A/N: Hello People... So this is the first fanfiction that i have actually written and completed. It's only a one-shot though. But that's alright for a first attempt right? So I would like to thank Cleminegh for being an awesome friend and editing this for me. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The universe of Harry Potter does not belong to me. I own nothing that you can recognize.

Six year old Harry Potter winced as, once again, he was thrown unceremoniously into his cupboard. It had been a day like every other – being woken up by Aunt Petunia at the crack of dawn to make breakfast for his family, running away from his cousin Dudley and his friends at school, and finally ending in Dudley scaring him while he was cooking dinner. Having spilt soup all over the wooden floor, Harry's Uncle Vernon had thrown him into his cupboard without any dinner.

Harry clambered slowly into his cot, staring into the darkness of the cupboard lit by only a sliver of light filtering in from a slit on the door. He listened to the sounds of his cousin Dudley screaming for ice-cream, and his Uncle Vernon complaining about those 'no good' Potters dumping their useless brat onto their family of 'respectable citizens'. Harry turned away bitterly as he felt a stinging in his eyes. A lone tear meandered down the side of his face, splashing onto the ratty pillow.

Dudley Dursley had everything, while Harry had nothing. Dudley had the largest bedroom in the whole house excepting the masters' plus the guest room to put his toys in, compared to the cramped cupboard that Harry had slept in since he was three. He had the newest models of action figures bought straight off the shelf in the toy store, compared to the unwanted, half broken set of toy soldiers Harry picked up from the rubbish bin. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon gave Dudley everything he wanted. They coddled him and boasted about him to everyone and anyone who would stop and listen. But they only turned away in disgust when they saw Harry.

Harry laid on the cot as he wished, hoped, and prayed, that somehow, there would be a person out there that cared enough about him to take him far away from this horrid house… or at least cared enough to feed him. He wondered, not for the first time, what his life was like before he was taken to Privet Drive, before the car crash that killed his parents. Did he have other relatives? Was he taken care of? Was he even loved?

As the Dursleys finished dinner, the telltale sound of Dudley thundering along the hallway told Harry that his cousin was coming to mock him again. Harry frantically wiped away the tears in his swollen eyes, as he tried unsuccessfully to hide the evidence that he had just been crying. He stared blankly at the door as the sound of a chair scraping on the floor could be heard, and Dudley's chubby face appeared at the slit, peering into the cupboard.

Harry watched as Dudley put his mouth as close to the door as possible and yelled at the top of his lungs,
"FREAK!"

He heard a thud as Dudley jumped off the chair and raced away, laughing loudly. Dudley thumped up the stairs before rushing back down to where he knew Harry's cupboard was and jumped up and down causing large amounts of dust to fall from the ceiling and pile on top of Harry. Harry coughed and spluttered with his eyes watering as he listened to the sound of Dudley's maniacal laughter fading away.

He listened to the Dursleys going on with their own activities as time passed by, the sound of Aunt Petunia finishing off the dishes, the sound of the low drone of the television program that Uncle Vernon was watching. Finally, he heard two sets of footsteps going up the stairs, and the flick of a light-switch, before darkness took over the cupboard, and he was left alone in the shadows, only being illuminated by the dull glow of moonlight seeping through. The family upstairs carried on their activities without any concern for the young boy huddled miserably in the cupboard under the stairs.

Harry twisted and turned in the darkness. Freak. That's what everyone called him. He'd done everything he could to try make his Aunt and Uncle proud. He'd tried his hardest to be just like Dudley. But that had only earned him another yelling and another grounding. It seemed that no matter how hard he tried, his Aunt and Uncle would still hate him. Harry whimpered as his stomach growled noisily, begging for attention. What was it that made him a freak? Did his mum and dad think he was a freak too?

Harry thought about everything that his Aunt and Uncle had told him about his parents. They had said that his parents were freaks too. His Uncle had muttered through gritted teeth that Harry's mother was a cheap whore that sold herself around, and that his father was a homeless drunk that didn't do anything for a living. Harry didn't know what a whore was, or what they did, but the tone in which his Uncle had said those words made him think that it must have been something really horrible to have his Uncle regard it in such a way.

If he racked his brains hard enough, Harry could remember little bits of memories of his parents... or at least what he thought they were. He could remember a pair of round glasses framing warm hazel eyes, as a pair of worn hands lifted him in the air. Was that his dad? He could remember a shaggy black dog with blue eyes and a bark-like laugh. Did they own a dog? He could remember two warm arms encasing him in a protective hug whispering words into his ear. But most clearly, he could remember a high-pitched, terrified scream and then a blinding green light. What had happened to his mother?

Harry thought about Dudley and Aunt Petunia. He thought about Piers Polkiss and Mrs Polkiss. He thought about all the other people at school and how every-body's mum seemed to love their children.

"Mummy… Did you love me?" Harry whispered timidly into the silence. He sighed sadly and twisted on his creaky cot as he slowly fell asleep, tear tracks still drying on his cheeks.

As he slept, a lone lily petal drifted serenely though the slit on the door, fluttering around the cupboard before finally resting on the boy's exposed hand. Harry's fingers closed around the petal in his sleep, subconsciously trying to take comfort in the small object.

A small draft blew through the crack on the door, seemingly whispering…

"Harry… I love you."

Review please?