AN: This is basically me testing the waters for a story I may or may not write in the not so near future hesitatingly called, The Difference Indifference Makes for which I have the challenge/summary/Story idea currently on my profile. I haven't gathered all the information necessary for the particular storyline I'm going for (I have to go through the first book two or three times and read through a few psychology books to make sure I put everything together right) so I'm sorry if it seems a little sloppy and not well thought out. I'm currently writing without a Beta at three o'clock in the morning, as such there will be mistakes and I hope you bear with me through them.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor do I think I ever could own it even in my wildest dreams.
From Different to Indifferent
Harry noticed a rather disturbing trend in his life one that he was determined to change.
Harry is pretty sure he wouldn't have ever considered it before, after all he had spent most of his life thus far dealing with it and never considered changing before as he had previously been sure that it had nothing to do with him and his family was just being unreasonable. Looking back now there was a definite correlation between his feelings and wants and how harshly he was punished, because even though he was often punished in an absurd manner for absolutely nothing there was enough data to prove that he was more likely to be punished when he cared about things one way or the other. Going by that line of thought Harry made a list of all the emotions he could think of their merits, their consequences and what causes the 'dangerous' ones.
Happy, Harry thought about it a moment trying to find a single moment in all his memories in which he was happy, he bit his lower lip before deciding happiness was a bad emotion because it makes you feel too many dangerous things when it's taken away and it encourages greed.
Sad, being sad…was okay he supposed as long as he didn't outwardly show it or let it get too extreme, Harry paused, then again sadness leads to anger and desperation and those are not okay.
Curious, curiosity was a good emotion as long as he searched for answers on his own without asking questions or openly expressing it.
Scared, he must never get truly scared because if he did he was quite sure strange things would happen and he feared his uncle might kill him if the strange things kept happening.
Covetous, Harry shivered unwilling to think of what would happen if dared to want for something again after the last time…
Angry, anger while oddly satisfying at the time was way too dangerous with too many extreme consequences that it was better off left alone.
Startled, not to horrible, but occasionally things break when he gets startled and he doesn't particularly want to deal with that.
Desperation, can save him from some things, but can also cause things to get worse? Harry wasn't sure how to categorize it, but figures that unless he's going to die at the time it's not a good emotion.
Bored, boredom is a safe emotion even if it's not particularly enjoyable.
Tired, being tired is not really safe cause it leaves you more prone to other bad emotions.
Harry looks back through his list trying to think of a way to stop feeling those deemed bad or particularly dangerous and wants to cry when he can't think of anything. Harry forces back the tears and tells himself sternly that he doesn't really care that he can't get rid of the bad feelings. Harry freezes and looks back over his list thinking about the one little thing he could do to… a wide smile breaks across his face this changes everything. If he doesn't care, then he's safe.
The next day Harry asks his professor if someone doesn't care about something, what they feel instead. Her answer leaves him with a word for the emotion he decides he will work towards always:
Indifferent.
End Note: Basically in school Harry's professor asked them to look back on their life so far and find some way to make it even better. I know I made Harry seem a little overly intelligent, but in the books he is capable of huge leaps of logic that even Hermione was unable to do, (example: He was able to figure out where the chamber of secrets was) also he was perfectly capable of figuring out the thing with the basilisk as soon as he knew basilisks even existed to the point he could confidently say that the reason no one had died yet was that they had not looked it in the eyes directly. That leads me to believe that Harry could be perfectly intelligent, if he actually bothered to read things and try to figure it out on his own.