Once upon a time, there was a miserable boy. His uncle and aunt were rather upset at having to take care of him, and his sister wasn't the nicest either. A 'freak', Harry didn't get much encouragement from them. His lonely world consisted entirely of getting whatever breakfast his sister made him and going to school, where people remembered that he wasn't as smart as his sister. At home, the comparisons continued. Neither his aunt nor his uncle liked either of them, but Anne still got the better chores to do and Harry ended up with the nasty ones. That the sibling's cousin didn't have any chores was beyond the point, all that Harry cared was that he was the least liked out of everyone in the family.
One evening, his cousin got a Nerve Gear. It was the latest in Full Dive technology available. The game, which was mostly being sold in Japan, had reached international markets at a reasonable enough price for Dudley to demand one. It had arrived few days early, and was proud at what he had accomplished in it already. One mistake on Dudley's part took that progress away. He had said the 'm' word and the game in the same sentence. To understand the severity of his crime, you have to realize that magic was despised above all else in the Dursley household. If the game was infecting Dudley with such ideas, the game was being trashed.
It would have ended there, but Anne decided that Harry needed the game. She dug it out of the trash and set it up in their room. Harry didn't want to get in trouble for having it, but Anne brushed of his concerns the way that everyone did. The siblings' cupboard was somehow big enough to fit all of the equipment in addition to the two of them, so Anne wouldn't allow any protest. She had an idea, and she wasn't going to let anyone get in her way. Harry was going to play the game as a preview, and he had no choice in the matter.
If you're wondering why Harry didn't simply refuse, then you need to know a little more background. Harry was the lowest in the family's pecking order. He wasn't given a choice about a lot of the chores he did or the way he spent his time or even the size of his meals. If Dudley had ordered Harry to preview the game, Harry would have had to face his cousin's wrath and that of Petunia and Vernon, making him the biggest threat to Harry. If it had been one of Dudley's parents to order him to do something, the other wouldn't say anything about it, but they wouldn't join in either. Anne had her own way of enforcing herself to. If she wanted you to do something, she was the one who would bring you to heel. Her first line of defense was messing with your portion of food. She wouldn't be able to do that longer than a few days before someone would bring her to heel for it, but there were ways that she got around that. One time, after Harry had refused to clean the whole cupboard on his own and wouldn't give in despite three days of almost completely raw egg inside of a normal looking omelet, she had threatened to leave him naked on the roof if Harry refused. That punishment had been was bad enough that Harry had never tried defying her again. It had been his one attempt stand firm against Viper's nightmare inducing red eyes, and he had decided that it just wasn't worth trying to fight. It was a lot better to just pretend that he didn't mind fallowing the rules until he almost forgot that he had ever thought differently.
Harry had no difficulty in using the Nerve Gear. Turning it on was easy enough with Anne telling him what to do for almost every single part. First, she made him put in on, and then she ordered him to pay attention to the screen that would show for that and put it on to. Anne fiddled with a few things that Skull couldn't see, but it what seemed like no time before he was in the game. Harry logged in as Skull de Mort, a name that his sister had picked for him, and started adventuring. Anne said that she'd "cover for him" so that he could skip his classes and spend more time doing what she wanted him to do, taking even that choice away from him.
After going nearly a full day without any insults (that he could understand) or complaints that he should be smart as his sister, Harry thought that this game was amazing. Getting a reputation entirely his own was an experience he would never forget. It was so cool to get people to recognize him without knowing why he wasn't any good to interact with. Going into a place he was liked on his own merit was soothing to him in a way he didn't understand. It was wonderful to be able to have his own abilities, to have his own decisions, to be someone talked about. It just felt right, despite how new this type of independence was.