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Heartbroken Lyrics Challenge
Learning Love
He was used to the feeling of being lost. The feeling of being utterly lonely yet surrounded by so many people, all living their own lives and enjoying it. He had only ever been able to watch as other people smiled happily and joked with each other, no worries or cares.
Despite being only a child, he had to worry about whether his father would be drunk that particular night or if his father came home in a bad mood. His mother always took the brunt of his anger, and her body showed the signs even as she barely made a sound as she took the punishment.
That had been his knowledge on love. It hurt, it was punishment, it was pain. He had never had anything else to compare love to. All the other children in the muggle school his father had demanded he went to called how their parents treated them love, and he had blindly done the same. He had considered that harsh treatment love. It was the only love he had known.
Until he had met Lily the summer before Hogwarts was to start.
He had learned a kinder love then, something much gentler than what he had experienced at home. This love did not hurt. It was calm, it was warm, it was like nothing he had ever experienced before.
That feeling of warmth that had filled him every time he spoke with Lily, kept him coming back to meet her again and again. It had been such a chance of fate for him to meet Lily and even more so to live as close as he did to her.
Perhaps it shouldn't have been as unexpected as it had been when he realized that he had come to depend on Lily Evans, her very presence in his life had become something he had clung on to when his father had been in a particularly bad mood, or when his mother looked particularly bad one morning.
Lily's parents were as kind as she was. They had welcomed him into their home gracefully and always allowed him to stay until late at night without asking questions that would make him uncomfortable. It was obvious where Lily had learned her kindness.
Lily's older sister Petunia, was the complete opposite of Lily. Petunia often looked down on his clothing with a sense of disgust and distaste, as if looking down upon someone who was lower than her in a way similar to the way his father looked at both his mother and him. He had grown to dislike her, she reminded him far too much of his father, and despite Lily's continuous requests he could not find himself able to dispel the dislike he felt for Petunia. He had often tried but in the end, he only avoided the other girl in an attempt to argue with Petunia less frequently for Lily's sake.
He would do anything for Lily, because beyond anything, Lily cared. Lily bothered to care even though he was sure he had done nothing to deserve it. He was sure he didn't deserve it but somehow Lily still managed to care. She still managed to get behind his walls, and breach his heart in a way no one had ever managed to do before.
She had taught him love.