Prelude
Little Winging, Surrey, England.
Late June 2005, approximately 01:30

Looking at Number four, Privet Drive, Little Winging, Surrey, you'd assume it was a normal household, with normal people, and a normal lifestyle. And three of the four inhabitants would be very happy for you to assume that. Vernon Dursley would happily shake you by the hand, well, unless you happened to be Arab, or not born in England, or Jewish, or gay, or anything else he deemed abnormal, or that the Daily Mail looked down on, or that UKIP had told him was bad... but if you were 'normal' by his standards, you'd be shaken by the hand and called a good person. His wife quite often went along with his wishes, mostly for the quiet life, and his son... well, Dudley Dursley was a thug, even at the tender age of five years old. Even at five years old he was a bully, and took great pleasure in pleasing his parents by tormenting the fourth inhabitant of number four.

The fourth inhabitant, you see, embodied all that was 'freakish' in Vernon Dursley's eyes. Little Harry James Potter was a regular five year old child to most appearances. Born in England, to two English parents, incidentally Petunia Dursley's sister and brother in law, and as of yet completely uninterested in either his own OR the other gender in anything but a friendly manner, Harry unfortunately suffered from one condition his uncle refused to tolerate. For you see, Harry Potter possessed the gift, the ability to weave and work a force known as magic.

Theoreticians who had been aware of magic had often wondered at it's source, and those who, in the modern era, understood the principles of Einsteinian and Newtonian physics found themselves even more bemused by the fact that magic seemed to choose to obey the older Aristotelian theories on how physics should work. To most of the world, however, magic did not exist. If it hadn't been for the unfortunate deaths of James and Lily Potter, Vernon Dursley would have remained unaware of the existance of magic, a secret his wife had not bothered to tell him about until the day Harry was left on their doorstep.

For four years, since shortly after he was one year old, Harry had lived with his aunt and uncle, who had mistreated him, and abused him, emotionally if not necessarily physically. Vernon's sister, Marge, had turned up for Dudley's birthday, and had hit him on the shins earlier to prevent him winning at a game of Musical Statues. She was staying overnight in the upstairs guest room, opposite Dudley's second bedroom.

So, the inhabitants and guests of number four were fast asleep, Petunia and Vernon in their bedroom, Dudley in his, Marge in the guest room, and Harry in the cupboard under the stairs. But this sleep was interrupted by an unexpected, intrusive and aggressive noise. The AgustaWestland Merlin AW101 isn't a quiet aircraft by any means, and having one hover over your house at around half one in the morning will not do wonders for your popularity with the neighbours. Of course, when the reason it is hovering is so that a dozen armed men can then rappel in through your upstairs windows, the sudden downturn of your popularity with your neighbours might be a secondary issue to screaming in terror, as Petunia Dursley quickly demonstrated.

Vernon, foolishly, tried to leap to his feet and tackle one of the intruders, who promptly jammed the butt of his weapon into the obese man's nose, knocking him back.
"Stay down, sir, unless you wish to see if you can survive aggressive lead poisoning." the black clad figure glared at the now sprawled man.

Harry woke with a start as the sound of smashing glass came from upstairs. His aunt was screaming, Aunt Marge was apparently swearing at someone, and the heavy thump was probably uncle Vernon landing on the floor heavily, meaning he'd fallen out of bed or something, at a guess. The creaking of the stairs as someone made their way down them caused his curiosity, usually suppressed, to get the better of his caution, and Harry carefully looked out of the gap in the vent. He was surprised to see a figure, clad in black, with some sort of gun in it's hands, creep past and into the kitchen. The repetitive thumping noise masked the sound of the footsteps, and also Harry's quiet breathing, meaning the figure never even looked at the cupboard.
"No sign of the boy." the figure muttered, glancing around, the now obviously male voice sounding annoyed. "We may need to resort to interrogating the … balloons. Wait one."
Harry ducked back as the figure glanced towards the cupboard, and hid. The sound of the door unlocking caused him to cringe, and as it opened, he began to cry.

"Please don't hurt me. I'll be good. I won't do anything freaky, I promise! Please don't hurt me!" he cried, cowering in the corner as hard as he could.
"Relax, relax... aww crap. Uh... Boss... found your lad, but he's freaking out. How do I proceed, copy?" the man then took a step back as Harry's magic accidentally flared, driven by utter panic at the word 'freaking'.

Harry woke up in a soft, comfortable bed, with white sheets and sunlight... well, daylight in any case, streaming in through the windows. The weather outside appeared to be rain, and he could see another small cluster of houses from the bed. The room appeared to otherwise be empty, and he slid out of the bed, slipping on his second hand glasses, timidly, unsure of where he was or what had happened. The door opening caused him to duck behind the bed, as a figure in a dark t-shirt, with a black beard carefully tied into a Celtic knot, stepped into the room. Pale grey eyes watched him from behind a pair of half moon glasses, and the figure spoke.

"Good morning, lad." came an accent which Harry would have placed, had he had more experience with accents, as a variant of a Welsh accent filtered through a northern English accent. It had a slight lilt to it, however, which felt safe. It was different enough from his Uncle Vernon's accent that it certainly didn't seem scary.

"...Uh... g'mornin sir. Ummm... who are you? Where am I? How did I get here?" Harry replied, eyeing the man carefully.

"Well, that's a long story, but... to answer your first question, I'm your Uncle Alexander, and I'm your new guardian..."