Stupidity didn’t even begin to describe Harry’s latest action.

Really, what had he been thinking? Actually, no, Harry was all too aware that he hadn’t been thinking properly. His brain had a lapse of judgment. He was a teenage male, of course, he was going to have lapses of judgment. It was a given, after all. Everybody knew that stuff.

But, according to the latest information he had just received, it would seem that such brainless, idiotic actions were not simply everyday teenage stupidity, but rather it was hereditary.

It just wasn’t fair. But then again, what part of his life was actually fair? This was just another one of those things to toss onto the pile that was burdened upon Harry’s back. However, this burden was the one to bring him crashing to the ground; everything weighing him down to its full capacity.

Could he pick himself up after this?

Here, after all these years, Harry had thought that his father was a good man. Well, that’s what everyone told him, that is. Everyone sung praises about James Potter. He’d been a Chaser and the Quidditch captain. He’d been exceptionally talented in Transfiguration. All the teachers had nothing but good things to say about the man. After all, he had died a hero, hadn’t he? He had died trying to protect his family, hadn’t he? He had loved his wife and son, hadn’t he?

He was a good man, wasn’t he?

And yet, with the evidence before Harry, he found himself questioning everything. His teachers must’ve been lying to him; that was the only explanation. That or they just were completely blind. Harry was even questioning Sirius, his godfather, and Lupin, his father’s other friend. Their actions had been inexcusable. They had targeted another fellow student – no matter the house rivalry – and had attacked him without provocation.

Their reasoning?

Because they were bored.

Seriously!?

It made Harry sick to call James Potter his father. It made Harry sick to call Sirius Black his godfather. Remus Lupin had been no better, since he did nothing to stop it, though he hadn’t instigated it. He was literally nauseous at the thought of being related to James. He just couldn’t understand. It made no sense and nothing anyone told him could blow it off. This was a serious transgression in Harry’s mind. After all, he’d had personal experience with bullies.

Such cruel actions against another fellow student – even if it had been Snape – was not right. There was no excuse for such behavior and Harry would not stand for it.

How dare they call themselves Gryffindors! They didn’t deserve to be there. Their glorified titles should be stripped from them. They had acted like Harry had always assumed were Slytherin tactics. Of course, that was a mere illusion. Cruelty could dwell anywhere, no matter the color, the house, or the heart – it could dwell anywhere if invited.

How could Harry’s father be someone to invite that? How horrible was that? It made him sick to even look at him. Even his mother had hated him! What had James done to get her to marry her? Harry could only think up terrible, awful scenarios that could’ve brought them together. Somehow, Harry’s very birth felt marred by something bad. If he hadn’t already felt bad about being alive and a target for Voldemort, which had led to the deaths of his parents, now he felt a thousand fold worse.

So much worse.

Unfortunately, he was going to feel even more horrible. It was foolish to dip his head into Snape’s Pensive – extremely foolish. He’d only wanted answers to the secrets he felt that everyone was keeping from him. Now, he didn’t want the answers any more. They were lies anyway. Every adult had told him to sit back and obey, and let the adults do their adult things.

Was this an example of their ‘adult things’?

What the crap was that? They weren’t the ones with a giant target on their forehead. They weren’t the ones who had been hunted by Voldemort not once, but four times. They hadn’t seen Cedric die before their eyes. They hadn’t been sliced on the arm and they hadn’t watched the most evil man the world had ever known rise from a steaming cauldron like a demonic shadow, ready to bring the world down on its knees.

They didn’t have nightmares every night about it. They didn’t feel sick some days and had to rush to a bathroom, only to expel their latest meal. They didn’t fear the night and the darkness it held. They didn’t have Umbridge hating on them like he did. They weren’t having their writing hand sliced open with scarring, condemning words.

What the freaking heck did they know, anyway?!

How dare they claim that he was too young to handle the ‘adult stuff’ when that was what fate kept thrusting into his face and life since the day he’d been born.

At not even two years old, he had been sought after and marked for whatever reason by a madman; thrown to an abusive and hateful family after that; spent years with said family being hated and harmed with verbal and physical abuse; attacked during his first year at Hogwarts by said same madman; bit by a snake – okay, a really big snake –  in second year; nearly had been bitten by a werewolf and nearly had his soul sucked out in third year – quite the eventful year; in fourth year had been spied on by a Death Eater, forced to participate in a stupid, waste of time, idiotic, dangerous tournament that he hadn’t wanted to be a part of – could you tell? – had watched the untimely death of fellow student, and finally, watched the horrific rise of that same madman who had tried to kill him in his infancy and barely escaped the encounter with his life intact.

If anyone attempted to tell Harry that there was no need to get riled up about everything and that he just needed to sit back and be a good boy, he was going to strangle them.

What did they know? They knew nothing.

He had lived for years without a proper, loving guardian. He had spent ten years of his life sleeping in the cupboard like house dog – actually, the dog would’ve been far better cared for than Harry had been. He had spent ten years wondering if he would be fed that day. He had gone for years hearing hateful words. He had gone for years doing endless chores that had been too hard for him as a child. He had gone for years feeling some kind of harsh hand; whether it be across the face, sometimes with a frying pan in the hands of his aunt, or with a belt that was wielded by his uncle.

And he had heard countless lies about his parents.

And somehow, he had endured it all. Because, for some reason, he just didn’t believe the lies about his parents. They just had to be good people. Little Harry had always imagined himself with his mother and father, their loving hands gently caressing him, their soft words encouraging him.

He had to have been loved. That was the only thing that had kept him going. His parents had loved him, no matter what the Dursleys said, his parents had wanted him and had loved him – since Dudley was Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia’s son, and they wanted him. It stood to reason that Harry would be wanted by his own parents.

But now it was all shattered.

All because of one old memory. All because of one horrid name. Snivellus.

How could his father be that terrible? He had picked on someone else for the fun of it, because his best friend was bored. Wasn’t that like how Tom Riddle started out? Hadn’t he been a charismatic young man? Harry has seen a shadow of the sixteen year old in his second year – Tom Riddle was extremely powerful with his words and demeanor. Hadn’t he attacked others because he felt like it; even bragged about killing Moaning Myrtle? James had been no better as a teenager. What made James Potter different than what Tom Riddle had been at sixteen?

“Well… it’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean…”

How could anyone think that way about another person, let alone say it out loud!

Thus, that was how every illusion that Harry had held dear to his heart about his parents, every wishful thought that if things had somehow been different, he could’ve been loved – all that had shattered away into tiny, irreparable pieces that were once the images of his parents. All in the matter of a few moments of watching a simple memory. There was nothing left for him to hold onto, there was no hope, no ideal to cling to – it was over.

There was nothing left.

Of course, fate had brilliant timing. Because just at the moment that Harry’s heart had broken, that had to be the exact moment that a terrible hand gripped his underarm with the power a siren had in dragging her victims to their watery deaths.

In this case, Harry would much rather be dragged to a watery death by a siren, instead of being in the presence of the owner of that hand. Especially when that voice spoke in a shaky, yet dangerously calm voice – however, the pure fury and outrage still adorned his face.

Could that siren come and kill him now, please?