay in her good graces. I imagine Ron just breaking the third wall to speak to the audience and explain what he’s doing to win over his girl.

   That’s how it works, that’s how you get the girl

   And then you say I want you for worse or for better (worse or for better)

   I would wait for ever and ever (ever and ever)

   Broke your heart, I'll put it back together

   I would wait for ever and ever (I want you for ever and ever)

Bringing it all together

What makes Harry Potter & Taylor Swift so compatible? They’re both, at their core about humans and their emotions. What drew me to the Harry Potter books so many years ago was their universality. I did not need to live in the Wizarding World to understand the threat of Voldemort and blood purity — there were parts of every character that I identified with. The Harry Potter book series is a story about love overcoming hate, and good overcoming evil. These are basic emotions that Taylor focuses on in so many of her songs as well. Taylor also creates magical worlds and builds characters in her music, and her lyrics convey basic emotions that everyone relates to.