Chapter Two - Once There Was A Boy . . .
Disclaimer: It's JK Rowling's creation.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews, guys. I would like to clarify a couple of points: 1) Snape is the individual that Harry is chiefly resenting at the moment and 2) I never said that Snape was physically abusive. Verbal and emotional abuse can be just as detrimental as physical abuse.
There once was a boy who longed to know his parents. For a long period of time, nearly half of his young life, the only proof he had had of their existence had been in the way he addressed his relatives. "Aunt Petunia." "Uncle Vernon." He never saw a photograph while living in the perfectly normal house on Privet Drive, nor would anyone ever see actual proof of him once he had been taken away.
Harry had noticed the difference in how his cousin Dudley had been treated as opposed to himself. He longed for the same sort of praise continually heaped upon the other boy's head.
His aunt and uncle never touched him in kindness, and that cut him deeply, even years later. When others gave hugs or handshakes, he would stiffen before relaxing into the motion. The damage was done well before he received his Hogwarts letter, and very little was set to relieve it afterward. No one noticed his innate shyness, and very few asked why he preferred to spend his holidays at the school.
Questions complicated matters. Harry learned one reason why he was "special" each year of his education. Each time he survived and returned to stand before his peers and instructors, a little bloodier, eyes more shadowed, he learned of his worth in their eyes. It was more than he had ever seen in his relatives' regard, but it was still superficial.
Just how superficial it would be wasn't apparent until his new guardian claimed his custody.
"Even I will not abide for the abuse of children," Snape had said stiffly during the time. It was the warmest comment Harry had ever heard him speak in regards to himself -- and yet his stomach clenched.
Somehow, he knew it would be the only warmth he would receive from the other man.
There once had been a boy that longed to save his parents. His father drank obsessively and blamed his other-worldly wife for the troubles in their lives. He by turns struck and ignored his son and spouse before trying to drown the guilt from those actions with whiskey and rye.
"I will not be like him, Mother," Severus had whispered into her ear once. She was sleeping and his father was missing--presumed to be down at one of his many favorite pubs.
He had started when Eileen reached up and stroked his face. "I hope so," she whispered back before slipping away into exhausted sleep. "I truly hope so."
Severus had wanted to make his mother proud. He also had wanted his father to accept the circumstances of their lives and embrace him as his son.
Severus had wanted many things.
He fulfilled one of them, and later cursed the fact that his efforts hadn't been enough. But how could they be? He had never been taught any other way, though his one friend had tried before their estrangement.
He did the very best that he could.
His knuckles whitened, crinkling the parchment his fingers clutched.
His best had not been enough.
"When was the last time you saw your guardian?" Tiny's brief should squeeze was almost familiar to Harry. He no longer flinched.
"The night before my eighteenth birthday." His words were slow, measured. He would answer the questions asked of him, but nothing more. Such reticence broke Tiny's heart--not that he would say as much. He did have a minor reputation to uphold.
"And the next day--"
"--I left the house at midnight. That was the first opportunity I had to leave without notice, and I did."
Tabitha breathed out softly. "And never looked back?"
". . . not precisely," Harry admitted. "I left him a letter. I . . . didn't wish for him to worry overly much, nor did I wish for him to come after me too quickly."
"So you cared." That comment came from Celina, a newer member of the trauma group. Her lips, slightly marred from scars left after being struck with a glass bottle, twisted. "It hurts to care about the ones who hurt us."
Harry breathed out heavily. "It does. It certainly does. I wanted to be loved . . . and part of me must have loved him. A little."
-TBC-