Harry didn't think he quite understood.
Even then, as he was thinking so, he could hear Malfoy taunting him in his mind, something sneered and witty like 'Oh, I didn't know you'd ever understood' or in that taunting pure-blooded drawl of his 'Does Little Potter need help with his abc's? Does he not understand?' And the comments sounded eloquent, sounded fancy, but underneath all of that they were quite childish. Harry could see that now.
They had been children up until then.
Ever since Harry had been young he had blatantly thought of right and wrong. He had been quite gullible in that respect, he supposed now. Never pausing to think of motives, of where the line was, of if there could ever be a good reason for doing something. He had sorted the world into wolves, shepherds, sheep and the ones who didn't quite fit. Harry had never even considered that some actions could be excusable, never weighed right and wrong like his hands were the Dursley's kitchen scales which he knew all too well from baking birthday cakes. Harry had always thought there were the monsters, the people that took and took because they could, the cowards, the people who stood by and let it happen, the victims, the unfortunates stuck in a desperate situation, and the heroes, the small amount of people who actually did something.
But, back then he had been a shell of a boy. He could remember it clearly. He had been so stuck in his own little world, his own little life, his own little morals. Harry had never even had a taste of empathy, since no one had ever seemed to do him the courtesy, and he had been stuck in the childish rendition of 'they hit me I hit them back'. Harry... He wondered if he had truly ever cared for anyone. He felt so achingly guilty that he had seen his friends as family, relied on them for so much, but never stopped to reconsider them as people not place holders. The Dursleys had drilled in the mindset of normal, they had hammered the message home of the perfectly prickled garden beds, the white picket fence, the acceptable grades... never once considering the boy in the cupboard.
Even now Harry was blaming them for his own decisions, partially blaming his own parents for dying on him, blaming Dumbledore for leaving him with abusers, blaming the wizarding world for being so damn corrupt. He was blaming so many people, being stubborn in his Griffindor (Slytherin) way, and fortifying the immovable decision that he was stuck. That Harry had already passed the point of no return. Harry had picked his side, before he was even born, and he had made the decision as a child. He could not move forward. He would not be a coward.
...He was a stubborn boy.
And, until this moment, with his hand still bleeding from Umbridge's quill and Hermione's pitying looks... He had never tried to look to the truth of people. Harry had always been unsympathetic to their plights, almost psychopathic with his rescues. If anything, the blood leaking steadily from him should have cemented this concept, he should have never realised any of this, should never have even considered...
Harry had never stopped to think about his life philosophy. Harry had always just drank in the ideas of everyone around him, moulding himself to what he thought they would like about him. Never once had he stopped to consider who he truly was or who he wanted to be. Harry as a little boy with no family and only nightmares for companionship had wanted friends. And there was nothing wrong with wanting friends, and for people to like him.
But, Harry wasn't a little boy any longer. He had lost the right to being a little boy. He needed to understand why he was doing these things. It was not the Dursleys. It was not Dumbledore. It was not his friends. None of those things could be the answer. He had to do this for himself, even if that was selfish.
Harry no longer knew what selfish truly was. Where were morals when he needed them? What morals mattered? What was right? There were no books for him to follow about his life, no right and wrong for him to preach. Harry could not subscribe to the 'greater good' philosophy, for he did not think he believed that one person could decide the fates of all others. For every person was biased. Why would that one person be allowed to rule? Who decides who lives and who dies? Harry should have asked these questions to himself years ago, but he had never had the depth to before. He had been paper thin, he can see it now, the stereotypical hero he had embraced. Poor orphan Harry, he just has to save everyone except the people who he thinks don't deserve it. Harry couldn't think. He couldn't understand.
Harry layed down on his dorm bed, pulling his curtains around him, and staring at the ceiling boxed in by his bed. Harry had always blamed the Dursleys for his childhood, but were they really to blame? Could they help who they were? Had it been wrong for them to treat him so? He had always thought it, he had always been their victim... But he hadn't ever considered their side of the story. He was a weapon, a dangerous bomb waiting to go off living in their house. They had no defence against him, a young child of their own to look after, and his aunt was already battling with the toxic jealousy she held for her sister. Harry was a monster, who had been glued into their abode with no consent, he was a drifter, possibly dangerous, and could only bring sadness upon them. He was a whole other species to them... like a rabid dog. Some people had dogs, for they were dog people, some people didn't, for they didn't know how to take care of them.
Harry couldn't blame Dumbledore either. Dumbledore, old manipulative Dumbledore. He had a reason to put Harry there, the blood wards, protection. Surely he couldn't have known what his life would have been like. And Dumbledore had no time to look after a young child, could not protect Harry from the Death Eaters still at large, and wanted to keep Lily's blood protection alive. It had defeated Voldemort once, and Dumbledore knew about the prophecy. Hadn't Harry only survived in first year because of that blood protection? Did he not owe his life to Dumbledore? On the same axis, Dumbledore had failed his job as Harry's magical guardian. Sure, it hadn't been safe for him to hand Harry over to the Ministry, as he likely would have been killed by the Death Eaters seeped into the seams of bureaucracy, but he should have checked on Harry in his childhood, at least given better surveillance than senile Mrs Figg.
Who else was to blame? Voldemort. Wasn't Voldemort just a monster? But, Harry had never considered Voldemort's perspective either. He had simply barged in, with only the information he was told, and had assumed that he was his life long enemy. Was Harry any better than Voldemort? When he was expected to kill him as well? What would have caused a man to separate his soul anyway? Evidently leading to madness. Tom Riddle had grown up in war times, in an abusive environment, with no adults to support him. He had been taunted growing up, born out of a love potion, which may have caused some of his other emotionally lacking aspects, and never given the support he needed. How could Harry condemn a man to death? Why was it his duty in the first place? And that was what Voldemort was, wasn't he? A man. A man just like Harry. Someone who had used to be a boy. What right did Harry have to decide that? Was Voldemort evil? Was there good and evil in the first place, when the world was so grey?
Harry couldn't think. He couldn't understand how he could have been so blind for so long.
He softly closed his eyes, no longer able to think more on it.