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His parents hated him.
Harry was sure of it. If they hadn’t hated him, why would they have left him here? He had never known his mum and dad, but Aunt Petunia had.
Aunt Petunia said they were irresponsible.
Aunt Petunia said they were drunks.
Aunt Petunia said that if they had loved him, they wouldn’t have driven while drunk with him, a baby, in the car.
Harry had no proof to the contrary, so it must be true. Aunt Petunia had known them after all. Uncle Vernon too. Harry didn’t know anyone else who had known his parents. Perhaps they hadn’t had any friends — he certainly didn’t.
Sometimes Harry liked to think that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were liars. They lied to Dudley sometimes, after all. They told him all sorts of things that Harry knew weren’t true: that Father Christmas was real, that Dudley was a sweet angelic little boy, that Dudley’s school teachers had nice things to say about him, that Harry was a freak…
Well, Harry wasn’t so sure about the last one, but he liked to hope it was a lie. Strange things did tend to happen around him, but perhaps it was just coincidence. Perhaps Harry just had very, very bad luck.
His entire existence at Privet Drive was bad luck after all.
Yes, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon lied about some things, but it was hard to believe the things they said about his mum and dad weren’t true. Not when they had known them and Harry hadn’t. Not when Harry couldn’t think of any reason for them to lie about them.
And especially not when Harry couldn’t think of any other reason for why they seemed to hate him so much.
His parents had been terrible people.
His aunt and uncle hated them, and hated him too.
His parents had never loved him.
And if they hadn’t loved him, who else possibly could?
Harry felt the familiar ache in his chest, the cold sensation that seemed to creep up on him, enveloping him completely whenever he came to this conclusion. He wrapped his arms tighter around himself and stared harder at the spider creeping up the cupboard wall, wishing for sleep to claim him.
____________________
His parents hadn’t died in a car crash. At least, that’s what Hagrid told him. Being murdered by a dark wizard was terrible, but he supposed it was still better than what Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon had told him. At least now he knew for sure that they had lied — and that meant they might have also lied about his parents not caring about him.
Harry had started to come to terms with the fact that he might never know for sure how his mum and dad had felt about him, but was content with what Hagrid had told him. Until he found the mirror.
Green eyes looking back into his with the most tender expression Harry had ever seen. Brown eyes and dark hair, a broad smile. Tears of happiness leaking from his mother’s eyes as both his mum and dad looked at him with pride and joy in their faces.
They loved him.
Harry pressed himself against the mirror, staring at them hungrily, wishing he could fall through the glass and into their open arms. He would live with them in the mirror forever if he could.
____________________
The Philosopher’s Stone was safe, and he was alive. Professor Dumbledore was talking to him in the hospital wing. Dumbledore was answering his questions good-naturedly, and Harry was determined to ask him everything.
“But why couldn’t Quirrell touch me?”
“Your mother died to save you,” Dumbledore said, as if it were the most simple thing in the world. “If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign...to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin.”
Harry could hardly breathe. The ache in his chest was back, but this time it was different. A powerful mixture of grief and love as he had never felt it before seemed to have gripped him, and he couldn’t seem to look Dumbledore in the eye.
They loved him.
The mirror had been one thing, but hearing Dumbledore confirm it out loud was certainly another. Nearly eleven years of doubt and hurt couldn’t be vanquished with a few simple words, but in that moment Harry could almost feel it leaking out of him, the remains of some toxin that had lived within him for so long, invisibly eating him up from the inside.
Dumbledore’s simple words were hardly simple at all, Harry thought, if they changed everything. He was glad Dumbledore looked away as he dried his eyes on the crisp hospital sheets.
Later, when Hagrid handed him a handsome, leather-covered photo album, Harry became overwhelmed once again.
“Sent owls off ter all yer parents’ old school friends, askin’ fer photos ... knew yeh didn’ have any...d’yeh like it?”
Harry couldn’t speak, but Hagrid seemed to understand.