Chapter Text
Sometimes being lonely is a choice. Sometimes it’s forced upon you. He’s never understood why someone would choose to be lonely.
It’s a thought Harry often has. There’s not much to do in his cupboard besides thinking. He often wonders why people like Ms. Janus from house number eight on Privet drive choose to live such ordinary lives. Solitary might be a better word.
Harry’s alone a lot. His aunt and uncle don’t care much for his presence. They shove him in the cupboard when his time is not occupied with cleaning or cooking. They don’t care much for his existence beyond how he can be useful.
Every book Harry has ever scrounged from the library is about a protagonist with loving parents, relying on their support while they traverse through life. If they didn’t have loving parents, they’d have a close-knit group of friends, ones they bond with during thrilling adventure. Harry doesn’t have either of those things, no matter how much he wishes he did. He could only pretend he did while reading of other worlds, lying to himself with every page, desperate for his vivid daydreams to come true.
He doesn’t understand why only some people have nice things like parents and people who love them. He tried to ask Aunt Petunia once. He should have expected her response, but for some reason it still caught him by surprise. She told him, “Some people deserve love more than others.”
He internalized that belief for a long time, trying to make himself more deserving of the love Dudley or Piers Polkins received. Doing more chores than his aunt assigned to him, replying to his uncle with polite responses, waking up even earlier than he usually did to cook a bigger breakfast; that didn’t last long, however. After he found Dudley and Piers beating someone three years younger than them, Harry realized that love wasn’t based on who deserved it most. If Dudley, a boy who found beating those weaker than him a fun pastime, was worthy of love; then so should anyone else.
Harry’s vaguely aware that these thoughts aren’t normal for a ten-year-old to have. He knows that most children his age are thinking about what game they’re going to play next at the park. What fun place their parents are going to take them to for the weekend. That they think about childish, lighthearted things and don’t concern themselves with ‘adult matters’ like who deserves to be loved.
But Harry’s never had the chance to be a normal ten-year-old child. Ms. Patty the librarian calls him an old soul, he’s never found fault with the definition because he does act older than his age. But when he describes himself that way, his tone is not infused with warmth, and his eyes do not crinkle with amusement the way hers do. When Harry thinks about everything that has made him an old soul, his chest gets tight and his lungs begin to feel like they’re trying to collapse into his chest while his eyes start to burn with unshed tears.
The reason why he doesn’t receive love starts to become clear to him one Wednesday morning, when he’s clutching a cream white envelope in his hand under the light of his cupboard’s single, flickering light bulb. It becomes clear to him as he reads the words “We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”
On July first, nineteen ninety-nine, Harry realizes that love isn’t determined by who deserves it most. Love is based on what people perceive as being worthy of love, and Harry Potter, a young boy with magic running through his veins, is not seen as worthy of love by his aunt and uncle. Harry believes that the words his aunt uttered with scorn a few years ago, are the stupidest ones of all.