TBAY:Kirstini's Big Theorising Adventure 1/3: A Handsome Stranger.

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 78529

Note to the reader – I've finally pulled myself together enough to 
launch my Advanced HUMBLE theory on the world. It's massive, having 
had lots of help along the way from Talisman and Hayes, and so I've 
split it into three parts for your reading convienience. The final 
part is taken from an off-list email conversation between Talisman 
and myself, but I felt I needed to put the two other stages in to 
explain how we got there. Here goes


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It was very, very early morning now, and Kirstini had stumbled away 
from the George when the DENIAList wagon had rolled round again. 
DENIALists scared her a bit when they got together. They kept looking 
at her funny. Besides, she had work to do. She was now down at the 
Souvenir Shack, having just taken charge of a 
consignment of models of Abigail's new sculpture.

"These are going to sell like hot cakes!" she muttered gleefully to 
herself, and began arranging several small pipe lattices which 
handily doubled up as pencil sharpeners in the window. However, she 
was still a little tipsy, and managed to catch the long string of 
beads she had taken to wearing on the window latch. Bending over to 
untangle them, she knocked off her new beret.
"Oh, blast it!" she shouted.
"Do you need a hand?" asked a voice from behind her.
Kirstini wheeled around sharply. Beads sprayed across the room. She 
could make out a familiar looking figure silhouetted in the doorframe.

"What – oh. Stoned!Harry. How many times have I told you that this is 
*not* that kind of retail outlet? Stop hanging around down here and 
go home to bed!" Kirstini yelled.
"I'm afraid there must have been some sort of misunderstanding," said 
the figure. "I'm not Harry, you see." He stepped forward into the 
light. It was like looking at Stoned!Harry, with a few deliberate 
mistakes. Although he had a similarly glazed look in his eye, the 
eyes were hazel. His nose was slightly longer than Harry's, and there 
was no scar on his forehead. And he was older. Kirstini estimated him 
to be in his early twenties. 
"James Potter?" said Kirstini, uncertainly.
"At your service," said the man, bowing low. Kirstini backed away 
slightly, fearing that she was perhaps the victim of a rather 
elaborate practical joke – she'd read "Snape's Worst Memory", after 
all – but there was no sarcasm in his voice, and his eyes looked 
friendly. Vacant, but friendly. He produced a small dustpan and brush 
from somewhere in his baggy hip hop trousers, and began sweeping up 
the beads. Then he handed Kirstini back her beret. 

"I'm a little confused," she began. "What on earth are you doing in 
the Souvenir Shack at half-past three in the morning? As far as I'm 
aware, you aren't attached to any particular theory around here, and 
if you wanted to get in on the action, you'd surely be better up at 
the George right now. They're discussing Sirius and your role in the 
Prank up there. I'm here by myself, and
" she tailed off, finding the 
fixedly friendly, helpful and mildly heroic yet modest expression on 
Harry's father's face a little disconcerting.

"I appeared down here because I sensed I'd been  - well, rather on 
your mind recently." he said, modestly. "Anyway, enough about me. 
Never really been my favourite topic, heh heh. Personally I find 
*you* much more interesting. May I say that that is a lovely beret 
you're wearing. Really suits you. Nice contrast with your hair."

Kirstini was disconcerted."Oh, well, you know, they're sort of 
fashionable round here at the moment
wait a second! You aren't James 
Potter at all, are you? You're MythicalConstruct!James! You're the 
personification of all those stories Hagrid and Sirius told Harry pre-
OoP. You're nothing but a fiction – a fiction within a fiction!"
"I'm terribly sorry to have deceived you," said MythicalConstruct!
James, his features vacantly sorrowful. "Perhaps
perhaps you would do 
me the great honour of accompanying me on a little stroll?"

He proffered an arm. Kirstini wondered vaguely if her mother would 
approve of her going for a walk with a strange man on a still-dark 
night, but concluded that she couldn't really be in safer hands. She 
locked up the Shack, and they headed down to the shore.

"I must admit, you hand us all fooled." Kirstini said, 
conversationally. "And you're right, I have been thinking a lot about 
you recently."
MythicalConstruct!James blushed, silently. Kirstini continued.
"I was thinking that it was rather convienient that you happened to 
show your true colours in OoP, rather than earlier. Given the 
overwhelming theme of that book, and all – ohh, puddle."

Quick as a flash, MythicalConstruct!James lay himself face down over 
the puddle, forming a sort of fictional character bridge. Kirstini 
chuckled to herself, stepped delicately around the puddle, and 
offered him a hand up.

"Really, MythicalConstuct!James. Your cloak would have done. Anyway. 
I had been thinking that you come to symbolise the whole Wizarding 
World in OoP. Back in PS, when the WW is all a shiny new adventure 
for Harry, there you are, the recently-discovered heroic, noble, 
Quidditch star daddy, right at the centre of the new world – Head Boy 
at Hogwarts (somehow), well-loved by everyone, back from the grave to 
induct Harry into the ways of the new world in the form of the 
Invisibility Cloak.
And then in OoP, when Harry begins to be disillusioned with the WW 
and discover that it's not all such a smashing adventure – Dumbledore 
is fallible," (at this point MC!James made a small noise of protest, 
and then apologised profusely for having interrupted a lady. Kirstini 
ignored him politely and carried on.) "Fudge is a corrupt politico, 
not a bumbling old uncle in a lime green bowler, Dolores Umbridge is 
a monster, but not a Death Eater, and Harry is now famous in all the 
wrong ways – there you are, hexing Snape, swaggering about with your 
gang and your Snitch and your messy hair – and puncturing the last of 
Harry's illusions."
MC!James hung his head, shamefully.
"Oh, cheer up," Kirstini said, briskly. "After all, it wasn't really 
*you* doing all that, was it? You don't exist. You're a fantasy. A 
personification of Harry's wishes temporarily fulfilled. Sorry, I 
don't know how cheering a thought that is for you."
However, MC!James (being rather one dimensional) wasn't really 
capable of existential speculation, and so perked up considerably at 
this. Kirstini looked at him for a while, and then began speaking 
again, almost to herself.

"Therefore James, or what James isn't, becomes emblematic of Harry's 
lost innocence and burgeoning isolation. As he grows in maturity, the 
narrative grows with him, expanding out to be able to cope with 
increasingly complex moral debate, the Wizarding World is allowed to 
develop to mirror the increased awareness of Real World corruption 
which occurs around adolescence. At first, the WW had represented an 
escape from the extreme normalcy as espoused by the Dursleys, but now 
it comes increasingly to resemble it, as OoP sets up Harry against a 
series of norms, finally isolating him from even Ron, Hermione and 
Hagrid. The reader comes to realise various unsavoury truths about 
the WW with Harry, and some of the magic is lost. But it's all 
symptomatic of a greater move towards realism."

Kirstini began to realise that she was on the verge of a rather large 
theory. What she needed was a boat. Excited, she looked around wildly 
for MC!James, who had wandered off.  She found him helping an old 
lady cross a road over by the shoreline. Some small moment of 
serendipity lead her gaze up, up, to the huge prow of the Narrative 
Ark, moored nearby.
"Yes." she whispered to herself. "Yes!"