FADE IN: Hogwarts, 1000 A.D. As the war on magic rages, four wizards emerge as the leaders of a new age. Their names are Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin.

Step aside, Fantastic Beasts and Cursed Child — a Reddit user has pitched the premise of a Game of Thrones-style TV show about the Hogwarts founders, and it’s the best idea we’ve ever heard.

What we know about the Hogwarts founders

For obvious reasons, J.K. Rowling doesn’t spend a lot of time telling the Hogwarts founders’ story in the Harry Potter series. Luckily, fans are more than willing and able to fill in the blanks.

Through snippets of conversation and the Sorting Hat songs, we know that Hogwarts was founded approximately 1000 years ago, by the four founders that would give their names to (and imprint their defining characteristics on) the Hogwarts Houses. The four wizards lived in harmony, until Slytherin and Gryffindor had a lovers’ spat falling-out, and Slytherin abandoned the castle forever.

Related: Did you know? Snape’s very first words to Harry were secretly about Lily

With the possible exception of the Marauders’ Era, the founders’ story is probably the one which Harry Potter fans are most anxious to hear told. Countless (brilliant) works of fanfiction exist to satisfy our curiosity, but now, someone has pitched the perfect idea for a TV show, “full of political intrigue, backstabbing, loyalties tested, and of course magic” — are you listening, HBO?

The pitch for a Hogwarts founders TV show

Presenting their pitch for the Hogwarts founders series, Reddit user Njdevils11 writes:

The founders, as we all know, were the greatest witches and wizards of their time. Imagine if you will four wizards in comparable strength to Dumbledore, all with differing opinions on the current state of wizardry.

We can assume that [when Hogwarts was founded], witches and wizards were being hunted and killed. There was serious religious fervor at the time that sought to destroy any heretical teachings, like wizardry. While wizards are powerful, they are also few in number and mostly unorganized when compared to religiously zealous muggles. In this environment we see the four founders emerge as leaders and our series begins.

Njdevils11 has a detailed three-season outline for the intriguing series, which opens with the four founders as scattered strangers, using their magic for very different purposes:

Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw are geographically separated around Medieval England. While other witches and wizards make their living serving muggles magical concoctions or crafting spells, these four are part of a different class of wizard. Their power and knowledge of magic is so great that they help other witches and wizards. Kings and lords go to them for magical aid. Though great distances separate them, magic gives them the ability to communicate. More and more they are being asked by their kind to help with covert and defensive magic. More and more they hear of wizard folk being brutally attacked and killed.

The Hogwarts Founders – Harry Potter by nami86

After a gathering of wizards and witches to save the magical race, our heroes join forces to found the first magical school in Britain. “What ensues is a complicated story of murder, politics, and monsters.”

At the end of the season, the founders win majority support due to their exceptional magical abilities and leadership skills. The decision to build one school as opposed to several is to prevent any one wizard from building an army (Sounds familiar doesn’t it?). The school is built on the meeting grounds at the close of season 1.

Over the course of the next few seasons, alliances between the four founders change. We imagine there are some romantic entanglements (Helga/Salazar, anyone?), before Salazar Slytherin ultimately parts with the three others.

Not only would this series give us a chance to get to know the founders — it’d allow us to get to know the greatest and most beloved character in the Harry Potter saga: Hogwarts itself.

There were a lot of things the movies did well, but they never really presented Hogwarts as the semi-sentient, magical being J.K. Rowling created in the Harry Potter book series, where the staircases defied the laws of physics, and the walls subtly shifted. Imagine the four powerful wizards either building the castle, or moving into an abandoned fortress, and watching the stones slowly be infused with theirs and their students’ magic, almost coming alive under their feet.

“At some point, an attack on Hogwarts occurs, prompting the creation of the stone defenders,” the Reddit user writes. “We also get insights into some of the peculiarities of the castle like the room of requirement, shifting staircases, skylit great hall, etc.” (Not to mention the sorting hat, the giant squid, and the Forbidden Forest!)

Related: Hogwarts: A love letter

And there are many more questions this TV series could answer: What were the first Hogwarts students like? Was Hogwarts ever left unprotected and in plain sight of muggles? How did Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff negotiate their power?

Considering the popularity of Game of Thrones, a TV show about the Hogwarts founders would not only expand a hitherto shadowed part of Harry Potter history, but it’d be J.K. Rowling’s chance to tell a gritty, dark story set within the Wizarding World. As The Casual Vacancy and Career of Evil have proved, she’s certainly capable of darkness and grit. Just imagine what stories she could tell, playing within the sandbox of a medieval fantasy series.

Would you tune in to ‘Hogwarts: The Founding Years’?

Thanks to The Daily Dot for digging up this amazing story pitch!