Love and Hate

Love and Hate

People said I was crazy for protecting the Dursleys. Truth is, people have said a lot worse about me. I'm used to it now. What the press says about me, it never changes, hero one minute, villain the next. I stopped listening a long time ago.

I knew that people would never understand why I wanted to protect them. Every Gryffindor at school with me knew how they treated me, courtesy of my oh-so-concerned friends, and no doubt, told their nearest and dearest all about it. I always was a good source of gossip at school. I knew that nothing I ever said could make them understand. They'd never listened to me before, so what made this time any different? It just reinforced the idea of the tragic hero, going back to protect his family despite the abuse he suffered from them, a part I have always played to perfection. Idiots. I doubt that most of them would know the truth if it bit them on the arse.

What really got to me was the way my friends looked at me. Hermione, brilliant brown eyes puzzled for perhaps the first time in her life, lips pursed in anger, no doubt biting back some choice comment about their treatment of me over the years. Ron, his ears turning Weasley red in anger, clearly remembering the bars they put on my window after first year. Ginny her eyes alight with fury looking, for all the world, like an angry cat, and more than a little like her mother.

They were the people who really knew me, but they just didn't get it. I know that they tried to understand, but it was no use. They didn't grow up the way I did. They can never understand the kind of childhood I had.

Maybe Sirius would have understood, God knew he hated his family, but that's what they don't get. There is a fine line between love and hate, one is not really so different from the other. I may have hated the Dursleys, but I loved them too.

You can't choose your family, but that doesn't mean that you stop loving them. I'm sure that Sirius would have got that. Sure, he said he hated his mother, but there must have been a time when he loved her too, and he would never have been so bitter, so angry about his brother's fate, unless of course some love still existed in his heart for Regulus. The only people we can ever truly hate are the ones we once loved, like betrayal cannot exist unless trust once did in its place.

They don't understand why I would willingly risk my life for people who treated me like crap. Hermione thinks that it's my 'saving people thing' at work again. She's convinced that she's right, and that I won't let anyone else die because of me. She has a point, and she knows it, but things are never that cut and dried. For all her intelligence Hermione still does not grasp human nature. Its not that simple, it never is. Part of me wishes that it was...

This is what separates me from Voldemort. Dumbledore knew it, and somehow I begin to understand. What can I say? It's better late than never, perhaps something the old man said finally penetrated my thick skull and took root. It took long enough...too long...

Despite everything the Dursleys are my family, the only blood family I have left. They are my family, and you can't help but care for family. I won't watch them die, not if I can prevent it, I owe them. I owe them my very life, I'm not stupid, I know that. Though some may dispute it, I survived because of them. Without them I wouldn't have lived 'til five let alone adulthood. People can say what they will, but I know the truth, I owe them.

I'm not completely delusional, I don't owe Vernon anything, except perhaps his tolerance on occasion, but I can't say that I'm surprised by his actions over the years. What did I expect? The man wasn't a saint, and I was the cuckoo in his nest. He was intolerant, yes, bullying, yes, abusive, that depends on your meaning, but he kept me alive. He let me stay in his house despite what he thought of me and the world my parents came from. He put up with me for his wife's sake, because she asked him, and unless I am very much mistaken, because she begged him to let me stay.

Which brings me to Petunia, my delightful Aunt, my mother's sister, and thus my closest living relative. The only reason I am still alive is because of her. Say what you will about her, but that fact is irrefutable. I survived because of blood magic sealed by her. She saved my life, and that is a debt I can never repay.

But why did she do it? That is a question which most find themselves incapable of answering. Mrs. Weasley will never understand how she could take me in, her sister's son, and them treat me the way that she did. But she doesn't get it, not all families are as warm and loving as hers. She only ever saw isolated incidents, heard graphic retellings of the worst events through Ron and the twins. She wasn't there, she didn't live my life, she can't understand. She never saw my Aunt's blind panic when I tripped and hit my head in kindergarten knocking myself out for several hours, she didn't see her tear stained eyes watching me with concern when I finally woke up.

Most people don't understand that my Aunt did love me, and did worry about me when I was growing up, she just couldn't show it. She wasn't going to let past mistakes repeat themselves, I get that now. I understood from that first day with Hagrid when she let rip with everything she had been dying to say for ten years. It explained a lot...

She felt that her parents had favoured Lily because of her magic, and was trying to make sure that the same thing didn't happen with Dudley and me. She was trying to make sure that I didn't grow up thinking that I was better than everyone else because I was special. That's why she never told me who, and what I was, that and she didn't want to loose me to the same madness that stole her sister. She was trying to protect me because she knew how much danger my life was in. That's why she hid my scar in public, and rarely took me out, she didn't want me to be recognised and put in yet more danger, or worse still, spoiled rotten by strangers in the street.

She over compensated, that I will admit, giving Dudley everything his greedy little heart desired, and me nothing. The point is that she tried, sure she made mistakes, but she was only trying to do what she felt was right. Needless to say, it didn't really work, she spoiled Dudley rotten, probably ruining him for life and failed to prevent me from entering a world, which she was right to think might kill me. After that she pulled away, scared I now realise, afraid that she would watch me drift further and further away before finally dying. Just like Mum. She couldn't stand going through that pain again, so she protected herself by pulling away, and I don't blame her. How many people wouldn't have done the same?

So she failed, but the point is that she tried, and no one ever seems to realise how hard. God knows I've given up trying to explain it, they'll never believe me anyway. Sometimes people are just blind to the truth. Not all families are the same, and so mine wasn't really perfect, is anyone's?

It's funny, karma is never something that I ever gave much thought to, but now that I think about it, I must have been suffering from the accumulated bad karma of x generations of both sides of my family. I had so much bad luck growing up (though some might say good since I survived, though I hardly think that's the point considering just how many times I nearly died), that I must have been Hitler, or maybe Grindelwald in a previous life, why else did everything bad happen to me?

I paid for my grandparents mistakes in raising Aunt Petunia and my mother, Aunt Petunia's mistakes in raising me, namely Dudley's subsequent attitude to me, and my father's mistakes in treating Snape the way that he did (perhaps the most costly mistake of all). I grew up expecting the worst to happen, and needless to say, I was almost never disappointed. You might call this tragic, but I doubt I'd be as strong today if none of that had ever happened, I owe that strength to my family...

They taught me that life is never fair, and if you want to survive you learn to deal with it. What is that saying, 'what does not kill you makes you stronger', that's it, whoever came up with that got it in one. I wouldn't be the man I am today without their input. The man with the power, the strength of will to defeat Voldemort, no matter what the cost, would never have come into being without them.

Whatever happened to me growing up is in the past, and I won't hold it against my family now. My friends don't understand that, but what do they expect me to do? Take revenge, why would I? This is my family for God's sake! Would they take revenge on their families over a disagreement? Of course not! So why do they expect me to? I thought I was the hero, heroes are meant to be above that revenge taking crap. What do they want from me? If I live to be a thousand I doubt I will ever figure that one out, and I don't know what pains me more, not understanding them, or knowing that they don't understand me.

Which brings me to Dudley, my cousin. Barely a month older than me, I grew up with him, and granted it wasn't the best childhood, but it wasn't the worst either. From the way he treats me, people, Ron and Hermione included, always assume the worst about our relationship, as if bullying and taunting is all that exists between us, and, yeah, they're not far wrong, but the point is that they weren't there...

They didn't see me give as good as I got, didn't watch our childhood days of playing 'it' in the park, or me getting back at him for all the stunts he pulled. They never saw the time we pranked our year one teacher or the time when we were eight and the new guy, a kid almost as big as Dudley, beat me up and broke my glasses. They never saw Aunt Petunia fussing over me, cleaning me up, and ranting about calling the school and getting the 'little brat' expelled (regardless of the fact that Dudley was even worse). And they sure as hell didn't see Dudley beat the living snot out of the little punk who did it, frankly neither did I, but I heard the rumours, and saw the aftermath...

Needless to say, no one came near me after that, except of course Dudley's gang, but what would they expect? Dudley was always a bullying toe rag and I doubt that anything would have changed that. But when I asked him why he did it he said that we were cousins, and no one was going to touch his cousin except him. Now this might sound seriously twisted to anyone else, and they wouldn't be far wrong, it was pretty twisted. But this was Dudley, and that is just the way he thought back then. But it proves that he cared, in his own twisted little way he cared, so why shouldn't I love him? He was right, in sentiment at least, family should stick together and I don't intend to forget what he did for me back then.

Dudley is as much a product of that environment as I am. Just as Aunt Petunia made me stronger she made him weaker. We are all victims of circumstance, and children can't be held accountable for their parents' mistakes. He only ever treated me how his parents wanted him to, it may have been wrong and it may have been weak, but if I blame him for that, then I am just as guilty as Snape for taking the sins of the father out on the child. I won't do that. I can't do that. I have to forgive him, for my own sanity if nothing else. Family should stick together, if I learnt nothing else from my cousin I learnt that.

'Aunt' Marge really did treat me like shit. Big deal! I've survived worse and I saw the woman what, a grand total of twice a year, if that. We're not related, and every family has problem relatives. I know for a fact that Aunt Petunia and Dudley both disliked her, so it wasn't just me that she drove nuts, it was everyone except Uncle Vernon.

People tend to see my relationship with the Dursleys as black and white. I was the victim and they were the tormenters. It is not that simple, it never is. Life is not black and white, it is shades of grey, and despite everything that they have now seen I doubt that my friends will ever see that. In that respect maybe they are the lucky ones.

So I didn't have the best clothes or toys growing up, so what? The Weasleys didn't either, it could have been worse. Who really needs all that stuff anyway? It taught me to appreciate what I did get more, I'm probably a better person for it. I realised early on, that it wasn't about what my Aunt wanted to give me, it was about what her husband would tolerate me having. I've always known that, even if no one else can understand it. He always wanted for there to be a distinction between me and Dudley. It is human nature to want to give your own child the best; I can't blame him for that. How many other people wouldn't have done the same?

They never starved me, never really hurt me, they may have forced me to do chores, but how many other families do the same? True, they could have treated me better, but I survived and I'm stronger for it. They had their reasons for acting the way that they did, everyone does. If people really understood why they treated me that way, they would understand why I have to protect them now. But they don't, and I doubt they ever will. Why search for the truth when a lie is so much more dramatic, so much easier to comprehend? The truth is never simple.

So yes, I hated the Dursleys, but what no one will ever understand is that as much as I hated them I loved them too. It is a cliché, but its true, there is a fine line between love and hate, but unless you've walked it personally, you will never see it, and never truly I understand. I'll protect what is left of my family with my life. What else can I do? You can't choose who you love, it just happens...