The words cascade from your lips so quickly, and in such quantity, that you think you might drown if not for his arms holding you afloat.
You have never told anyone. You tell yourself that you don't want to burden your friends — that you don't want to worry them, or make things any more difficult than they already are. Maybe it's true. But you never told them before the war, either. Maybe, the truth is that you're ashamed. Maybe, despite everything, some piece of you believes that you deserved it.
He says nothing for a long time, his thin lips pursed, grey eyes scanning your face for — something, you don't know what. Your heart sinks. Now he knows, and here comes the moment when he sees you for what you truly are: what you were before Hagrid showed up at the hut-on-the-rock and changed everything.
You're the boy from the cupboard.
Unimportant. Uninteresting. The furthest thing from special. There have been times when you've yearned for this, when the weight of the world has fallen too heavily upon your shoulders, and you would have given anything to go back to the way it was before. The boy from the cupboard was nothing, but nothing can sometimes be better than something. Especially when something means watching everything you love get ripped away, one by one.
But you know the truth. Just Harry isn't enough anymore, not for anyone. Would any of these people care about you if not for the things you've done, the power you wield, the prophecy that singled you out as their savior? You can't imagine how. You can't imagine any of them looking at the boy from the cupboard and loving him. Nobody ever has.
And then he presses you to his chest and whispers, voice shaking, "I'm so sorry." You are dumbstruck and can say nothing, but you feel the hot prick of tears and hurriedly blink them away. You hate crying, especially in front of other people. And if you cry now, you're not sure that you'll ever stop.
He's crying. You can feel him trembling, can hear the shuddering gasp as he tries to stifle his sobs. "It wasn't your fault," he says, and he clutches you to him even tighter. You're glad. You don't want him to let go. "Whatever they told you, none of it was your fault. Merlin, how could Dumbledore have…?"
This is your breaking point. It could have been worse, you almost say. The words are on your tongue. It wasn't so bad. You open your mouth to say them, to jump to the defense of the family who shunned you — because your family is dead and they're all that's left, and to deny them completely means accepting that you are alone.
But the words don't come. Tears do. You haven't cried like this in — forever, maybe. Even as a child, you so rarely allowed yourself to cry. Crying wouldn't bring your parents back. Crying wouldn't make Aunt Petunia love you. Crying wouldn't force Dudley to stop hitting you.
It still won't. Nothing, not even magic can revive the dead. Lily and James Potter will sleep forever in the earth. Sirius will never return through the veil. Remus, and Tonks, and Fred, and Mad-Eye — none of them are ever coming back. You can cry for hours, and it will change nothing. Voldemort will still have lived, and died, and you will still be the one to have killed him. Dumbledore will still have fallen like a rag-doll from the top of the astronomy tower.
You think of the tears Snape shed for your mother. His love, his guilt, his remorse — none of it could undo what had been done.
Crying now will not undo the years of abuse. Your aunt and uncle will not appear and say they're sorry, and would it really mean anything to you if they did? Could you forgive them?
(You think you could. You wish you could say otherwise, but it's in your nature to forgive. It's in your nature, too, to love what has hurt you most. Dumbledore raised you for slaughter, and you have resigned yourself to it. You cannot think badly of him. You never could.)
In spite of it all, you cry — and he never lets go. He says nothing, just holds you and makes soft humming sounds meant to console. They do. He does.
He has seen you for what you are. Perhaps he always has. You remember the day you met him, shy and uncertain, in Madam Malkin's. He'd been so haughty, carrying himself like the royalty he'd been raised to believe he was. You often think of it, nowadays. You'd never realized, then, how strange it was. He had looked at you and seen a too-small, too-skinny boy in oversized clothes and broken glasses.
He had not known your name, and he had deemed you worthy of his attention.
He has seen you for what you are, and he has not turned away. As your sobs subside, he strokes your hair with gentle fingers. The humming has turned into a lullaby — something pretty and French that his mum sang to him when he was a child. You close your eyes.
The last thing you hear before succumbing to sleep is his voice, soft in your ear: "Goodnight, sweetheart. I love you."
He loves you. It's enough. It's more than enough. And just Harry is enough for him.
A/N: If you would like to support my writing with a donation, my Ko-Fi is pinned to my Twitter profile - kath_lightfoot. As always, thank you for reading!