Harry Potter and the Man of Unknown is a Harry Potter fanfic by Gypsy Silverleaf. Notably, this is the oldest Harry Potter fic on FanFiction.Net and technically predates Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; the book had yet to come out in the United States at the time of the fic's publishing and its American author was thus only vaguely aware of Azkaban's plot. This explains a lot.
The "man of unknown" is Professor Thomas Erwin, a teacher at another Wizarding School, who seems to hate Harry for no apparent reason. Erwin was a well-loved man until Voldemort's downfall, after which he turned into a grouch and forbade the name "Harry Potter" from being spoken in his presence.
It turns out Erwin is James Potter's half-brother and he's pissed because Harry got sent to live with the Dursleys instead of him. Realizing what a jerk he's become, Erwin threatens to kill Dumbledore if he tells Harry the truth. The Ministry tries to arrest Erwin for this, but he escapes and lives out the rest of his life as a hermit before dying in misery. The End.
You can read it here
. See here to see a tongue-in-cheek version of the story acted out with the Potter Puppet Pals.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Downer Ending: Erwin ultimately goes insane and goes off to live and die as a hermit, never meeting his nephew.
- Elsewhere Fic: Focuses on Harry’s half-uncle and his efforts to trace up his nephew.
- Fatal Flaw: Erwin's jerkiness, which is ultimately his undoing.
- Freudian Excuse: Erwin wasn’t allowed to see Harry by Dumbledore, turning him into a man who gets bitter when the Boy who Lived is so much as implied in his classroom.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Erwin going through this kicks off the plot.
- One-Gender School: In the opening, Sharadine is an all-female school known as Sharadine School of Witchcraft For Girls. By the time of the main story, it's gone co-ed and changed its name to Sharadine School of Witchcraft Merged.
- Re-Cut: Gypsy reworked the story in mid 2001, mainly to Retcon the bits contradicted by the third and fourth books. This version can be seen on her website and FictionAlley, but the original version remains on Fanfiction.net.
- Ultimate Job Security: Erwin spends over a decade threatening to expel students from Sharadine School if they so much as mention Harry Potter's name in his presence. Despite this, headmistress Madam Tatooli doesn't fire Erwin because he's just that good a teacher.
