Sympathy: King's Cross (Book 7, Chapter 35)
Harry Potter and the Sacred Text
Vanessa Zoltan, Casper ter Kuile & Ariana Nedelman
4.7 • 6.8K Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2026
⏱️ 41 minutes
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Summary
This week, Casper and Vanessa explore the theme of Sympathy in Chapter 35 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! They discuss whether the Voldemort baby could be helped, Dumbledore’s failings as a mentor, and Harry’s return to battle. Throughout the episode we consider the question: is sympathy an action or a feeling?
Thank you to Taylor for this week’s voicemail! Next week we're reading Chapter 36, The Flaw in the Plan, through the theme of Legacy.
Harry Potter and the Sacred Text is a Not Sorry Production
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Harry Potter in the Sacred Text is made possible for you to listen to by the Fetzer Institute. |
| 0:06.0 | The Fetzer Institute offers spiritual solutions for social problems. |
| 0:10.0 | They are offering a new vision informed by both the spiritual and scientific ways of knowing, |
| 0:16.0 | and we are so grateful for their support. |
| 0:18.0 | Learn more at Fetzer.org. |
| 0:31.1 | Chapter 35, Kings Cross. He lay face down listening to the silence. He was perfectly alone. |
| 0:37.5 | Nobody was watching. Nobody else was there. He was not perfectly sure that he was there himself. |
| 0:39.8 | I'm Caspar Tercaille. |
| 0:41.8 | And I'm Vanessa Zoltan. |
| 0:44.6 | And this is Harry Potter and The Sacred Text. |
| 0:47.2 | The Purgatory episode. |
| 0:50.0 | Well, that's our announcement, Casper. |
| 0:56.3 | For our every flavored bean, I would like to know if you had to go to purgatory for an undisclosed amount of time, where would it be? And who would you want to hang with? |
| 1:01.6 | Assuming that purgatory is real, which of course, I think the Catholic Church has disestablished. |
| 1:07.5 | Yes, this is like if you like Harry were to go to a version of Kings Cross. |
| 1:12.9 | Gotcha. |
| 1:13.2 | This isn't time for you to show off your like theological bona fides nonsense. |
| 1:19.6 | This is like we're in Harry Potterland. |
| 1:22.3 | I thought that was the reason for the show for this. |
| 1:25.7 | You know, 10 years in, it's time to establish what the point of the show is. |
| 1:29.5 | Still unclear, to be honest. |
| 1:32.6 | So if you want to listen to that conversation and support us on Patreon, |
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