TBAY: Fourth Man Revisited (was:The Real Rita/ Coherence/ Stoned!Harry etc)

Sat May 18 17:37:31 UTC 2002

No: HPFGUIDX 38859

Severe TBAY warning. (But a perfectly serious, dare I say respectable - no, 
probably not - theory at the root of it all.)

The story so far....

Eloise, finding herself in one of the parallel worlds where Fourth Man is not 
Avery and shamelessly borrowing ideas from another series, has fought and 
defeated the mysterious one who called herself Re-Harakhte, bearer of the 
Great Paddle and has thus herself become Paddle-Bearer. This Paddle, besides 
being a weapon of unimaginable power, is also able to beat holes in the very 
fabric of the universe, allowing travel between worlds in different 
dimensions. As Paddle Bearer, Eloise has no option but to follow the Bearer's 
destiny, and must seek the true identity of the Fourth Man.

Having beaten such a hole, Eloise found herself on a beach, where an elfin 
figure, accompanied by a strange, other-worldy child showed her some charred 
fragments that proved that Fourth Man was a transvestite who sometimes went 
by the name of Rita Skeeter. 

The story continues......

Eloise is tired. It is late and she has a long journey ahead. Having said 
farewell to the elf and the child, whose name, it transpires, is 
Stoned!Harry, she walks on until she comes across a museum. It is still lit 
and the buzz of conversation comes from inside. Outside a notice advertises a 
series of seminars and the first one is tonight. Eloise enters, follows the 
signs to the basement and finds many rows of seats occupied by people in a 
high state of nervous anticipation. If she can just take a seat at the back, 
she thinks, surely she can get a bit of sleep here without anyone noticing. 
She notices a cosy looking MATCHING ARMCHAIR which has strangely been left 
free, and settles down. Strangely, Stoned!Harry is already there, seated in 
front of her.

The podium is taken by another elf, who starts to speak to the audience's 
rapt attention. Eloise's Elfish is not very good and she doesn't understand 
much of what is said. As she starts to doze, strange phrases such as The 
Psychological Repression Theory drift in and out of her consciousness. 

Suddenly, she wakes, realising that the room has nearly emptied and that the 
few people who are left are giving her peculiar looks. It is hard to look 
inconspicuous with a large paddle. She follows the billowing smoke and clink 
of glasses to an ante room, where she finds Stoned!Harry listening intently 
to a conversation about the concept of coherence in some place called the 
Potterverse. Eloise's ears prick up at the sound af a familiar name:

> 'The question I have, though, is, Does JKR *really* put clues in one 
>book that will count as foreshadowing of revelations in a later 
>book?  In the specific example of Rita, is she *meant* to have any 
>mystery about her that survives GOF?' <>
> So, is JKR a brilliant opportunist, or does she transcend the 
>genres from which her stories spring?

The man, whose name is David, is answered by a young woman called Ali,

>'I suspect that she is a mixture of both. Given that she spent 5 years 
>plannning the books before she started to write them, she must have 
>had quite a structure on which to base the books. All those notebooks 
>and backstories she has written to seem to point to more than just 
>opportunism. I think that she has not found the structure to be 
>foolproof though - hence deleting Rita Skeeter from the original 
>Leaky Cauldron scene, and deleting the Weasley cousin from GoF. 

'Rita Skeeter was supposed to be in the Leaky Cauldron scene, was she?' 
thinks Eloise. 'So....the Fourth Man (aka Rita Skeeter) was actually supposed 
to be present in PS/SS.....And who is this mysterious Weasley cousin?'

Stoned!Harry has mysteriously disappeared again. Eloise follows his 
distinctive aura up the stairs into the museum proper, where she finds him 
perched upon one of the exhibits, a very small cannon. The inscription reads,

             'Are all your family wizards?' asked Harry, who found Ron just 
as interesting       
             as Ron found him.
             'Er - yes, I think so,' said Ron 'I think Mum's got a second 
cousin who's an       
             accountant, but we never talk about him.'

Eloise thinks the cannon is rather strange. Why would the Muggle-loving 
Weasleys *not* talk about a squib in the family? Surely they're more 
broad-minded than that. Of course, at the time the inscription refers to, we 
don't actually know about the Weasleys' attitudes. It would be easy to miss.

Then Eloise recalls something else she heard once before, back in the world 
where Fourth man *is* Avery. Something to suggest that the Weasley family 
have a skeleton in their closet. Something that suggests that they have a 
particular connection with the use of the Imperius curse during Voldemort's 
reign of terror.

Stoned!Harry has moved off and is illuminating another exhibit with his wand,

             'Er,' said Ron tentatively, 'my dad told me about one...is it 
called the    
             Imperius curse, or something?'
             'Ah, yes, said Moody appreciatively. 'Your father *would* know 
that one.
             'Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius 
curse.'

'But that's quite innocent isn't it? Of course the Ministry was troubled by 
having to distinguish who was genuinely under Imperio and who wasn't?'

Stoned!Harry gives Eloise a long-suffering look and pulls out a piece of 
parchment which has somehow got lodged behind one of the exhibits. It is a 
message, (#37121) from Elkins which details at length reasons for suggesting 
that Arthur Weasley was personally acquainted with the Imperius curse, that 
Arthur Weasley was in fact a victim of the curse himself.

Eloise considers. Eloise does a bit of tweaking. 'What,' she tentatively 
suggests, 'if it was not Arthur himself, but a member of the family who was 
imperio'd?'

Stoned!Harry gives her a look which seems to say, 'At last!'

This hints at a scheme of great coherence. In PS/SS we should have been 
introduced to Rita Skeeter. We *were* introduced to a Weasley cousin, who 
significantly has (IIRC) never been mentioned again. The whole Fourth Man 
concept rests on the fact that JKR would not have introduced the fourth man 
at the trial unless he was significant. Why did she introduce the cousin 
unless he was significant?

In PoA, we are introduced to the idea that the Weasley family may have a 
connection with the Imperius curse.

In GoF, we are introduced to the Fourth Man and to Rita Skeeter. We *should* 
have been introduced to the Weasley cousin. What if we *have* been introduced 
to the Weasley cousin, but in disguise? If what JKR omitted was not the 
character, but his true identity? What if the Weasley cousin *is* the Fourth 
Man, who in turn *is* Rita?

  #,###,"> Molly Weasley's Second Cousin Is Ever So Evil  <",###,#  
(If only under the effects of Imperius)

Light headed with excitement, Eloise retraces her steps and uses the Paddle 
to break through into her home world, the one where Fourth Man *is* Avery. By 
accident, or by the design of fate, she emerges right by the gangplank of the 
Big Bang. Is this a Big, Bangy theory or what? She can't wait to tell the 
captain her news, but as she approaches the gangplank, she notices something 
strange. The sea isn't the calm, blue sea that she left; in the early dawn 
light she can see that it is grey, boiling and turbulent as if an underwater 
volcano were erupting. 

As Eloise and Stoned!Harry start to cross, the captain appears.

'So, Eloise, it's paddles at dawn, is it? There's only room for *one* Big 
Paddle on this ship.'

Eloise had forgotten that she still held the Paddle.

'Oh, Cindy, no, you don't understand.....' Eloise tries to lay down the 
Paddle, but Cindy, mistaking the gesture, grabs it from her hands and starts 
brandishing it wildly.

'No! Cindy! You mustn't do that!'

Too late, Cindy realises her mistake, for in swinging the Paddle, she cleanly 
severs Stoned!Harry's head from his shoulders. Stoned!Harry tumbles from the  
swaying gang plank into the seething grey molten sea below. Shocked, Cindy 
stands aside to let Eloise aboard, where shortly afterwards, sitting side by 
side as they contemplate the sun rising over the distant horizon they are 
amazed to see, clambering over the railings, the figure of a boy holding a 
Golden Snitch in his upraised hand. 

Eloise
Off for a spell in St Mungo's to recover her sanity.

Glossary 
Re-Harakhte: The Egyptian sun god, Re, as embodied in the Sphinx

Thanking Porphyria for the little hedgehogs, and Alexander for his large one, 
which Hagrid is still trying to wrestle into submission
......................................................
For an explanation of the acronyms and theories in this post, visit
Hypothetic Alley at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/Admin%20Files/hypotheticalle

y.htm
and Inish Alley at 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/database?method=report
Rows&tbl=13

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]