Qualia: a quality, such as bitterness, regarded as an independent object.

July 20, 2005

The door began to swing shut almost the moment it opened.

"Wait a moment," Harry said, grabbing the edge to stop its slamming in his face. "I'd like to speak to you," he said calmly and his aunt's eyes widened.

"I haven't any time," she snapped, grabbing her purse from the side table. "I'm on my way out."

"It won't take long," Harry promised. "You won't need to say anything back, but you're going to listen to me because you owe me that much. You do."

He stared at her hard for a few seconds. She stared back, chewing her lip, not making any sign of acquiescence, but not resisting either. He looked down and took a breath, thinking of the things he'd scribbled down this morning.

"You treated me horribly for sixteen years, and there's no excuse for that. I always knew that, but I was too little to really understand it or to do anything about it or to even know that I could." His face was flaming and his palms were sweating and this was the worst situation he'd gotten himself into in a long time, but it was also the best. Every word was just as stilted and awkward as it had seemed when he'd written it down, but it was the distilled truth and giving it voice was making part of him soar even as his heart pounded madly. He took another breath.

"I didn't deserve to be locked in three-by-six cupboard. I didn't deserve to go days without real food." This was Hermione's idea, something she'd gotten out of one of her parents' psychology books, listing off all the wrongs. "I didn't deserve to be told that I was nothing, or worse than nothing every day of my life in the way you spoke to me and looked at me and brushed me aside." He was on a roll now. He couldn't have stopped the things pouring out of his mouth if he'd tried. "I didn't deserve to be humiliated by the clothes you put me in or the stories you told other people about me. I didn't deserve to have frying pans swung at my head, to be dragged around by the collar or the ear or the hair, to be beaten up by your son and his friends while you turned a blind eye.

"I didn't deserve to be a scapegoat for everything you didn't like about your life. I was a kid who'd done nothing wrong except have your sister as my mother, and I didn't deserve your bitterness."

He was breathing hard now, as if he'd run a long way, and only now did he look up at her. She hadn't moved, hadn't changed expressions, but she looked paler, maybe.

"I have a godson, you know." He didn't know why he was saying this. It hadn't been on the paper, but his voice was softer now and he couldn't grab the words and real them in, so they just kept coming. "He's not my kid. He's the son of someone I loved and was angry at, too. Someone I miss. Someone I never got to say a lot of things to. And when I look at my godson, I think of him and it hurts like hell. But my godson doesn't know any of that. My godson wasn't around when all of that was happening, and its not his fault that he brings all of that up just by existing. I love that kid.

"You know, I always knew the way I grew up was terrible, but that was the way it was so what was the point of dwelling on it, right? But now I've got my godson and a kid of my own and… if anybody ever made them feel a fraction of what you made me feel when I was living in this house…." He shook his head, out of words. "I'm just finally understanding how messed up this whole thing was."

He took a final deep breath and looked his aunt square in the face. It was like she'd been petriified, the way she still frozen there, staring at him.

"I'm not looking for an apology or anything. But I need you to acknowledge everything that happened in this house and that it was messed up. I do deserve that much."

And he fell into silence, wondering if she would ever speak again. They stood there for a long time, his hands in his pockets, her mouth slightly open. He knew it wasn't coming. She was never going to admit that she'd been wrong; he doubted she was even sorry.

And then she moved, shifted on her heels, looked down at the hem of her dress. "You're right," she said. It was a hoarse whisper, but he heard it loud and clear. "You're right." And she closed the door.

A/N: Ohmygosh, school, work, time, I'm sorry! But here you go! I know it's a lot of Harry just spewing out all his grievances, but the fact that he's old enough and brave enough to do it now I think is a big step for him. Let's face it, reading the books after taking an intro psych class reveals a lot of serious issues we never got to see Harry deal with. The Dursleys didn't physically abuse him in the way that a lot of overdramatic FF portrays, but they DID emotionally kick the shit out of him, the effects of which we can see pretty clearly once you look closely. And the thing about him being angry at Lupin? Yeah, I've touched on that in other chapters here, but I think that's another thing he had to deal with once he started recovering from the trauma of his adolescence, coming to terms with the ways Sirius and Lupin, as wonderful as they are, did in fact screw him over, too. I think getting angry at them (and at the Dursleys) was healthy for Harry and necessary for him to be able to forgive them (not the Dursleys, perhaps).

Okay, anyway, I have a lot of feelings about Harry's psychologic development.

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