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The start-of-term banquet: a new clip, and a conversation not in the book
HBO has released a full scene from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: “The Start-of-Term Banquet”, an 88-second clip published on the official Harry Potter YouTube channel, six weeks before the series premieres on Christmas Day. It shows the feast in the Great Hall after the Sorting, and a conversation between Dumbledore (John Lithgow) and McGonagall (Janet McTeer) about Harry that is not in the book.
“The Start-of-Term Banquet”, official clip © HBO. Watch it on YouTube.
“Is he a bit mad?”
The clip opens with the Great Hall cheering. A first-year asks whether Dumbledore is “a bit mad”, and the answer comes straight back: yes, totally. The exchange is in the book, almost word for word. Harry asks Percy, “Is he — a bit mad?”, after Dumbledore’s short speech of “Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!”, and Percy answers that he is a genius, the best wizard in the world, “But he is a bit mad, yes” (ch. 7).
Dumbledore and McGonagall
The second half of the clip is new. Dumbledore and McGonagall talk about Harry, who has just been sorted into Gryffindor, McGonagall’s house:
Dumbledore: The cat that got the cream. Admit it, you’re pleased that he’s in your house.
McGonagall: Well, he is the spit of James. I can’t believe it. It’s uncanny.
Dumbledore: Looks can be deceiving, Minerva. His nature is entirely his own.
“The cat that got the cream” is a joke the book never makes, though it would fit: McGonagall can turn into a cat, and the reader first meets her as a tabby sitting on the wall of Privet Drive (ch. 1).
How it compares with the book
In Philosopher’s Stone, the feast is seen only from Harry’s seat at the Gryffindor table. He looks up at the staff table and sees Hagrid, Dumbledore and the teachers, but he is too far away to hear what they say to each other, and the book never tells us. This is one more scene of the series in which Dumbledore is seen without Harry, as with the Flamels.
The ideas in the conversation do come from the books. Harry looks very like his father: in the Mirror of Erised he sees that James’s untidy hair sticks up at the back, just like his own (ch. 12), and Ollivander tells him, “You have your mother’s eyes” (ch. 5). The point that Harry is more than his likeness to James is the one Dumbledore makes at the end of Chamber of Secrets: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities” (ch. 18). In the series, Dumbledore says it to McGonagall a book earlier.
The Great Hall itself has changed too: there are lamps on the house tables. In the book, the hall is lit by “thousands and thousands of candles which were floating in mid-air over four long tables” (ch. 7). It is now difference 017.
McGonagall being pleased to have Harry in Gryffindor is also new. In the book she is strict with everyone, and she never says she is glad, although a few weeks later she makes him the youngest Seeker in a century (ch. 9).
The dialogue is transcribed from the clip, and will be checked against the episode when it airs. This scene is now on our list of differences and new scenes. See also Dumbledore, McGonagall and the trailers.
