I don't own Harry Potter.
Also, my thanks once again to White Angel of Auralon for the Horcrux idea.
Why am I not surprised?
"Your house is like your family."
Why was it the moment he heard that from Professor McGonagall's mouth, he was instantly worried? His mind was swamped with all the things he'd heard Ron and Hagrid claim about Slytherin House, but to be honest, at that point Harry didn't really care if a House was evil or not although the rational part of his mind felt it was unfair to put labels on the Houses simply because they had different philosophies.
But it was the family part of McGonagall's clearly rehearsed greeting which worried him the most.
Harry had only experienced one family in his life.
The Dursleys. And he hated them. He hated everything about them. Hated how behind closed doors they were willing to abuse him both mentally and physically simply because he was different.
However, in the open where their precious neighbours could see them in their glory which was a facade like everything else about them, the Dursleys always tried their hardest to appear like the well-to-do normal people they strived so hard to be. Granted, some of their abuse had spilt out into the outside world when they made him garden or clean the car.
Harry had no idea how the house he would be sorted into would treat him, but he was optimistic. After all, these were not like the Dursleys. They were witches and wizards who were only just starting, or were going through their magical educations, or ending them. They were being taught by older witches and wizards, so they weren't going to abuse him because they were like him.
Even better they were hardly likely to be anything like the idiots who were teaching in the muggle primary school he'd attended with Dudley. But even so, Harry would do his best to keep clear of them and not get his hopes up with them should he need to deal with them in the future.
Harry had decided he didn't want to be sorted into Slytherin mostly because that idiot Malfoy was in the House. That was it. He didn't want to spend seven years of his life putting up with the blond imbecile - while Ron Weasley was a chore unto himself, at least he didn't continually act like a bully openly. Unfortunately, like much of his Hogwarts experience, Harry came to see how wrong he was there as well.
Yet another reason to be disappointed and just leave the magical world of Britain.
When he was sorted into Gryffindor, Harry felt at home. Okay, so the mess with Norbert the Norwegian ridgeback had caused the other Gryffindors to turn on him, but beyond that he'd had a happy year. And for the first time ever, Harry found himself seeing that the word family didn't immediately equals that with the image he'd gotten from the Dursleys.
And when the Weasley family took him in during the summer before his second year, his definition further improved.
But as his years in Hogwarts went on, Harry's logical thought took a battering. As did the feeling that family didn't automatically equate with the Dursleys. It wasn't once, either.
But it was virtually every single one of his years that he spent at the school, and as the years went on and became increasingly darker as the signs of Lord Voldemort and his allies return to once more try to conquer the magical world, before finally culminating in Voldemort's return.
So, on one side of the fence the entire school, including the other Gryffindors turning on him which almost became a yearly event in itself, while Professor McGonagall, his own Head of House, proved herself to be just as inept and uncaring as the teachers he'd had to deal with in primary school. When Harry had been in muggle primary school he had studied the Roman Empire, and he had been fascinated because the Roman Empire had managed to conquer a large slice of the globe.
But it wasn't until Harry reached his fourth year, and went through the Tri-wizard tournament that he finally began comparing the years he spent at Hogwarts as being in an arena where Voldemort and whatever else wanted to kill him made their yearly attempts while the professors led by Dumbledore, and then later Fudge and the Ministry and the other students watched as he nearly killed himself.
His Fourth-year made the vision literal. On the other side of the fence, even his relationship with the Weasley's and even with Sirius, his newly discovered waste of space godfather took a battering since they helped Dumbledore keep secrets from him. Harry understood the need to keep secrets in times of war, but he didn't understand the logic in keeping secrets from him
Voldemort was after him. The bastard wasn't going to stop coming after him simply because he didn't know anything.
For the whole of his fifth year with the toad shaped dark cloud hanging over his head, Harry had become so tired of how the idiots treated him he had practically been chased out of the Hog's Head when Hermione had tried to create a defence group, only for it to get out of hand since they expected him to tell them how Cedric had died. Harry had already lost count of how many times he had told the story. What did he get in the end, nothing but grief and a Minister who was denying Voldemort's return out of political fear.
Still, he was eternally grateful he had spent the last few years preparing for his OWL and NEWT exams. It was the only thing to keep himself sane. But when Arthur Weasley had gotten bitten by a snake, Harry had been so terrified Voldemort was taking control, he managed to get out of Number 12, and he travelled to Gringotts. He had wanted to just leave Magical Britain, to get as far from everyone so he wouldn't put them at risk. It was a surprise when he arrived and the goblins conducted a magical checkup of him, they discovered one of Voldemort's soul pieces in his scar. They removed it for free, and he earned even greater acclaim from them when he told them about the basilisk and the Chamber of Secrets. . The giant serpent was rotting down there, but the magical ingredients which came from it had made Harry richer.
When the goblins drained the Horcruxes of magic and Voldemort died along with the Death Eaters in the Ministry of Magic, Harry had returned to Hogwarts, only to be met with everyone who claimed to have been on his side the whole time.
When he left Hogwarts for the summer, Harry immediately handed in his resignation after he had his NEWT results come in, and he left for Australia.
Maybe down under he would find some peace, although he had no idea if he would start a family.
Every time he came across one, he was always left bitterly disappointed.