James "Samaro" Potter is likely the father of Harry "Vampire" Potter (in Chapter 35, Vampire's father is noted as Serious Blak, but this is likely an error).
Background[]
Samaro attends Hogwarts in 1989 and is a member of Slytherin house. He is named Samaro after the female character Samara in the movie The Ring. He is the guitar player in a goth band called XBlakXTearX, along with Tom Satan Bombodil, Snap, Lucian Malfoy, Serious Blak, and later, Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way.
Role in the story[]
Samoro first appears as one of the "sexxxy gottik guyz" who sit in a corner "kutting" during Ebony's trip to 1989.[1]
In Chapter 38, the band plays a concert with Marilyn Manson in Hogsment (the 1980s name of Hogsmeade). However, when Luscious accidentally begins playing the wrong song, Samaro begins shouting and calls Luscious a "fuking ashhole!1" Samaro then pulls a knife on Luscious and tries to shoot off his arm.
Ebony jumps in front of the bullet shot by the knife. Later, Ebony learns that Snap has the ability to possess people; Samaro only tried to murder Luscious because Snap had possessed him. During this scene, James appears to be alive, but later on, it's mentioned by Ebony when she is trying to get Satan and Hedwig back together that "now Harry's dad wouldn't die", so James' appearance in the present was likely a mistake. Also, he is not listed amongst the people entering the hospital wing to visit Ebony, so Tara likely meant his dialogue to go to Lucian.
Due to what happened at the Marilyn Manson concert, the relations between the two become strained - Lucian "woudnt talk wiv James because he had tried 2 shoot him".[2]
The last mention of Samaro is when he, Hedwig, Satan, Serious, Snap, Luscious and Ebony are called into Dumbledore's office, after they are caught filming an inappropriate video of Satan and Hedwig. Samoro and others watch, being "prolly bi".[2] Following this incident, Dumbledore threatens to throw them all into Azerbaijan for being Satanists.
Differences from the original[]
Naturally, this depiction of James is incredibly out of character. In canon, Lucius did not attend Hogwarts when James, Snape, or Sirius would be in their 7th year, and it is well known that James and Snape did not even remotely like each other. Lupin and Pettigrew aren't mentioned at all, and they actually would have attended Hogwarts in the 1970s. Voldemort himself attended in the 1940s, and obviously was not friends with James whatsoever.
Trivia[]
- Samaro is the name of a town in Pakistan which used to be called Jamesabad (literally "Jamestown"). It is highly unlikely Tara knew this, however.
- Samaro's name is also the biggest anachronism in the 1980s chapters. As The Ring, the movie that gave us his namesake, did not come out until 2002, while My Immortal was first released in 2006, only four years later. Even if you were going by the original Japanese version and feel that "Sadako" would've been more accurate, the original novel was not released until 1991 with the film version in 1995 or 1998, and this was not published in English until 2003 in response to the movie. So either the 80s Goffs can see into the future or Tara does not know how to use Wikipedia. It's probably the latter, actually.
- A peculiar note is that even in the past, characters already know that he will be Harry/Vampire's dad, and Lucian will be Draco's. Whilst Satan knowing this could be explained if he was supposed to be the future Voldemort all along, Lucian correctly predicts the behaviour and chosen nickname of James' son, telling James "Draco is never going to be friends with Vampire now!".