AUTHOR'S RANT:

JKR created a dystopia by painting the background according to "the rule of funny" without regard to consequences. I'm reinterpreting the Wizarding World through the lens of middle-aged cynicism to explore "why are things the way they are?"

When you let Sirius - damaged by Azkaban - and Remus – an outcast due to his lycanthropy – teach Harry the things he needs to know, you get a very different story to canon. That's what I'm trying to explore here: "Harry gets strong male role models". (Actually, since I'm a first time author, I don't really have aspirations beyond it being an excuse for me to info-dump my headcanon and write a Gary-Stu ...)

If Harry was brought up in an orphanage, he would be a sociopath, and many innocents would die.

If Harry was brought up by Dumbledore, he would be a sacrifice, and one innocent would die.

The Marauders will show Harry another way ...

This is not the story a Romantic would write.

This is the story a Cynic would write.

There will be bashing.

CHAPTER 1: Somewhere in Surrey ...

AN: Set before the beginning of Harry's OWL year. (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

There's a subdivision in Surrey where the streets are all similar. Not identical, but the houses are all designed by the same architectural firm, all approved by the same town planners and all built by the same builders. All these houses end up occupied by people motivated by the same desires - a similar drive to impress each other through an endless cycle of one-upmanship via flaunting of material wealth: A flashy car in the driveway, a mantle full of photos taken on holidays abroad and a wardrobe full of clothes renewed every season with the latest fashions.

On one street there is one house where one window is different. In all of Little Whinging, there is only one room that has a window with bars on it. In that unique room there is a boy who was particularly unusual. He was different not only because of his distinctive green eyes and uniquely scarred forehead, this boy on the cusp of manhood was different to everybody else in Surrey because he was dreaming a different dream.

He was a wizard, and in his dream he dreamt how he could become a thumping good one.

It was the most amazing dream Harry Potter could remember. Even better than the one about a flying motorcycle. But when Harry woke, he knew he had been visited by a vision of unusual importance, and he knew that he had to act. He was compelled to capture this dream before it faded. He had to find that damned dream diary and write it all down. And quickly.

Because it all starts now.

When Harry woke, his eyes hadn't even been open for a second before he was leaping out of bed towards the trunk that stored all of his worldly possessions. He opened his trunk and started pulling out his school supplies willy-nilly, chucking them all on the floor. Only his most prized possessions got special treatment by placing them on the bed: his wand, a photo album and a cloak handed down the Potter line for generations. He put his sheaf of revision notes aside and eventually he found it, the dream diary from divination, a book filled with a litany of depressing snippets of how the boy-who-lived would die. Harry smiled to himself, he knew that this entry would be different.

Today's diary entry would serve to remind him how the boy-who-lived could take his place in the world as a man.

Because it all starts today.

This young man wrote in a frenzy at his rickety desk while the sun rose over Little Whinging.

Not once did Harry realise that tonight's dream was entirely different from his recurring nightmares of endless corridors, foreboding graveyards and senseless death.

His head spun, but the remembering felt good, the writing felt good. Life felt good.

Harry Potter had a mission.

And there is not a moment to lose.