In Case You Didn't Realize How Messed Up Harry Potter's Life Is, Here Are 5 Examples

But have you ever stopped and considered how enormously traumatic Harry's life really is?

It started when his mother was murdered trying to protect him, and it just kept getting worse. Here are five reminders of just how messed up Harry's life is:

• Harry kills his first man at age eleven.

Yes, it was total self-defense and we're not blaming the little tyke. But think about it. He killed a man. With his bare hands. Before puberty.

• Getting a chocolate egg from the Weasley family at Easter makes him cry.

Imagine how emotionally starved you would have to be for some holiday chocolate to make you weep. Like Harry, you would have had to live under the stairs for a decade, be treated like a slave by your family, and have experienced a lot of trauma and PTSD. (Or it would have to be REALLY good chocolate).

• He has a psychic connection with a serial killer and psychopath.

Imagine being a teenager and getting frequent images from the life of Ted Bundy flashing through your brain when you least expect it. Isn't puberty hard enough as it is?!

• Cedric gets killed in front of him.

Harry has to live with the knowledge that if he hadn't encouraged Cedric to take the Triwizard Cup with him, Cedric would never have died. If that's not enough, Harry is also tortured and used to bring Voldemort back to life. Over the summer that he spends trying to process all of this, his friends and Dumbledore essentially ghost him.

• He loses people.

Harry is lucky enough to finally find a couple of father figures as he grows up. First is Professor Lupin, the first adult to take a kindly and almost parental interest in him (sorry, Dumbledore doesn't count – he pops in and out of Harry's life once or twice a year). Lupin attacks and tries to kill Harry in werewolf form before third year is out, and he is eventually killed at the battle of Hogwarts.

But don't worry, Harry got another father figure in Sirius Black, whose… uh… (*checks notes*) whose deaths Harry is directly responsible for.

Sometimes people get irritated or sneer at Harry's behaviour in the books, because he can act like a moody brat. But when you consider the sheer amount of trauma, guilt, and fear that he's living with… well, maybe we can cut him a little slack.