Greg Stepanich

How the wizard came to Bedford Falls

I don't see any evidence that anyone's mentioned this before (but I'm not looking that hard because I so crave originality), but if you look on the door in the scenes in Mr. Potter's office in the film It's a Wonderful Life, you'll see he has a first name and middle initial:

Henry F. Potter.

Now what nicknames are there for the name Henry? Let's see: Hank (my late great-uncle), Hal (the young prince of Shakespeare) and — Harry (like one of the current princes of England).

That means that George Bailey's nemesis in the sleepy town of Bedford Falls is none other than — Harry Potter. A clutching, grasping, covetous old sinner, as Dickens said of another noted miser, and this Harry Potter is a thief, too.

Is it possible that Voldemort takes over Harry's soul, then travels back in time to 1940s wartime American suburbia, there to pursue the holy bottom line, all the while barking at the silent servant because he isn't pushing you fast enough to the door to watch one of your victims descend into panic?

And how about that wheelchair? Injured in a particularly brutal fall from his Nimbus 2000 during a violent quidditch match, the bones never quite healing, and no spell to relieve him?

Perhaps Harry bears more scars than that lightning bolt on his forehead. Exhausted by near-death escapes year after year at school? Confused by his dark-of-night feelings for his friend Ron? Embittered by his failure to be taken seriously as a person outside of his wizardly acumen?

It would be a particularly dark twist of plot to turn a sensitive boy of great basic goodness and promise and transform him into a small-town greed-o-tron and despot. But you can't say that hasn't happened before. Harry Potter and the Incredibly Cold After-School Reality, volume 8 in a never-ending series, and a story that gets told every day to someone newly introduced to the dry taste of Failure Bread.

Harry Potter, having failed and been seized by the forces of darkness, suffers the worst punishment of all: To be turned into a Muggle, in a small town, fighting the battle of Bedford Falls. He even has to lose his accent.

Anyway, just wondering whether anyone else noticed this pop culture convergence. Me, I'll be hanging tonight with the friendly freaks at a Potter release party somewhere, picking up the new book for my wife, who loves these stories.

Happy reading, and keep an eye out for Clarence. You might need him soon.