Here's ANOTHER HARRY

[Dan Feeney]

No: HPFGUIDX 71577

The first Harry we meet is Potter, the one in the books, with the 
mark, but he is not First Harry. Before him there was Harry, a kid 
JKR knew. Perhaps she had seen him hustled into the house one day by 
over-bearing parents, who looked around suspiciously to see if anyone 
was watching them. Perhaps he had spoken to her a couple times about 
some Cavendish-like book. Perhaps, based on some things he said, she 
had guessed at physical abuse.

"No, no. There WAS a kid she turned into Ron Weasley, not Harry."

Snorkack droppings, I say. Ron is simply everyman, the "mate" chorus. 
There was a kid, known to JKR, who was First Harry, or, if you 
insist, Real Harry. The one in the books is Second Harry, the one 
about whom we ostensibly read, Fictional Harry. He so-called lives in 
two worlds, the muggle and the witch wizard ones - he is nearly 
nothing in one and nearly saviour in the other. And for him, the not 
quite distinct worlds interact, generally in a way such that much of 
what happens in the muggle world can be explained, directly or 
indirectly, by what happens in the witch wizard world. His knowledge 
of the muggle world is enhanced and enriched by his knowledge of the 
witch wizard world. His situation is explained and justified by the 
witch wizard world. But there is another, a shadow, a shape of 
darkness, the eyes between the house and the fence that raises the 
hairs on the back of his neck, a silent and watching Harry, Lost 
Harry, if you will, necessary but not completely parsed, who we shall 
call Third Harry.

Third Harry is a kind of triangulation based on the other two. Third 
Harry is what JKR made of First Harry, the meaning of both seeing 
First Harry and his situation, not ignoring her response to this 
seeing and her feelings about his inferred situation, and of 
understanding "the other" in some fullness, in a second of time, all 
at once, when she was younger - a moment of sight, of expanded 
consciousness, or whatever it is people talk about when they use such 
terms, the dawning of self-consciousness, which is also consciousness 
of the other. This happened the way she claims to have later ideated 
the whole of Second Harry on the train, the Hogwarts Express of her 
imagination, as it were, between Manchester and London. What happened 
on the train was that she remembered that moment of "universality" 
and THEN thought of what could be done with it, what could be done to 
parse it. And because this remembered moment, this dawning of self 
and other consciousness was heartily compassionate, she began to reel 
Third Harry (now Universal Harry) in, not completely, but enough that 
Second Harry (Potter) could take form.

Potter is sandwiched between First and Third Harry, a kind of 
compromise, or rather, the words used to communicate !Harry. (That's 
why he's Second, he's in between, even if he came much later than 
Third Harry.)

The question is, is Third Harry the distance, the height, or the 
angle? My idea means that Third Harry gets more important the closer 
we are to First Harry, so that could mean First Harry is the height, 
representing the vertical (the real?), Second Harry the distance, 
representing the horizontal (the telling) and Third Harry the angle, 
representing the diagonal (the reading). The angle changes as Second 
Harry (HP) moves between muggle and witch wizard world, for one 
thing. Generally speaking, we'd need Third Harry (angle) to determine 
Second Harry (Potter) in RW application. Also, depending on your 
percieved position, that would mean Third Harry is wider or narrower 
(more acute?) when Potter is in either the muggle or witch wizard 
world.

So, what does this all mean?

For one thing, in triangulation, the angle is generally either known 
or calculated "here," so we are always in the same spot as Third 
Harry. It means that JKR is flying the kite, as it were, of her 
triangulation, just as we are flying the kites of our reading. It 
means if one of the Harrys was not represented, we would probably 
have to invent him. 

It means Third Harry is like "the room" in the Department of 
Mysteries. It means JKR has introduced Luna because Luna relates 
almost directly to Third Harry. It means Third Harry accounts for the 
fan fiction, this list, and Nimbus2003.

There's more, but this should be adequate for now.

I give you ANOTHER HARRY.

A Necessary Obscure Third Harry Evokes Rowling's Humanism And Readers 
React Yearningly