Harry Potter, a 39-year-old e-book author and former Latin teacher from northern Michigan, has many similarities to JK Rowling's famous wizard aside from the same name.
Christened Harold but named Harry on his birth certificate, the former teacher was heavily influenced by the role-play games craze of the early 1980s and developed a fascination with wizardry that inspired him to start writing fantasy stories in 1989 - eight years before the first Harry Potter book, was published in 1997.
"My mom and my family call me Harry and that's never going change," he said. "If I'm in a good mood I'll introduce myself as Harry and if I'm in a bad mood I'll say I'm Harold. It's not really a problem because I like meeting people and it can be fun. I don't mind getting teased and having a laugh with strangers. I remember seeing the first Harry Potter book and thinking 'Oh, this could be dangerous.' I've grown accustomed to it over the years.
"In some ways, my life has run parallel to the Harry Potter character from the books. In the early 1980s I saw a movie about King Arthur and it had a big impact on my life. I was fascinated by Merlin and everything he could do as a wizard. I really wanted to become a wizard. However, a wizard is no good without languages so I started to learn Latin in high school and went on to get a Masters in Greek and Latin."
Harry spent many years as a Latin teacher, working in a university in Detroit and then teaching in private schools. When Abebooks.com tracked him down, he was staying in a monastery in Indiana and deciding what to do next.
"I've written four novels and I'm hoping to polish them up and get them published this year," he said. "My stories certainly share the same animals as Harry Potter - creatures like griffins. It would be more accurate to compare my stories to JRR Tolkien."
Harry's stories feature the ancient land of Intermundia - a mythical continent dating back to the writing of Roman philosopher Lucretius in the 1st century BC, who believed it was the realm of the gods.
One final similarity between Michigan's Harry Potter and the hero from Hogwarts is the glasses. On his webpage, Harry is pictured wearing circular black-rimmed spectacles - aka Rowling's character.
"They were my real glasses and I had them years before the Harry Potter books came out. I'm wearing a nice metallic pair now."