Chapter Text
Sometimes being lonely is a choice. Sometimes it’s forced. 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 on house number 8 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 read from his school library details a character with loving parents. Harry doesn’t have loving parents but when the character doesn’t have loving parents they have loving friends. Harry has neither. He doesn’t understand why some people have nice things like parents and people who love them. He tried to ask Aunt Petunia once, her reply was “Some people deserve love more than other’s”.
He internalized that belief for a long while. Trying to make himself more deserving of the kind of love Dudley or Piers Polkins receive. Doing more chores than his aunt assigned, replying to his uncle with polite responses, getting up even earlier to cook a bigger breakfast; that didn’t last long, however. After he found Dudley and Piers beating someone 3 years younger than them, Harry realized love isn’t based on who deserves it more. If Dudley, a boy who finds beating those weaker than him a fun pastime, receives love; then so should anyone else.
Harry’s aware that these thoughts aren’t normal for a 10-year-old to have. He knows that most children his age are thinking about what game they’re going to play at the park next. 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 love.
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 he is. But when he says it, his tone is not infused with warmth and his eyes do not crinkle with amusement. When Harry thinks about everything that has made him an ‘old soul’ his chest gets tight, and he has trouble breathing. His lungs begin to feel like they’re trying to collapse into his chest and his eyes start to burn.
The reason why he doesn’t receive love starts to become clear to him when he holds a cream white envelope in his hand under the light of his cupboard’s single, flickering light bulb. 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 1st, 1991, Harry realizes that love is not a matter of 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.