Adopted!Harry is Really. TTTR

[asandhp]

No: HPFGUIDX 57649

This is the theory I promised a few months ago. I've finally found 
time to write it up and post it. Since I've made the subject line so 
direct, I'll go straight into the proofs.
 
How do I "know" that Harry was adopted by James and Lily? A number of 
ways, starting with the fact that JKR is the master of red herrings, 
false identities, and startling plot twists. We have been told so 
many times that Harry looks just like his father + mother's eyes that 
it "has to" be a red herring. Methinks the lady (JKR) protests too 
much.
 
There is no reason Harry could not have been charmed to look like his 
father plus mother's eyes. To look exactly like another person, you 
need polyjuice every hour, but to look very much like someone, a 
permanent transfiguration should do it.
 
Canon proof: the story, in PS/SS ch. 2, about Harry's hair growing 
back so fast after his haircut. Besides the one incident of the near-
scalping that had Harry horrified to go to school, which led to a 
magical overnight hair replacement, the text also tells us (approx. – 
books still on loan) that "Harry had had more haircuts than anyone 
else in his school," and that "he always came back from the barber 
looking as if he hadn't gone." In other words, there is something 
unnatural about his hair on a regular basis, which has nothing to do 
with his being angry or scared. This is not magic that Harry is 
doing. This is magic that was done to him. We also know that there 
is "nothing" he can do to get his hair to lie flat. Why not? I 
propose that his hair was charmed into always looking like James', a 
charm too powerful for Harry to beat with a brush or mousse. (James, 
though, with no charm on his own hair, could probably style it when 
he pleased. When he charmed Harry, though, he went for his typical 
lazy look, not the one he worked at for formal occasions.)
 
This line of thinking is nice, but as proof, it is not enough. If 
Harry was adopted, why wouldn't anyone know? Well, the Dursley's 
wouldn't know because, as it says right on page 1 of PS/SS, they 
hadn't seen the Potters for a few years before landing Harry. They 
had only heard that J&LP had had a son. They had never seen Lily 
during any of the time she would have been pregnant, and were too 
uninterested to hear any details of the birth/adoption. So they just 
assumed that Harry was born to Lily and James.
 
Dumbledore, I am sure, knows exactly who Harry really is, but for his 
own reasons, he is not telling. With or without magic dishwashers, it 
is easy to imagine reasons for Dumbledore not to tell.
 
The wizarding world in general would not have had much chance to find 
out because James and Lily were on the run for a while before they 
were killed. Canon is in PoA, where McGonagall tells Rosmerta, at the 
Three Broomsticks, that "[Dumbledore] was sure that somebody close to 
the Potters had been keeping [V.} informed of their movements."  
Later, in the Shrieking Shack, Sirius confronts Pettigrew with his 
having "been passing information to [Voldemort] for a year before 
Lily and James died." So J&L were probably on the run for most of a 
year, and might have been hiding in various places for two years, for 
all we know. If so, then most people would not know about Harry being 
adopted rather than born.
 
The only puzzle is Sirius and Lupin. They were in contact with James 
and Lily until the last, and would certainly have known that Lily had 
never borne a child. However, after seeing how sincerely attached J&L 
were to Harry, they might have simply loved Harry as J&L's child 
regardless of how the Potters had acquired him, and all these years 
later, the fact of adoption would not have mattered to them anymore.
 
This is not very firm evidence, I agree, but consider the fact that 
JKR has hinged every plot so far on a false identity. For so 
versatile a writer, this is somewhat odd. Her using false identities 
has become so predictable that half way through GoF I had already 
figured out that Moody must somehow be a fake and the villain. (I 
didn't guess Crouch Jr. at all; I didn't try to guess who Moody 
really was.) *Why* is so talented a writer being so repetitive? – My 
guess: as foreshadowing for a REALLY BIG false-identity-plot-hinge.
 
Now if you are a writer building up to a monster false-identity plot 
hinge, you might as well build up to the biggest false identity you 
can. In HP, that would be Harry himself. As I've shown, there is no 
reason why Harry's identity can't be false, and some good reasons to 
think it is.
 
Fine. But who, then, was Harry before he became a Potter? Well, 
following the same logic as before, if you are a superb writer 
building up, through seven books, to a false identity for your hero, 
he might as well have the most shocking, dramatically rich (bangy) 
real identity possible. It would be a waste, after seven great 
novels, for Harry to turn out to be Ron's lost twin brother. Nice, 
mushy, but a waste. The only conclusion worthy of HP would be for 
Harry to be Voldemort himself. Not his son or father or brother; that 
is Star Wars. Harry is Tom Riddle, time-turned to the 1980's as an 
infant and adopted by Lily and James.
 
Hold your bricks! I know that the time-turner doesn't work that way! 
If 15-yr-old Harry were Tom Riddle, then Tom wouldn't have been at 
Hogwarts 50 years ago to rat on Hagrid and leave a diary. He would 
never have grown up 50 years ago to become Voldemort. Voldemort would 
not exist.
 
All this is true as we know the time-turner. And I grant that I am 
building on zero canon when I say that "just because the time-turner 
can't do it doesn't mean it can't be done." But, as detectives like 
to say, to prove murder (rather than death by accident) you need both 
a method and a motive, and the more telling of the two is motive. We 
all know that JKR can create methods aplenty (who heard of portkeys 
before GoF?), so you will surely forgive me if I proceed to proof by 
motive and let her invent a method when the time comes.
 
I propose that Voldemort himself brought his infant self forward 
using some dark arts which allowed his adult self to continue to 
exist even though his childhood time-line was being disrupted. And I 
propose that he did so for the express purpose of killing his infant 
self.
 
Why? Because, as we know, Voldemort's main goal is immortality and 
absolute power, and, I propose, he discovered a way to attain not 
just "ordinary" immortality and absolute power, but something even 
greater: a form of dark godhood; not just living without end, but 
becoming a being "without beginning and without end" as G-d is. And 
part of the magic that would accomplish this godhood would require 
getting rid of his beginning – killing his own infant self. Thus, I 
believe he snatched his infant self to the present (1980's) where the 
ritual was prepared, and was about to kill infant!Riddle when someone 
stole infant!Riddle at the last minute, saving the world from an 
unstoppable god!Voldemort.
 
The kidnappers may have been James and Lily or may have been someone 
else, but soon enough, infant!Riddle was deposited with the Potters 
for safekeeping, and in no time, they fell in love with him (as we 
all have) and made him their true own. They disguised him, renamed 
him Harry P., put enough love into him to last a lifetime, and died 
for him – and for the world, for Voldemort didn't give up his dream 
and kept coming back (and keeps coming back) to finish the job he 
started – killing Harry to erase his beginning and give him the 
godhood he dreams of.
 
How come no one has squealed this amazing fact? Well, who could? 
Probably, no one knew about the ritual but Voldemort himself, and 
Dumbeldore, who knows everything. Even James and Lily might not have 
known who their baby really was. And even if they did know, surely, 
there was no reason for them to tell anyone else. I doubt Voldemort 
would have told any of the DEs – he doesn't really trust them enough 
for something so critical to his advancement. And now, with his 
return to power, he would probably feel safer not telling anyone. 
With his corrupt mind, he would probably figure that if people knew 
who Harry was, they'd surely kill him, not least to prevent Voldemort 
from doing it himself and attaining godhood. As for Dumbledore, can 
you imagine him telling Harry such a thing? Maybe that is what is 
coming in the "tell everything" speech, but personally, I don't think 
JKR is going to divulge this until Book 7.
 
So this is my thesis, which, if it is thin on supporting canon, is 
still a perfect fit within what we know. Voldemort's desire for 
godhood is a logical extension of everything we know about him, and I 
believe that the rest of my thesis follows quite inevitably from that 
desire. He must therefore need to remove his infant self; such a 
fatal, world-twisting act could never be relegated to a sub-plot or 
paraphrase (in other words, it must be attempted within the 
storyline); and Harry has too many canon connections to Voldemort for 
him to be anyone but that infant self.
 
As for canon connections between Harry and Voldemort, this list has 
discussed them backwards and forwards. Harry's a parselmouth; Tom 
Riddle notices similarities between them; Dumbledore seems very, 
anxiously interested in the meeting between Riddle and Harry; 
Dumbledore "thinks" that Voldemort transferred some powers with the 
curse that gave the scar; the Sorting Hat thinks Harry would fit 
Slytherin; Harry thinks he's heard the name Tom Riddle before, as if 
it were something from when he was very young; Harry has this psychic 
connection to Voldemort
.
 
Of course, Harry could just be related to Voldemort, based on all 
this, but the list has never been happy with that route, for good 
reason. I believe my proposal satisfies both the foreshadowings and 
the list's desire for Bangst and originality.
 
It has other advantages, too, like economy. With just two new pieces 
of information (Harry = Voldemort/ Ritualmurdered!Harry = god!
Voldemort), we answer almost all the questions hanging over the 
series: Why did Voldemort want to kill Harry as a baby? Why does he 
still want to kill him now? Why couldn't Voldemort kill Harry as a 
baby? Why has he failed again and again? Why did Voldemort turn into 
a wraith? Why is Dumbledore seemingly grooming Harry for the final 
confrontation with Voldemort (couldn't he find anyone else)? Why is 
it so important that Harry stay alive? What was that gleam in 
Dumbledore's eyes? Even – why does Snape hate Harry so much?
 
I've answered the first two already. As for 3 & 4, godhood is not 
such a simple thing to attain, and the universe (G-d) is set against 
the existence of a creature with no beginning and no end, so it will 
not allow Harry to die before Voldemort – but Dumbledore can't be 
sure of that. Or, Voldemort just has the magic preparations wrong, 
which he is slowly beginning to realize – but Dumbledore can't count 
on that either.
 
As for 5, see the answers to 3&4: the AK was set to eliminate one Tom 
Riddle, and it got one, but it took the later one, since the universe 
was opposed to getting rid of the earlier one first. And Voldemort's 
magic kept him as a wraith instead of his being killed altogether.
 
6: Not because Harry's the heir of anything or has any special 
powers, but just because a superpowerful dark wizard can best be 
defeated by himself.
 
7: Because Dumbledore can't be sure that Harry's death won't send 
Voldemort to godhood even if Voldemort doesn't do it himself.
 
8: Now that Harry's blood is in Voldemort, killing Harry won't 
completely eliminate Voldemort's beginning, so no godhood. Or, 
Voldemort touching Harry proved that the preparations for the godhood 
spell were done wrong to begin with. Or whatever. But then Dumbledore 
looked old and tired again because he realized that even if Voldemort 
doesn't become a god, he can do lots of evil anyway.
 
9. Snape is the one person besides Dumbledore and Voldemort who knows 
who Harry really is. And Snape hates Voldemort so badly that he can't 
bear the sight of Harry, either. (I don't think Voldemort knows that 
Snape knows.)
 
That's my plug for economy. But my strongest plug for my theory has 
to do with JKR's themes. Making Harry = Voldemort plays the strongest 
card possible for the moral choices theme. Harry doesn't defeat 
Voldemort because he is born with any special abilities – he has 
exactly the same ones Voldemort has. Neither does Harry have an 
innately better character – he's got the identical innate character 
as Ultimate Evil. But somehow (JKR will pick the somehow she believes 
in), Harry made better choices, and that's the only difference.
 
Or in other words, the ultimate battle is with the evil who is 
oneself. Sounds good, no?
 
So, dear list, tell me whether any of you think I am right.
 
The Admiring Skeptic
 
P.S. For those of you looking for Bangst, think of how Harry will 
feel when he finds out the facts and suspects (wrongly) that J&L took 
him in only to thwart V, and that they died not to save him but just 
to save the world, and that D, Lupin, et al, have been goading him 
with false parental sacrifice tales just to manipulate him into 
fighting V, who is himself, so why should he prefer all these coarse 
manipulators over V, who, after all, is his own flesh and blood? And 
even if V wants to kill Harry, why, Harry will wonder, should Harry 
object to his own self's desire to dispose of his self as he pleases? 
Why should this be worse than D&Co's desire to kill his alter-self, V?
 
Eventually, Harry will come around, but it will be a very, very 
difficult moment.
 
P.S. I have a continuation of my theory that involves the end of the 
series and the night J&L died, but enough is enough for now.