Harry Potter sat in his cupboard (under the stairs, of course) pondering the meaning of life. It was the day of his fifth birthday. He concluded (from what he understood of life with his relatives) that there was no meaning. After all, he hadn't know his name until the teacher had asked it of him that Monday, his first day of grade school. He knew that to the people that should have mattered most to him, he was only 'boy' or 'freak', so without someone to love him, there was no meaning. He furrowed his brow and pulled a spider off of his head holding it in his palm and whispered to it.

"Do you know why I'm alive, Blackie?"

Blackie didn't answer. It scuttled off of his palm and lowered itself to the botttom of the cupboard with its silk and crawled under the floorboards. Harry shrugged, wincing when he moved his shoulder.

"Guess not then."

He decided that life had no meaning. So he immersed himself in other worlds. He laid down on his side with his hands under his head and went to sleep. As the boy got older he found another way to get to this universe of dreams: books. So Harry Potter was not exactly of this world when he turned eleven. But then again, he never really had been from the start.

On July 14, 1992, Harry Potter was a very different boy than he had been almost six years earlier. He dreamed of being taken away from the relatives he was doomed to be stuck with for the rest of his life (or so he thought). So, consequently, he checked the mail every morning before he took it to his relatives who always ordered him to get it in the morning. Once the boy had even gone so far as to ask himself, 'I wonder if they think that I'm related to a dog? They treat me like one.' But that was why he checked the mail before he brought it to his relatives on July 14, 1992. And that was also what brought him to a different world.

Harry stared at the envelope. It wasn't normal paper. It was like… He searched for a substance from one of the recent books he had read- papyrus. It was like papyrus. And it was lettered in green ink. Not very unusual, but for the boy it had meaning. It was green like his eyes and eyes that he assumed to be his mother's. It was green like those flashes he saw in his dreams. The ones with the screaming..

"Boy! Get back here with the mail!"

Harry panicked. It was the first letter he had ever gotten. His uncle would surely take it away from him. He looked around for some place to hide it. He panicked again. Harry dropped his relatives' mail, clutched his own letter to him, opened the front door and ran. He ran as fast as he could down the street and didn't stop till he had gotten to the forest behind his neighborhood. Harry slowed down to a walk when he realized no one was coming after him and went on into the woods. He stopped only when he'd gotten deep enough for his own satisfaction. He had walked further than he could remember going into the forest. There was a wide stretch of lake and a small house on the other side. It was like a scene from a book he'd once read, though he couldn't remember which. He sat down with a thump.

His eyes narrowed, scanning the strange paper.

Harry J. Potter

Little Whinging, Surrey

4 Privet Dr.

The Cupboard Under the Stairs

His fingers slowly tore open the top of the envelope and he pulled out a sheet of the papyrus-like paper. He still couldn't think of a word to describe it. The letter inside the envelope was lettered in the same green ink. The writing was sharp and concise, which added a rather imposing look to it.

Dear Mr. Potter,

You have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

His eyes widened and quickly scanned through the rest of the letter. He read through the school list and looked up at the scene of the lake and cabin in front of him. His first thought was: 'Oh, right, parchment.' He blacked out.