Prologue
There was once a boy who was happy and loved.
This boy was stripped of all that loved him and he them in a single night. He was denied placement with happiness, and instead forced to develop little, or not at all, in an environment suited well for mice.
One day, he learnt that bedtime stories were real and he journeyed to a world where he could produce his wildest fantasy and form it as reality. He went from an unrecognized nobody to a superficially special boy who escaped from a cruel childhood.
In reality, the cruelest thing they could have done to this boy was to introduce him to this world. He was normal and unappreciated before, and so he was used to his place. After being pushed into a world where he was considered special among the most special he was only set up for failure.
For you see, this extraordinary little boy grew and he became an ordinary young man, a young man that was capable of fending for himself in a relatively satisfactory manner if called for, nothing more.
But as ordinary young men do, he was not infallible and he was prey to all the negatives of human nature, especially at his young age. He was capable of being manipulated and of having his strings pulled so that he seemed to be the extraordinary young man that was expected of him.
This little insight was what one far older and wiser man planned to use to gain the upper hand.
Yes, Albus Dumbledore was going to show one young Harry Potter exactly his place in the world, that he could be happy and loved once more, within another's rules.
Elsewise, he would remain alone and flailing for his impertinence.
