Teaser
When children are told that you are unloved and disgusting, there are a few routes they take developmentally.
Compromised morals and restricted empathy were Harry’s drink of choice. It wasn’t as if Harry had no empathy - in fact, there were times where many might assume he had too much. Simply put, Harry had learned how to choose.
For example; “Freaks don’t deserve love, you foolish boy!” When Harry heard that nasty sentence drip from his Aunt’s lips, it was not a particularly interesting occasion; yet when she said it, he felt a surge of emotions and memories he could not even begin to describe. The impact, however, was clear. In that moment, standing by the staircase as his Aunt Petunia shrieked, a clarifying thought came to the eight year old. The thought being that his Aunt could not love him.
For whatever reason, she was simply incapable, and wasn’t that freeing.
Later, as he scrubbed the tiles of the kitchen floor, he came to the conclusion that his Uncle Vernon was also incapable of loving him. Possibly, his cousin too.
Harry could not describe the elation, the joy such a revelation caused him. “Why try?” He thought deliriously. Sure, they could hurt him, but not seriously- hospital bills and the neighborhood gossip’s preventing- and they could not say anything to him that could matter. They already hated him!
Oh, what a wonderful thing to have happened, on a muggy spring day.
Of course…now that he was free…well. Harry thought about a passage he once read in a book he forgot the title of. “Bitter children do love to spread their resentment like poison, among those who have not spent their lives becoming immune to their own venom.”