Harry’s father
James Potter
Harry’s father. A gifted, arrogant Gryffindor student who grew into a man willing to die for his family, and who was unkind on the way there.
James is a memory other people edit. To Sirius he is a brother. To Snape he is a bully. To Harry he is a father-shaped absence and, eventually, a boy on a page who is hard to admire. The novels insist you hold the Quidditch talent, the pure-blood comfort, the animagus mischief, and the last stand in the same person.
He and Lily and their friends made the castle map. He is Harry’s father and Sirius’s best friend. Those are the load-bearing facts.
Later in the story
A pensieve memory in the fifth book is the one that knocks the legend sideways. Read it when you are there. It is not a rumor.
Family sketch
The Potters
A three-person sketch. The novels mention a wider family, including Harry’s aunt on his mother’s side, and this drawing leaves that street for the book.