Too late for an Oscar nomination?

I wrote a fancy proposal for a fancy movie. Now, I know the movie hasn't been made yet, and most of the nominations for Academy awards have already been given out, but I've got my fingers crossed for a last minute nod. It hasn't reached enough of an audience yet that I feel like I should necessarily expect an award... but I think all the people who worked on the project (me) are due for some recognition.

Find it here, at Paper Darts magazine.

Top/Potter, Harry/Gun

Heyo, all! This one has been stewing around in my head for a while. My real stews don’t turn out very well, if I’m being perfectly honest, but I have a good feeling about this one. If it were a real stew, it would be rich, tangy, and brown. (Brown isn’t particularly appetizing, I know, but it’s the appropriate color for stews.) Also, this slash/stew wouldn’t be poisonous. That might seem like a given to most of you, but, trust me, it’s not.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago I was sitting in my closet, watching a film from a then-little-known producer by the name of Jerry Bruckhimer. The movie was about a troubled and short young man with dark, tousled hair. This boy had rare and exceptional abilities, and was accepted into an exclusive school for other special children like him.

At the school, the lad made a sidekick out of an oafish bootlick, formed a curiously asexual relationship with a very clever girl, and found an enemy… and then a friend in a blue-eyed, blond haired classmate. And, of course, he ultimately excelled at the unusual academy.

I’m talking about Harry Potter, right?

No! But, see, that’s what I thought too! It turns out that I was high as a kite from a Freon leak (my neighbor’s vintage refrigerator vents right into my closet) and I had actually been watching Top Gun all night.

But the mix up got me thinking: if I could so easily get these two films confused… maybe they were really meant to be mixed up. Mashed up. Slashed up!

And so, without further ado, I give you…

Top Potter/Harry Gun

The men’s locker room at the Navy’s elite Fighter Weapons School. The room is empty, the showers temporarily dry and free from concealing clouds of steam.

The doors open, and a crowd of boisterous young men jostle and shove their way into the locker room. Many of the young men wear the FWS’s standard-issue sport jeans, the official volleyball wear of the school. For they have indeed been playing volleyball, in a much anticipated intermural match with Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Hogwarts students have been graciously allowed to use the FSW’s locker room, and still flushed with the excitement and sportsmanship of the afternoon’s match, the cadets are happy to share their space.

The Hogwarts students have lost the game. It was a close game, close enough that they very well could have won if luck had gone their way, but the defeat is a stinging one nonetheless. Hogwarts boys are used to getting what they want, and these boys wanted to win. They shuffle into the locker room, their shoulders slumped in their sleeveless sport robes. The last two to come in are the captain and co-captain of the team, and they can’t help but feel responsible for the team’s loss. They are, naturally, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. (Respectively. Ron knows the only reason he is co-captain is because of his famous and athletic friend.)

Ron: Mother-fu…

Harry: Ron! You’re a co-captain! Act like it for once.

Ron: Ah, sorry, mate. I just… I just…

Harry: I know. It’s the worst. But without the losses, the victories would mean nothing.

Ron sighs.

Ron: If you say so, mate.

Ron slouches onto a bench and bends down to struggle with his shoes. He has never gotten the hang of laces. He stays at it for several seconds.

Ron: Ah, Harry, mate…

Harry looks down to see the tangle Ron has made of his laces.

Harry: No problem, Ronno.

Harry crouches next to Ron, and concentrates on the knotted laces. He’s amazed that Ron could have created such a mess with only two strings and no magic. His prescription goggles have become fogged in the warming locker room, and he pulls them from his eyes.

Ron: They make you look like Scotty Pippin.

Harry: What?

Ron: Your goggles. They make you look like Scotty Pippin. It’s a good look on you.

Harry: Thanks, mate, but I know what they make me look like: a git.

Ron: No! Harry, I’d never…

Harry: Don’t worry about it. I know.

Harry stands up and gives Ron’s bare shoulder a firm squeeze.

Harry: There you go. Laces sorted out. Why don’t you hit the showers? The next game will be better. I know it.

Ron: Yeah. We’ll beat these retards yet!

Harry: I wish you wouldn’t use that word. But… (Harry grins) Yeah, we will.

Ron ambles off towards the showers, his mood already lifting. Harry wishes he could be so carefree. He stretches, and scratches his temple with his wand.

A voice comes from behind him: Nice moves out there, Potter.

Harry whirls around, his wand at the ready, prepared to face the shriveling sarcasm of the Malfoy. But it’s not Malfoy that stands in front of him.

Harry: Who…?

But then he places the young man in his memory. He is Maverick, the captain of the FWS team. The boy, in many respects, looks like a stockier, more muscular version of Harry. Harry sees so much of himself in the other captain’s eyes, he half expects to see a vivid, zigzag scar on his forehead. But his brow is smooth and unmarked. A mischievous grin crawls across his mouth and creases his eyes.

Harry relaxes, and sits on the bench to untie his own shoes.

Harry: Er… Maverick. Thanks. But not quite nice enough, I guess, huh?

Maverick thrusts a jean-clad leg up on the bench, and rests an elbow on his knee.

Maverick: Ha ha! Nah. Just bad luck. Plus, the Iceman was in rare form today.

Harry: “The Iceman”?

Maverick: The cool customer with the highlights in his hair and the chip on his shoulder.

Harry: Ha. Practice that one?

Maverick’s grin widens.

Maverick: You know it. Maverick’s a real asshole, but he sure can play ball.

Harry: Yeah… I’ve got one a lot like that.

Maverick: The ginger?

Harry: Ron? No, Ron’s a puppy dog. Well, a puppy dog who can’t be trusted with matches, but you see what I’m saying. I’m talking about Malfoy.

Maverick: The golden snake with the killer spike?

Harry: That’s the one. “Golden snake”—that about sums it up, I suppose. Malfoy… sometimes I just want to break his little neck. And sometimes…

Maverick: Yeah. But that’s captainship for you. It’s not what people think it is.

Harry: No, it’s not. It’s… stressful.

Maverick: You said it. It just builds up, right up here.

Maverick places his thick hands on Harry’s shoulders. Maverick is right. The muscles in his shoulders are tense, and as knotted as Weasley’s pathetic shoes.

Harry: Yeah, right up there.

Maverick squeezes Harry’s shoulders, kneading the tight muscles.

Maverick: You just have to let the game in, you know? The action, the movement… Let the game lead you, and you’ll lead your boys just fine.

Harry: Yeah, I forget that sometimes. Say, I don’t suppose you’ve ever played quidditch…

Ron calls excitedly from the other side of the locker room: Harry! Mate, they have some sort of tub full of hot water, like a… a… a hot-tub. You can get in it!

Harry reaches back to give Maverick a pat on the bicep.

Harry: I better go check on him. Last time he went in the lake by himself, he almost drowned. From eating mud.

Maverick gives Harry’s shoulders one last squeeze, tight and strong.

Maverick: Ha. You should have seen Goose. Until next time, Potter.

Harry: Yeah. Until next time. Oh, and Maverick?

Maverick: Yeah?

Harry, with a wink: Watch your back at the next match. I’ll be gunning for you, bud.

Maverick: Ha ha! I don’t doubt it!

Maverick flashes a grin, and gives Harry the thumbs-up. The curtain falls.

Harry slash Draco slash Fun

That Star Trek movie got me all worked up over the creative potential of slash fiction, and the Harry Potter review put some ideas in my head. So I worked up this little piece for y'all. Just what is the relationship between Harry and Draco? There's more there than plain hate... Let's take a look at a scene not in any of the movies (yet!)

__________


Harry and Ron sit in the history of magic classroom. Harry is hunched over a desk, but Ron is clearly ready to leave. Class has long since ended, and Harry is struggling with a particularly tedious essay.

Ron: C’mon, mate. Hermione can help you out with that later. Let’s go play wizard baseball!

Harry: Sorry, Ron, but I want to do this myself. Hermione said she thought I was functionally retarded.

Ron: That minge! I’ll never understand girls.

Harry: You and me both. Don’t worry. I’ll catch up with you later.

Ron: All right then.

Ron starts to leave.

Harry: Hey! Ron… What’s “wizard baseball.”

Ron: Wizard baseball? Oh, Harry. It’s like muggle baseball, but with magic. I can’t explain it.

Harry and Ron chuckle and Ron’s oafishness. They both know which of them is functionally retarded. Ron leaves, and Harry turns back to his scroll.

Harry: Oh, what good is magic if it can’t write an essay on the gnome renaissance for me?

Harry sighs. He is frustrated and tense. He runs a hand through his dark, tousled hair. His fingers linger on his famous lightning-bolt scar, as his hand moves across his forehead. The scar is tingling.

Harry: Hmm.

A door opens silently in the back of the classroom. Although the entering figure is initially obscured by darkness, the white-blonde hair moving through the shadows like the rising moon reveal the intruder to be Draco Malfoy. Draco pads stealthily behind Harry, and places his long, pale fingers on Harry’s shoulders. He rubs the shoulders gently through the thin, regulation school robes.

Harry, unaware of just who the newcomer is: What happened to wizard baseball?

Draco composes his fine features into a careful sneer, and squeezes harder with his hands, rubbing the shoulders almost roughly.

Draco: Oh, I don’t know. It turned out that wizard baseball is a game for wizards too poor and stupid to appreciate the finer wizard sports.

Harry Potter nearly falls out of his desk in surprise. This would have saved him time, as he erupts from his seat, whirling theatrically to face Draco. His scar tingles like crazy.

Harry, sarcastically: And what sports can the “betters” of the wizarding world appreciate?

Draco: Muggle baiting, centaur riding. Goblin races. Nothing you’d know about, with a family like yours.

Harry: Better than a family that licks the boots of the Dark Lor… “Goblin races”?

Draco: Did I stutter, Potter? Do you speak English? Yes, goblin races. We unshackle some of the goblins for an afternoon, and watch as they chase each other across the gardens.

Harry: That sounds like the sort of thing you’d like.

Draco, sneering: Oh, it is. Maybe you’d enjoy it too, Potter, if you could step down from your pedestal.

Harry, his voice dripping with sarcasm: Maybe I would.

Draco takes a step towards Harry.

Draco: Perhaps you should come sometime. There’ll be free food there too, so maybe you should bring your friend, Weasley.

Harry, stepping forward himself: I wouldn’t put Ron through that. And your food would only make him sick.

Draco: Excuses, excuses. Don’t use poor Weasley as a scapegoat.

Harry: I never said I wouldn’t come.

Draco, rolling his eyes slightly: Oh, really? I guess I’ll see you there, then.

Harry: I guess you will.

Draco: Wonderful. I’ll tell my father.

Harry: Do that.

Harry gathers up his things, his eyes never leaving Draco’s. A smirk lingers on Draco’s face as Harry walks by, towards the exit.

Harry, pausing: Draco, maybe you could participate in them sometime.

Draco’s smirk falls with suspicion: Participate in what?

Harry puts his hands on Draco’s shoulders, and squeezes them firmly.

Harry: The goblin race, of course. You’ve got the legs for it.

Draco’s jaws tense, and his face darkens with intense emotion.

Harry, kneading Draco’s thin shoulders: You just need to loosen up a little.

Harry’s hand slowly trails down the side of Draco’s robes as he walks away, a final declaration of confidence and contempt for his adversary.

Draco, softly: You’ll get what’s coming to you, Potter.

Harry, over his shoulder: I hope so.