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You know how nerdy I am? Earlier this evening I wondered what it would be like if Aaron Sorkin was responsible for adapting Harry Potter to the big screen. So I rewrote the first scene of the first movie in Sorkinese. Obviously the title of the Sorkin Potter film would just be “The Wizard”. 

You can read my masterpiece after the jump.

FADE IN:

SCENE 1A

We open on a shot of Privet Drive, a large tawny owl is perched on the street sign. The owl is OWL NORMAN MCOWLERY and he’s a Harvard educated owl. There’s no better owl on the earth than this one. He is attractive, but awkward around female owls.

OWL NORMAN MCOWELRY flies off the sign into the dark and the camera pans towards an older white father figure man emerging from the smoke. This is a metaphor for white men being the clarity emerging from the muddled confusion of a racially diverse Britain. The white male father figure is ALBUS WULFRIC PERCIVAL BRIAN DUMBLEDORE. He walks briskly through the fog, a bodyguard beside him because he has recently been dealing with a series of death threats made against him.

The camera finds a sleek looking cat sitting on a curb. Albus walks up to the cat as it smartly mews at him, as if to say it went to UC Berkeley and its UC Bears could kick Dumebldore’s Princeton Tigers anyday. 

ALBUS

Not for nothin’, but I can tell it’s you, Madam Professor Minerva McGonagall Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The cat transforms into a woman. She’s tall and elegant and has a 50s screwball comedy vibe to her. She’s comically stern but the boys love her. Oh, she’s qualified at blah blah blah. 

MINERVA

How’d you know it was me?

ALBUS

How’d I know it was you?

MINERVA

Yes.

ALBUS

Minerva McGonagall, how long have you been working at Hogwarts?

MINERVA

Thirty five years.

ALBUS

And who taught you configuration for 7 straight years when you were just a, you know, little witch with a schoolgirl crush and no magical ability whatsoever?

MINERVA

You did.

ALBUS

And are you or are you not on the Ministry of Magic’s Animagi registry list?

MINERVA

I am.

ALBUS

And you want to know how I knew it was you sitting on the curb transfigured as a cat?

MINERVA

Yes.

ALBUS

Just a guess. But you know, I gotta say, watching you transfigure, it gets me every time. 

MINERVA

I’m really quite something.

ALBUS

Yes.

The two characters begin a brisk walk and talk down Privet Drive, which will need to be about 3 kilometers long to accommodate the walking and talking. 

MINERVA

So is it true about the thing?

ALBUS

The thing?

MINERVA

Yeah, the thing. 

ALBUS

You bet.

MINERVA

All of it or just part of it?

ALBUS

All of it: the good and the bad.

MINERVA

Really?

ALBUS

Yeah.

MINERVA

Really?

ALBUS

Yeah.

MINERVA

(MORE SERIOUSLY)

Really?

ALBUS

(with finality)

Yeah.

MINERVA

And the boy?

ALBUS

Hagrid is bringing him.

MINERVA

Hagrid?

ALBUS

Hagrid.

MINERVA

You think it wise to trust Hagrid with something as important as this? What if he, I dunno, stops for a beer on the way over, which isn’t, you know, outside the realm of possibility…

ALBUS

For the record, Hagrid wouldn’t stop for red lights if I asked him for a favour.

As if on cue, a large motorcycle roars out of the sky and lands on the pavement but doesn’t stop as its driver, RUBEUS MCHAGRID, swerves onto a nearby lawn and comes to a sudden arboreal stop. Hagrid removes his goggles and walks over to Minerva and Albus, comically tripping once or twice at the director’s discretion. He also has a baby with him but the baby is unhurt in the 50s screwball pratfalls.

ALBUS

Any troubles Hagrid?

HAGRID

Well, Metro police closed a four block radius around Gringotts and made Charing Cross one way from Picadilly to Main.

Minerva is royally cheesed.

MINERVA

They blocked off Gringots again? Who could possibly have a problem with Gringotts? CAN WE HAVE A CIVILIZATION?!

ALBUS

So did you take Dupont?

HAGRID

I took 17th to W, and then P to R. The little tyke fell asleep over Bristol. Here you go.

Hagrid hands over a bundle which has a baby in it. This is HARRY JAMES POTTER, DEPUTY ADVISER OF MAGIC

HAGRID (CONT’D)

I hope I did you well, sir.

ALBUS

Hagrid, all you ever had to do to make me happy is come home at the end of the day.

HAGRID

Thanks boss.

ALBUS

You can take off now, Hagrid.

HAGRID

I go home when you go home.

Minerva, Albus and Hagrid begin walking and talking towards the porch of #4 Privet Drive.

MINERVA

Albus, do you really think it’s safe to leave him here with these muggles?

ALBUS

You bet your ass.

Minerva isn’t off put by this oddly unnecessary sexualization of her posterior so the viewer shouldn’t be put off by it either.

MINERVA

Things are going to get worse before they get better…

ALBUS

Yes.

MINERVA

He’s going to be famous, this boy, Albus Wulfric Percival Brian Dumbledore.

ALBUS

I’m going to assume the modifier was dangling and you meant that Harry is going to be famous and not some infantilized version of me.

MINERVA

I just like saying your name. Albus Wulfric Pervical Brian Dumbledore.

ALBUS

Yes.

MINERVA

(really savouring it this time)

Albus Wulfric Percival Brian Dumbledore.

ALBUS

Are you done?

MINERVA

No.

HAGRID

You’re pretty saucy tonight, Minerva. 

MINERVA

You bet your big hairy giant ass. But seriously, Albus, every single person in the wizard world is going to know his name, to say nothing of the fact that…

ALBUS

That what?

MINERVA

I don’t know where I was going with that.

ALBUS

Ah. Well, he’ll be far better off growing up away from all that.

MINERVA

What kind of excuse is that?

ALBUS

Excuse?

MINERVA

Oh please Albus, you’ve never talked to me like I’m other people. I’M NOT OTHER PEOPLE.

ALBUS

Look, I don’t want to have to go 15 rounds with you here on the porch, but the fact is that I outrank you and I don’t want to have to deal with you and your thousand little objections.

MINERVA

I have questions, and you know they’re legitimate. Answer them, don’t answer them, but you and I know both know – in fact, I’ll bet you all the galleons in my pocket against all the weird shit in Hagrid’s pocket – THAT YOU JUST DON’T WANT TO RAISE HARRY BECAUSE YOU’RE TOO BUSY WRITING YOUR MUGGLE FAN FICTION.

The debate ends without resolution.

Albus places the baby down. Hagrid cries like a wuss because men don’t usually cry. 

ALBUS (TO MINERVA)

Hagrid’s crying. Why aren’t you crying?

MINERVA

Because I’m not a blubbering idiot.

ALBUS

But you’re a woman. I thought… I dunno… I thought you guys cried about this stuff.

MINERVA

Yes I’m a woman and my legs go all the way down to the floor, but I work here just the same as you and I won’t cry if I don’t want to, can I help you?!

ALBUS

OK.

MINERVA

OK.

ALBUS

Feel better getting that off your chest?

MINERVA

I’m a whole new woman.

The three wizards assemble for one last goodbye around baby Harry. Dumbledore mutters something inaudible.

HAGRID

Wassat?

ALBUS

I serve at the pleasure of Harry Potter.

The other two are inspired by this bizarre and unnecessary show of loyalty, but the music swells as the camera pulls back and Minerva and Hagrid join in.

MINERVA

I serve at the pleasure of Harry Potter.

HAGRID

I servin’ at the happiness of – no no, that’s not right. Uhm. … 

Hagrid looks helplessly at Minerva, his eyes wide open as if to ask for help remembering the line. Minerva smacks Hagrid forcefully across the back of the head as we

SMASH CUT TO LONG ASS CREDIT SEQUENCE.