Fic: Prompt 49
Title: From Dursley 'Til Dawn
Author: wwmrsweasleydo
Prompt: 49
Pairing, or gen: Mostly gen with references to het and slash pairings and eventual pairing: (highlight to read) * Dudley/Ron *
Rating: R (for horror-type violence)
Warning(s): Zombies, swearing, bisexual!Dudley, body parts, explosions, references to various sexual practices, violence, EWE.
Word count/medium: 8,500
Summary/Excerpt: Zombies? No problem! Stand back, wizards, Dudley's here to save the day.
Author's or Artist's notes: Many thanks to my beta who was plenty busy enough and didn't need to add this to her workload. I appreciate it. I've deviated in places from the prompt, but I hope that's acceptable to the prompter.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated characters and settings remain the intellectual property of JK Rowling and her associates. We are very grateful for permission to play with them. Also, the glunk is an invention of Dr Seuss. Moneyspinners, Rotherham probably own themselves (if indeed there is a branch there) and I intend no implication that they actually sell cursed Dark objects.
When a case drifted into Muggle locales, Harry liked to take Dudley along as muscle. It kept post-hex Obliviations to a minimum. Dudley worked nights as a security guard, so it suited him to have something to do during the day. He liked to think of it as some kind of repayment for that time his cousin had saved his life. He'd tried to pay the debt with cups of tea but Harry hadn't drunk them. Then, when Harry had gone off to save the world and Dudley and his parents had been shoved into a safe house, Dudley had offered to punch some Dark lights out on his behalf. Their Magical minders had said it wasn't that kind of war, though. They'd also inferred that Harry was probably going to die.
He hadn't, and now he was some kind of hero to That Lot, and a cop to boot. Being scrawny and speccy wasn't a drawback in the Wizarding World, apparently. In the Muggle world, though, it was helpful to be accompanied by a threatening presence and Dudley looked the part. Today they were in a Moneyspinners in Rotherham hunting for some old vase with a hush-hush magical history which wasn't any of Dudley's business. The bloke behind the counter was glowering at them, so Dudley glowered back. It was nice to have a legitimate outlet for his misanthropy. That was one of the reasons why he enjoyed these jaunts so much. Well, that and spending time with a certain someone.
Their group was not exactly inconspicuous. For a start, there were half a dozen Aurors plus Dudley and nobody hangs out in a crowd of seven in a pawnbroker's. Added to that was the fact that although she had been wrong about a lot of things concerning wizards, Dudley's mum had been spot of when it came to their dress sense: they looked weird. Dudley tried to explain to them how to dress normally but they never got it.
Harry and Hermione didn't do so badly - they'd been raised normal after all - their clothes were just out of date. The rest of them were hopeless. Ginny, Ron and Seamus wore mismatched combinations like shell suits with flat caps with Jesus-creepers, or bowler hats, leotards and wellies. Lee had the potential to look really cool, but his outfits never went with his dreads and he insisted on eyeball-searing colours in every situation.
Luna was the worst, though. He still had no idea what her jewellery was made out of, though she liked to spend hours explaining it to him. On the few occasions when she wore shoes, they never matched each other. Today it was a trainer (no sock) and a croc (furry hiking sock). She'd got that mad twinkle in her eyes now, too, as she stared at something on a high shelf.
"I think it's a glunk," she said excitedly to Harry.
He looked confused. "We're just here to find the vase, Luna," he said.
"A glunk?" Hermione asked scathingly. "What on earth is a glunk meant to be?"
"Not now, 'Mione," Ron said.
"Ronald Weasley! She's at it again. You can't just let her get away with it. I have read every respectable Bestiary in every Wizarding library, and I have never --"
"Not now!" Seamus said.
"It's not happy up there," Luna insisted.
"Why on earth would an imaginary Mag-- erm, creature, be in a Mu-- ordinary place like this, Luna?" Hermione tried to snap, but was hampered by remembering as she went along that they weren't supposed to refer to magic in front of what they called Muggles and Dudley called normal people.
Harry gave her a warning look.
"You could just as easily ask what a cursed vase would be doing here," Luna pointed out.
The rest of them looked round to make sure no normal people had heard them, which naturally made them look even more suspicious.
"I can't reach the glunk," Luna said, oblivious.
"Leave it!" Harry insisted.
Luna turned her big eyes on Dudley. "You're tall," she stated. "You could lift it down for me." She pointed at something which he had thought was a biscuit tin. "He's so sad, and you could make him so happy," she added dreamily.
Dudley sighed. Just because he didn't understand didn't mean he didn't care. What harm could it do to pass her an empty tin? They might actually look like they were customers at last. He reached up and grabbed the tin, overbalancing the ugly orange pot next to it in the process. He automatically tried to right it with the hand holding the tin. The pot was saved, but the lid fell off the tin.
Instantly, a creature leaped out of it: all grey fur and teeth and claws. It landed on Luna's face. She screamed and screamed and then she stopped, falling to the floor. Devastated, Dudley froze as the hideous beast gnawed on Luna's face. Dudley dropped the tin with a clatter while the rest of the Aurors sprang into action.
As Ron and Ginny donned gloves, then pulled the thing off Luna, Lee shouted, "We've got to get her back to Diagon before it takes effect!"
"What about St Mungo's?" Hermione asked.
"Too late, this needs containing!" Lee snapped back.
"We can't risk contaminating Muggles," Harry agreed.
Keeping hold of Luna's bloody body, Ginny and Ron spun and disappeared. Dudley had seen that trick before, but the rest of the punters in Moneyspinners must have been gob-smacked. He didn't have a chance to check their reactions, though, because Seamus grabbed hold of him and did the spinning-disappearing-teleporting thing, too.
He hated it. It squeezed his insides something rotten. But that was nothing compared to what was happening to Luna's insides. She lay in bits in the middle of what looked like an olde-worlde-themed shopping precinct. Dudley had been here before with Harry a couple of times. It was called Vertically or Diagonally or Elliptically or something daft. Beside her lay the twitching, grey creature with six wands trained on it and all sorts of coloured lights zapping it. When it stopped moving, Lee grabbed it and with a pop he was gone.
"Right!" Harry commanded, though his voice was shaky. "We need to get Luna somewhere secure!"
The mangled body started to twitch.
"Er, Harry--" Dudley started, but there wasn't time.
In one movement, Luna leaped up, teeth bared in a snarl, and Dudley managed to grab hold of Harry and Ginny, throwing them into an alleyway. "Run!" he yelled at the same time. He caught a snapshot view of Luna's face - of red eyes and grey skin, as he pulled Ron, Hermione and Seamus with him back towards another building. "Zombie!" he warned.
Hermione struggled out of his grasp at the last minute, just as he was slamming the door shut.
"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "Zombies are the imaginings of a Muggle entertainment industry which has no understanding of the realities of Inferi on which they have based--" But she said it on the wrong side of the glass door and she was cut off by the undead thing which had once been Luna sinking its fangs into her cheek. After that, Hermione just did screaming.
Seamus and Ron both grabbed at the door handle, but Dudley threw himself in front of it. They'd have to get past his big arse to get that door open. "Zombie!" he said. "And now Hermione's one, too."
"My 'Mione," Ron whimpered.
"It's not her, mate. There is no Hermione any more. No Luna," Dudley said, as gently as he could. "They're zombies. Undead, living dead. You know? Like in the movies."
The door rattled against his back as Hermione threw herself against it. Dudley guessed from his companions' expressions that she was not a pretty sight; he was glad that he was facing into the empty herb shop.
"I've never seen a movie," Ron replied.
"I've seen porn movies," Seamus offered. "Are there clean ones, and all?"
"Er. Yeah, mate. There's kids' movies and everything."
"They wouldn't be having the sex in, I'm guessing."
Ron stopped Dudley from replying by asking, "So in these zombie movies, then, how do they cure them?" just as Luna joined Hermione in banging on the glass of the door.
Dudley turned his head to assess the state of the two undead witches, then shook his head, sadly. "Can't be done. They'll just keep attacking people, and when they bite them, then that person gets infected and they become a zombie."
"So how do we stop them?" Ron asked grimly.
Dudley fixed him with a determined stare. "We have to destroy them. Blow them up, shoot them, knock their heads off."
"Eeeooohew," Seamus said and pulled a face.
"Yeah," Dudley agreed, "it's disgusting, but it's got to be done."
"Or?" Ron asked.
"Zombie apocalypse," Dudley replied solemnly.
"What --?" Ron started.
A hideous gurgle of bloodlust rose from the street and the banging on the door stopped. The three of them turned to watch an elderly wizard in a lilac top hat emerge from an Emporium opposite. With unnatural speed, the zombies rushed after him and dragged him to the ground together.
"There's no time to explain," Dudley said hurriedly. "We have to formulate a plan of attack." He nodded. "That's what is done at this point in the movies."
"It'll need guns, I suppose," Seamus said wisely.
He and Dudley looked at one another expectantly.
"Can you magic us some guns, then?" Dudley said eventually.
Ron and Seamus shook their heads. "Can't be done," they said in unison.
"It's one of those law things, like a natural law. Hermione can explain it - oh..." Ron looked miserable. "But that's ok, 'cos you're a Muggle and Muggles always have guns. Guns are a Muggle thing."
"Look, it's not like the telly!" Dudley said, exasperated. He wondered then whether Ron had ever seen any television programs, and if he hadn't, then where he had got the idea that Muggles all carried guns. "You need a license," he started, "and you have to be like a farmer or something to get one, and even if I had a legitimate reason for having a gun - because I don't think I'd get away with 'zombie attack' - my police record would be against me - doesn't matter, not explaining now - and you two don't even have birth certificates so you couldn't apply, and anything to do with the council takes bloody weeks and then they lose your file, so there'd be no point applying anyway because by the time we had the licence, Western Europe would have been destroyed. Even if I knew where there was a gun shop, which I don't."
Seamus looked thoughtful. "Well there is my Uncle Kevin in the North. I did hear a rumour that he might have access to the odd shooter and maybe a spot of semtex, but that was a while ago--"
"Apparate to him! Now!" Ron yelled, transfixed by the scene of carnage through the window as the zombie in the top hat dragged a dumpy witch out through a window displaying cauldrons, devouring her as he went. With a pop, Seamus wasn't there anmore.
"How long do you think he'll be?" Dudley asked Ron.
Ron shrugged. "I could try out some hexes on them in the meantime."
"No, I've got a better idea." Dudley gripped Ron by the upper arms and looked into his eyes. "You find somewhere to hide. Stay safe."
"But I --"
Ron's remonstrations were cut off by another terrible blood-thirsty gurgle. They both turned to the glass panelling in the door. Harry was running towards the zombies, firing off magic spells or whatever from his wand. Several of them appeared to hit the growing group of shuffling, moaning undead who advanced on him at unfeasible speed. None had any effect, though. Within seconds, the horde was upon the scrawny hero.
Ron sank his head onto Dudley's chest and muffled a sob there. "Not hexes, then," he muttered. "It's hopeless. If Harry can't save us then what on earth can anyone else do?"
"Leave it to me," Dudley said firmly. "Hide safely, I'll be back, soon." He looked into Ron's eyes and saw a deep admiration within them.
While the zombies were busy gorging on his cousin, Dudley slipped out of the shop and ran gracefully and speedily along the quaint street. There was a pub in the middle of it and through the pub - Dudley remembered -- you could get back to civilisation.
Within seconds he found himself haring up the King's Road, checking his wallet, looking for a newsagent's or some kind of mini-mart. Thank goodness it was October. Pretty quickly, he found a convenience store displaying the Fireworks Code. He pulled the boxes of fireworks from the displays and into a couple of the wire baskets piled up by the door. He slammed them triumphantly on the counter.
The shopkeeper eyed him suspiciously. "That's my whole stock," he complained.
"How much?" Dudley panted.
"I'm not ringing anything up until you've proved to me that you're over eighteen."
Dudley sighed and pulled out his driving licence. The shopkeeper took a long time examining it and comparing the photo on it with Dudley's face. Dudley's foot twitched impatiently, but he didn't tap it. Finally, the shopkeeper handed the card back. He pulled out one box and scanned it, then took forever extracting a flimsy plastic bag from a hook behind the counter to put it in.
Dudley bit his tongue. Mentioning a zombie apocalypse in Magic London would only get him sectioned under the Mental Health Act, which was bound to slow things down.
"You'll need to be careful when and where you let these off," said the shopkeeper. "It's illegal to use fireworks between eleven p.m. and seven a.m."
"Ok. Great. Not a problem," Dudley said quickly, hoping that the man might pick up his own speed in response.
Instead, he slowly extracted the box of fireworks at the bottom of one basket and passed it across the scanner. "Except for on the first day of Chinese New Year when that's extended until one a.m. the following day."
Dudley weighed up the speed he could gain by smacking the guy and running off with the fireworks, against the likelihood that the police would catch him before he'd made it back through the Leaky Arms or whatever it was called.
"And on the day of Diwali until one a.m. the following day," the shopkeeper continued, slowly bagging the next box.
Dudley remembered something about the Leaky Bucket which distracted him from his mounting infuriation. Wasn't it meant to be tricky for normals to see it? Was he going to be able to get back to Horizontally? And then when you were in there, didn't you need to tap some bricks with a wand or something?
"And on the fifth of November until midnight."
Dudley felt a bit sick. He picked up a couple of Mars bars from the rack in front of him and dropped them into one of the wire baskets. He checked his watch and wondered what state the Wizard shopping centre was in now.
"...and on New Year's Eve until one a.m. on New Year's Day. That'll be five hundred and seventy eight pounds and fourteen pence," the shopkeeper finished with.
"Right." Dudley pulled out his debit card. "You can get two hundred on that one." He pulled out a credit card. "That's got a one hundred and fifty limit." He pulled out all his notes. Twenty five quid. He keyed in his PIN number. "And that's a JJB voucher for two hundred which I got for my birthday."
"That's not legal tender here. Does this look like a JJB Sports?"
Dudley dug desperately through his wallet. "Look," he said finally, "I'll throw in this twenty quid credit note for Next and my phone if you'll take the JJB voucher."
The shopkeeper thought about it. Finally, slowly, he nodded. "And fourteen pence."
When he eventually got out of the corner shop, Dudley sprinted back the way he had come, searching frantically for something that looked like it didn't want him to see it. He went too far the first time and turned round. As he sped back up the road he remembered that he was going to need matches or something to light the fireworks with. It was as he turned back to a newsagent's he'd already passed twice, that he caught the grimy little pub out of the corner of his eye. He took mental note of the shops either side of it without looking directly at it.
He bought half a dozen cigarette lighters (muttering something about how they made great birthday presents when the woman looked at him funny) because although he'd seen Seamus set fire to things with his wand more often than he wanted to remember, he had no idea if the wizards would manage that trick with fireworks fuses.
When he got back inside the Leaky Gusset - or whatever it was called - he was greeted by a crew of three zombies in dishevelled robes who had the barmaid cornered on the top of the bar. Without a thought for his own safety, Dudley deftly yanked a rocket out of one of the carrier bags and lit the end. There was no chance of 'standing well back' now, whatever the Fireworks Code might recommend.
He launched it like a javelin into the centre of the micro-horde. As the pretty colours exploded, limbs and brains showered the wood-panelling. The decor was ruined, but that was no loss, the place could do with a makeover anyway. Maybe they'd get a pinball machine.
The barmaid was standing on top of the bar still, screaming her head off. Dudley waded through body parts to lift her gently down.
"Oh, you saved me, you saved me! My hero! How can I ever repay you?" she simpered, fluttering into his embrace.
"No need for that," he said, even though she did have a pretty good rack on her and ordinarily he wouldn't have said 'no'.
"Oh, but there must be something I can offer you." She lowered her lashes and began to unbutton her blouse.
"I, erm.. I haven't really got time. Shame."
"It doesn't have to take long and there are some rooms upstairs."
Mentally kicking himself he said, "You'd better go up there and hide then. I've got more zombies to destroy!"
"You're so brave and wonderful." She sighed. "Maybe afterwards? I'll be right here. My name's Lavender."
"Thanks, Lavender. I'll be back." He hefted his armoury of fireworks and turned to face the other door - the one to Laterally or whatever. He stopped. "Erm, I don't suppose you could just let me out first? I don't actually have a wand thingy."
She looked like she was tempted towards a lascivious play on words, but she must have picked up on his urgency, because instead of making jokes about his wand thingy she hurried out to the back of the pub to tap in the entrance code. On the way out behind her, he pulled out another rocket and gripped it with one hand, holding one of the lighters in the other.
As the wall closed behind him, Dudley took stock of the scene of devastation. He could hear their gurgling war cry, but he couldn't see any actual zombies. The clothes and the possessions of the people whom they had once been, were left scattered all over the cobbles, along with glass and shattered wood and rubble from the buildings which they had destroyed. He listened carefully to determine which way he should go to find them.
As he did so, he heard a soft whimper of fear. He sought out its source and found a slim, blond man cowering behind a water butt. Dudley was about to tell him to find a better hiding place, when the red of a pair of eyes flashed in the dark doorway beyond him. Without hesitating, Dudley lit the rocket and threw it, shouting to the blond to keep down.
The zombie exploded, dropping fragments of body parts all over the expensive-looking robes of the man he now recognised as Dr Malfoy. Healer Malfoy. Whatever. Draco - the one with the funny tattoo with the snake on it.
Draco ran into Dudley's arms and looked up into his face. "Thank goodness you were here!" he gushed. "What would I have done?"
Their attentions were caught by a movement near to where Draco had just been hiding. Dudley had to loosen the good doctor's grip a little in order to reach his next weapon. One of the undead was climbing up the side of the building. Unfortunately, what Dudley pulled out was a Catherine Wheel, but it would probably still do some damage.
"Oh Merlin!" Draco gasped in horror. "Pansy! She's in there!"
A dark-haired, pug-nosed woman appeared at the window and screamed her little heart out.
"Never fear!" Dudley said. His voice seemed to have got deeper.
He pushed Draco off, lit the Catherine wheel and ran towards the terrified woman. Leaping up, he caught the top of the door and swung his legs onto it. Then he stood and, in one movement, managed to shove the spinning, sparking firework into the zombie's chest, wrap an arm around the lady, and leap to the ground.
"Now," he said to the grateful pair as he landed, "You two had better find somewhere a lot more secure to hide out."
"Will you come and find us when you've saved everyone?" asked the brunette, licking her lips. "So I can reward you properly?"
"Shove off, Pans! He saved me first, I'm the one who's going to reward him!" snapped Draco.
"There will be plenty of time for both of you after I've saved Wizardkind," Dudley said. "One at a time." He thought. "Or both at the same time if you like."
"Oh yes, oh yes, we'd like that!" they said in unison.
"Don't forget," Draco said as Dudley started to move away from them.
"I won't forget, Draco, Pansy. We'll have a lot of fun together." He winked.
As he bounded away he tried to decide whether he should have the threesome before or after he did the barmaid. This hero business wasn't without its pleasant side.
The smell of the walking dead, however, was not so pleasant. He followed his nose to the other end of the shopping precinct where a mob of them were hammering at the walls and windows of Wheezes. He hoped George wasn't inside.
Dudley pulled out a handful of fountains and shoved them into his belt. He tied together the carrier bags containing the rest of the fireworks and slung them over one shoulder before lighting all the fuses on his belt and rapidly lobbing the fountains into the crowd, where they whizzed and popped a little and shone with tinkling colours and blew the zombies to bits.
Wiping flesh and guts from his face, Dudley sprinted for the front door of the shop. He had begun to leap over the decimated corpses of the undead, when he heard a wet multiple groaning behind him. When he turned, he saw a crowd advancing on him. He recognised one of them as Head Auror Robards. That meant that Harry's lot were without management as well as minus their hero.
There were too many, they were too close; he didn't have time to unbox the fireworks and light them. Hoping there was a back door, he changed direction and worked his way round the building.
There was an open window! Dudley really hoped that George wasn't inside; surely he wouldn't have overlooked something so obvious. He secured the window behind him and climbed through the stockroom onto the shop floor.
When he got in there he realised why George hadn't had time to go round and do a security check. The stocky redhead was hanging from a light fitting and spraying water out of his wand at the dozens of zombies roaming the aisles beneath him. The water held them back, but it wasn't actually destroying any of them. Like lightning, Dudley shinned up a display of ton tongue toffees (which didn't affect him in the least. Oh, no, he was totally over all that). Perching elegantly on a top shelf, he organised his arsenal. He fashioned ammo belts out of the carrier bags, and attached the Roman Candles to it. Somehow, his shirt had fallen open and his pectorals were looking at their most impressive - all shiny with sweat. The zombies didn't seem to have noticed him yet. He looked over to George, whose face was red and whose grip was slipping on the light chord, and knew how little time he had for preparations.
With a quick scan, he assessed the layout of the enemy below him. He gripped two mines in each hand and his lighter in his teeth. He lit the fuses and aimed them into the four precise positions he had previously located. First the fountains blew up the four zombies closest to them, and then, with four huge bangs, the crackling stars cleared a space around them and finally, sounding like machine-gun fire, prettily coloured sparks disposed of the last of the creatures.
George slipped down to the ground. Dudley leaped down to stand beside him. He helped George to his feet.
"Is it over?" George asked.
Dudley looked to the plate glass display window where the next legion of hungry zombies approached.
"Not by a long chalk," he said.
"That's a shame." George gazed into his eyes. "I could really do with sucking some heroic cock about now."
Dudley chuckled. "Maybe later." He winked.
"Fireworks! Inspired." George was thoughtful as he stroked down Dudley's smooth, strong forearm. "I've got some wet-start ones upstairs. I should use those." George ran a hand over Dudley's exposed chest. "You are so hot," he whispered.
"I'm afraid we've got some more urgent issues than just getting me off."
Just then there was a crack. The two men stopped caressing each other to glance at the front of the shop. The zombies had broken the window, soon they would be inside.
"Upstairs!" Dudley ordered.
They reached George's apartment just in time to slam the door shut. The unmistakable sound of zombie footsteps sounded on the stairs behind them. George waved his wand thing and furniture started flying towards the door, then piled itself up as a barricade against it. As the door rattled the structure wobbled a bit, but it kept the door shut.
"Is there another way out?" Dudley asked.
A large four-poster bed skidded to a halt in front of him.
George raised an eyebrow. "I was hoping you might stay for a while."
Dudley looked at the expanse of orange bed linen; he looked at George's bare forearms and beautiful eyes. He was almost exactly Dudley's perfect man. Almost. Dudley sighed and shook his head.
"Maybe later. I've got a world to save I'm afraid."
"You're heroic Dudley Dursley," the handsome ginger man replied. "There's a window back here. I hope the Inferi haven't located it yet. I'll secure it behind you and then I'll dig out my wet-start fireworks."
Dudley gifted George a quick wave as he dropped three floors to the ground. He spotted a lone zombie behind a market stall, another in a tree, a third crawling along a gutter. He lit his arsenal and began lobbing them with his new deadly aim.
The explosions attracted more of the legion of the undead. Dudley stood his ground, destroying them as they approached. He heard footfalls behind him and turned sharply with a fountain in his fist, but overrode his instinct to chuck it when he recognised Lee. There was a popping sound and Seamus appeared as if by magic (well, not as if by magic, of course, but actually by magic) with a pile of guns and ammunition belts at his feet and a rocket-launcher in his grip.
"Duck," he said.
Dudley ducked and Seamus fired over his head into the midst of the oncoming mob.
Lee indicated the heap of weapons. "Help yourself," he offered.
"Don't mind if I do," Dudley replied smoothly.
He'd never held a gun before, but shooting came as easily to him - he found - as eating. The three of them formed a circle in the market square, facing out and shooting at all the zombies who kept on coming, and then kept on coming and then all of a sudden it was quiet. The three men turned round.
"You think that's it?" Lee asked.
"I think that is it," Dudley replied. "Though you can't ever be too careful with zombies."
They waited another moment. "Well," Seamus said. "I reckon that really is it. I say we have a circle jerk to celebrate!"
"Great idea!" Lee replied and started to unfasten his trousers.
Just then, Ginny ran out of one of the shop doorways, crying and aiming straight for Dudley. "Oh, you've saved us, you've saved us," she sobbed. "My Harry is dead! Whatever am I going to do without him?"
"Actually I think you'll find that he's undead," Seamus corrected.
"It's the sex I'll miss the most," she howled, clinging to Dudley's arm. "Will you cover that side of things for me, Big D?"
Sometimes a hero just had to do these things. And as girls went she was almost perfect. Almost. She was very similar to his one great love, but she wasn't quite right, and nor was George. Returning to Lavender was a tempting idea, the threesome with Draco and Pansy was a very, very tempting idea - but there was something he had to do before he attended to anything else. He gently removed Ginny's hands. He hoped she would recover from the heartbreak of rejection.
Just then a bearded zombie wearing a navy robe covered with stars and moons leaped out of an upstairs window. Instantly, Dudley threw his last rocket at it and it exploded gloriously over the cobbles.
He stepped carefully through its remains without getting any on his shoes and ran back through unfamiliar streets quite certain of his way. He reached the cobbled street in front of the Emporium at the point in Adjacentally where they had first teleported in with Luna's body. Finding it locked, he smashed through the glass panel of the door behind which they had hidden from her and Hermione. He found the one he was looking for hidden behind a display cabinet.
"Ron! You're safe!" Dudley scooped Ron up into his arms. "It's alright now, they've gone."
"You're my hero," Ron said and sank his head onto Dudley's chest. "I've always loved you, Dudley, but I was afraid to admit it. I can't hide my feelings any more. You've saved us all and you are wonderful - so much better than any wizard or witch could ever be. Will you be my boyfriend?"
"Oh, Ron. I love you, too. I thought you'd never ask."
Dudley kissed Ron then and their bodies spun together, floating, twisting, spinning. The colours blurred. Dudley found himself lying down. He couldn't feel Ron any more. His eyes were closed. He opened them.
Someone was leaning over him. Ron? No. A woman. The barmaid. And she was doing something to his forehead. He was in a bed. Lavender. That was what she'd said her name was. But he'd known that already, he realised. They had met before. She had changed her clothes and they weren't nearly as attractive and low-cut as they had been in the Leaky Sheath. That was the wrong name. What was the pub called again?
Lavender pulled back and looked into his face. "You're awake, then," she said. Her voice wasn't as friendly as it had been and her expression soured as she eyed him. Maybe she knew about Ron and she was jealous.
He looked round the room. It had old-fashioned furniture in it. It was a different sort of tasteless to the pub décor, though. He recognised it. It was Harry's house. Whatsitsname: Grim Old Place. It smelled how he remembered: stale dust, varnish, magic and boiled cabbage. How had he got here? How long had he been asleep or unconscious or whatever he'd been? Maybe she'd been waiting for her shag for ages and that's why she was pissed off with him.
He startled as she pulled something greyish out of his head on the end of her wand. She viewed it with disdain. "Well then, this'll be the last one," she hissed cryptically.
"What's going on?" he asked.
She looked down at him in tight-lipped fury. "Barmaid!" she spat. "Barmaid? You know full well I've got a responsible position at the Ministry, we've met enough times at Harry's stuffy dinner parties. You think that just because a woman's got curves, she can't have any brains. You fantasise about her serving you and pandering to you. You think I'd be impressed by you? Let you anywhere near me?"
She carried the grey gloop over to the chest of drawers on the other side of the room and shook it off the end of her wand and into a wide, stone bowl which was sitting on it. Then she bent down and stuck her head in it. He allowed himself to feast his gaze on her arse. Looking wasn't cheating; it didn't make him love Ron any less.
She might have a minging attitude but she had a great body. If she wasn't a barmaid then what had she been doing behind the bar? She couldn't blame him for making an honest mistake. It had been her who had come on to him, not the other way round. She had definitely been up for it. She was really bitter about something now, though. Maybe he'd kept her waiting too long. Or it was her time of the month.
She straightened up and turned round. Now she was smiling. No - she was laughing. At him. "In your dreams," she said.
She magicked up a big test tube and sucked a load of grey gunk out of the bowl and onto her wand to drop it into the test tube. "I'll tell Harry you're awake," she muttered as she left with it.
Dudley lay back and thought. He tried to piece things together. The last thing he remembered was kissing Ron. What had happened after that? He had no idea, so he remembered the kissing Ron time some more. His hand shot out out of his pants when the bedroom door opened.
Harry entered at the front of his Auror team. They were all alive and unscarred. Wizards must have found a cure for zombism. Dudley scanned the faces until he found Ron and gave him a broad smile, only Ron wasn't looking at him, his face was bright red and he was looking at the floor.
Dudley sat up. They didn't look nearly as impressed or pleased as he thought they ought to be after he'd just saved them from a zombie apocalypse. Harry looked at him, opened his mouth a few times, then shook his head.
Finally, he blurted out, "What on earth made you think I was seeing Ginny?" Luna patted his hand and he looked round and started to pull back, but then he stopped himself and smiled warmly at her. "I mean, granted, steaming in and firing off random hexes until I got myself devoured probably is what I'd do. But - no offence Ginny - but not in a million years!"
Luna hushed him, then she turned to Dudley. "I'm very sorry. It was my fault in a way. There wasn't even a glunk there at all in the end."
What was Luna's fault? That thing eating her face?
"Of course there wasn't, there's no such thing," Hermione said.
The team was ranged around the room now, leaning on all the dusty dark-wood furniture.
"Not now, 'Mione," Ron remonstrated automatically, though his colouring hadn't paled any and he still wouldn't look at Dudley.
"Anyway," Luna said, "you'll be pleased to know that I've lost my job as a result."
"Pleased?" Dudley asked. He'd often wondered what kind of a warped police service would employ a weirdo-among-weirdoes like her, but that didn't mean he wanted her to be fired.
"Nobody's pleased about that," Harry said softly, looking into Luna's eyes. "Well..."
"You are, Harry. I don't mind." She explained to Dudley: "The Auror brigade frowns on relationships between colleagues. So now my affair with Harry is not a secret anymore which is nice. I think I'd like to be a bus conductor next."
Dudley looked over at Ginny to see what she thought of these revelations but she didn't seem to mind. It was definitely Dudley she was glaring at.
"Healer Malfoy will be here in a moment to check you out," Harry said. "I'm sure by now you've worked out what happened."
"Er. Not really," Dudley admitted.
Hermione stepped forward. "You found the cursed vase," she said. "So we ought to be thanking you really, I suppose. Not that I appreciate you having me turned into the living dead and I can't help wondering what motivated that. Lavender's taken the vase to the Department of Mysteries to be studied." She smirked a twisted grin. "I thought you had her about right."
Dudley was still confused and he must have looked it because Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes before continuing: "The vase which you knocked off the top shelf."
"Ugly orange pot?"
"That's the one. Any Muggle who touches it is doomed to fall into an immediate coma wherein their fantasies will be played out with such realism that should they die in the fantasy then their body would succumb to actual death. It's a very nasty little curse. Bloody clever, though," she said with an admiration which earned her a lot of dirty looks from everyone in the room. It didn't take long for most of them to be directed back at Dudley again.
"Fantasy?" Dudley asked. The bottom of his stomach felt like it had just dropped into the no-doubt cobwebbed space below the bed. "No zombies?"
"Well, no. As you had me say just before I was attacked, zombies don't actually exist. They really are the entertainment industry's deliberate misinterpretation of the Dark magic phenomenon of Inferi. In the case of Inferi, the dead are made to walk. Those who are alive cannot be infected--"
"Not now, 'Mione," Seamus said. He was looking at Ron like he'd been waiting for him to say that. Ron wasn't looking at anything but his feet though.
Dudley felt his own colour rise. Ron was obviously mortified. It meant that Ron knew. They all knew. He'd been secretly in love with Ron for years and nobody had known. Now everyone did. Dudley felt sick. He wondered where his Mars bars had gone. Then a wave of sadness washed over him. Ron didn't love him back. He felt like he'd lost something. He'd never had it, though, he realised. None of it had ever happened. He hadn't even bought those Mars bars.
"You'd better get some rest," Harry said. "The Healer has been sent for."
"Healer Malfoy?" Dudley asked, suddenly remembering. A cold sweat broke over his face.
Harry looked amused, which wasn't fair. "Oh yes," he said. "That Healer."
Dudley swore.
Harry lead Luna by the hand out of the room, with Ron scampering after them and Hermione and Seamus following. Ginny and Lee, however, exchanged a look and approached the bed instead of leaving.
Lee leaned in threateningly close to Dudley. What was he pissed off about? He'd come off quite well, Dudley thought. If the problem was the proposed circle jerk then he was over-reacting.
"You will never," Lee said through gritted teeth, "be covering the sex side of things with Ginny. Don't you even think about her in that way. Got it?"
"Got it," Dudley said quickly.
"I wouldn't be hiding in a doorway while you fought my battles for me anyway," Ginny added. "If Magical creatures were attacking us it would be me who'd be saving your useless fat arse."
"Yes. I know. Sorry."
"Sexist pig," she sneered.
"You do not think of her sexually ever again. Right?" Lee growled.
"He's got it, sweetheart," Ginny said. "You can stop threatening him."
"If I so much as catch you looking at her then I will pull every tooth from your head and insert them in your testicles."
"I get it!" Dudley raised his hands in surrender. As they left, though, he muttered, "You're not supposed to be shagging her, you know. I'll tell on you and you'll lose your jobs." It didn't make him feel much better, though.
He waited nervously for the doctor. He wondered how much he'd know. Everyone seemed to know everything. He didn't want to be examined by a doctor with whom he'd publicly fantasised about having a threesome.
Eventually he heard the familiar posh voice on the other side of the door, snapping, "I don't need an escort!"
"Just in case," Seamus replied as he threw the bedroom door open without even knocking. "There he is, the racist bastard."
Dudley was too confused to be as embarrassed as he should have been at seeing Malfoy.
"Not all Irish people have links with terrorism you manky English git."
Oh. That.
"Semtex!" Seamus said derisively. He folded his arms and watched as Malfoy examined Dudley.
Dudley suspected that the examination was more humiliating and painful than it need to be.
"I'm a happily married man," Malfoy grunted as he stuck his wand someplace where wands shouldn't be allowed to go. "Threesome, indeed! Cowering in alleyways indeed!"
Dudley was alone for what felt like a long time after they had gone. The more he thought about it, the more he recognised elements of his adventure from his usual fantasies. He should have known it was all too good to be true. He'd wanked before to mental images of Lavender, Dr Draco, his friend Pansy Pug-face, Seamus, George - oh hell! George.
He hoped to God nobody was going to tell George about this. The four-poster bed with the orange sheets. George's fingers running over his chest... He pulled back his T-shirt and looked down at his chest. It was a lot flabbier. He was wearing a T-shirt. Naturally he was, he always did. There never had been a shirt with buttons which could come undone to leave him looking like Rambo. He'd never had shiny, muscled, exposed pecs, but they were a recurrent image in his fantasies.
So was getting one over on all the clever magic people. He frequently dreamed of saving witches and wizards and having them therefore admit that he was actually superior to them. And of course he longed to be a hero like Harry.
How could he have thought it was real? Even if the vase had tricked him with the rest of it, the idea that Ron could ever return his adoration was preposterous. He felt dreadful. His secret crush had been laid bare for public view. Ron was never going to speak to him again. No Weasley would. In fact, Dudley was never going to be able to show his face among Magicians ever again.
Daylight faded beyond the curtains and Dudley wondered how long he had been in this bed. He hoped someone had told work that he wouldn't be coming in. He ought to look for his phone and call in sick. Harry had told him to sleep which was a joke. He was in far too much turmoil.
He thought he heard a light knocking at the door. It seemed unlikely. All the visitors he had had here had just barged in. He listened. There was the sound again.
"Erm. Yes?" he called out, sitting upright.
The person who opened the door was the one Dudley had expected least. He liked to look at Ron, to smile at him, but now he couldn't; he never wanted to see Ron again. Dudley looked down at his hands.
"Erm, so, yeah," Ron started. "Like I thought I might. Erm. See how you are?" He closed the door behind him.
"Alright," Dudley mumbled.
"Did you get some sleep?"
"Not really."
"Oh. I thought you were asleep or I would have come earlier. Malfoy said it would be good for you. Like he knows anything."
Dudley couldn't help grinning at that.
Ron looked like he was considering the next thing he had to say. He took a deep breath. Then he leant in a faux casual way against the chest of drawers. With a shrug he asked. "You wouldn't really be interested in him, um, like that, would you? Not even with Pansy thrown in."
"God, no! I don't know where that came from!"
"Great! I mean, whatever. It doesn't matter or anything."
"It doesn't? No, no of course it doesn't."
"So you don't fancy Malfoy?"
"No!" Dudley thought for a moment. "In fact I don't know where any of it came from. Everybody's blaming me for what happened - didn't happen I mean - but it wasn't me was it, it was the vase with the spell on it, wasn't it?"
Ron pulled a reluctant face. "Actually, mate, it doesn't work like that. Not from what Lavender and Hermione were saying."
Dudley admitted defeat with a sigh. The whole episode had been redolent with the standard motifs of his fantasies, he knew it had all come from him. He'd been hoping to fool Ron, though.
"The vase just sinks its victim into his or her own subconscious."
"Yeah. Figures." Dudley looked briefly at Ron and found him looking back. They both looked away quickly. "So, like, if it all just happened in my head then how come the rest of you know what was going on? Was I like talking in my sleep or something?"
"No, we used this thing."
Dudley had to look up to see what Ron was talking about. It was the wide bowl on the chest of drawers, just beside Ron's elbow.
"What's that?"
"It's a Pensieve. Lavender extracted your memories as soon as you'd had them and we all viewed them in there."
"That's a bit much!" Dudley felt violated.
"I know, mate, I know. You had to be monitored for your own safety, though. In case you got close to death and then you would have really died."
"How did it take all of you to watch out for that?"
"Well, it's part of the investigation," Ron said lamely.
"That's not good enough! You've been trespassing inside my head!"
Ron muttered some kind of apology.
"I'll never be able to look any of your lot in the eye again."
"Don't say that!" Ron took a couple of steps towards Dudley's bed then stopped himself. "I mean, it'll be alright. They'll all get over it." He tried to look nonchalant again. "You know when Luna bit Hermione and we were in that herb shop?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, well, I said - I mean you had me saying - something about 'My Hermione'. It's not that it matters or anything but she's not. She hasn't been mine for years."
Dudley felt himself smiling and then put a halt to that. "Whatever. Sorry. Got that wrong," he said.
"Look." Ron hesitated for a moment, clearly weighing things in his mind. Then he took another decisive step towards Dudley. He was within touching distance. Dudley clasped his hands together and dug the nails into his palms.
"Look," Ron said again. "Why me? At the end, after all those hot birds and my brother and that, why did you go back to me? Why would anyone chose me out of everyone on Diagon Alley?"
Diagonally. That's what it was called. Dudley didn't know how to answer. He swallowed.
"Nobody ever chose me first for anything," Ron said, looking at a spot on the wall. "I'm the sidekick, the youngest son. I'm not particularly clever or strong or good-looking or magical. There's people who are better than me at everything. I'm quite funny sometimes, but not like Seamus or George. I'm not a total nerd like Neville, but I'm not really cool like Lee or Cho or Charlie."
Dudley couldn't stop them any longer, his hands rose up to take Ron's. Ron looked down into his face. Dudley felt his mouth moving up and down. He squeezed Ron's hands. How could Ron not see himself clearly? Dudley wanted to articulate how wonderful he found him but the sentences wouldn't form. All he managed to croak was "You're perfect."
"What?" Ron sank onto the bed. He didn't pull his hands back, but he still looked confused.
"You've got everything. You're all those things. I've been..." Crushing on you? In love with you? Hoping for you? Dreaming of you? Fancying you? Longing for you? "...watching you for years." That was not a good choice of words.
"How long?" Ron asked.
"Since I met you," Dudley admitted.
They looked into each other's eyes.
"Just me?" Ron asked.
Dudley looked down. "No, you know I, uh, notice other people. You've seen my thoughts. I think about sex. A lot. Most virgins do." He'd never before confessed to being that to anyone. It was probably a bad move to do so now.
"So not just me. You watch lots of people?" Ron sounded disappointed.
"It's not the same. I really like you, Ron. I know I'm not good enough for you, but I like you best. It's more than that. I ogle tits and bums and forearms and pretty faces. I have to own up to that after what you've seen inside my head. But it's not like how I feel about you." Dudley took a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound. He might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. He needed to stop quoting his Great Aunt Doris now and get on with it. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Procrastination is the thief of time. "I'm in love with you, Ron Weasley," he blurted.
He waited for Ron's reaction. He looked in his face and all he saw was surprise. He looked away. "Go on, you might as well run off and laugh at me with your mates," he muttered. Ron's hands slid from his grip. Dudley waited for him to stand up and walk out.
Then the hands were back and they were on Dudley's cheeks. He looked up into Ron's eyes, but within seconds Ron's features had blurred as he came too close to focus. Then they were kissing.
It felt real, but Dudley couldn't help wondering. He hoped hard that this wasn't just another fantasy.
Author: wwmrsweasleydo
Prompt: 49
Pairing, or gen: Mostly gen with references to het and slash pairings and eventual pairing: (highlight to read) * Dudley/Ron *
Rating: R (for horror-type violence)
Warning(s): Zombies, swearing, bisexual!Dudley, body parts, explosions, references to various sexual practices, violence, EWE.
Word count/medium: 8,500
Summary/Excerpt: Zombies? No problem! Stand back, wizards, Dudley's here to save the day.
Author's or Artist's notes: Many thanks to my beta who was plenty busy enough and didn't need to add this to her workload. I appreciate it. I've deviated in places from the prompt, but I hope that's acceptable to the prompter.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all associated characters and settings remain the intellectual property of JK Rowling and her associates. We are very grateful for permission to play with them. Also, the glunk is an invention of Dr Seuss. Moneyspinners, Rotherham probably own themselves (if indeed there is a branch there) and I intend no implication that they actually sell cursed Dark objects.
When a case drifted into Muggle locales, Harry liked to take Dudley along as muscle. It kept post-hex Obliviations to a minimum. Dudley worked nights as a security guard, so it suited him to have something to do during the day. He liked to think of it as some kind of repayment for that time his cousin had saved his life. He'd tried to pay the debt with cups of tea but Harry hadn't drunk them. Then, when Harry had gone off to save the world and Dudley and his parents had been shoved into a safe house, Dudley had offered to punch some Dark lights out on his behalf. Their Magical minders had said it wasn't that kind of war, though. They'd also inferred that Harry was probably going to die.
He hadn't, and now he was some kind of hero to That Lot, and a cop to boot. Being scrawny and speccy wasn't a drawback in the Wizarding World, apparently. In the Muggle world, though, it was helpful to be accompanied by a threatening presence and Dudley looked the part. Today they were in a Moneyspinners in Rotherham hunting for some old vase with a hush-hush magical history which wasn't any of Dudley's business. The bloke behind the counter was glowering at them, so Dudley glowered back. It was nice to have a legitimate outlet for his misanthropy. That was one of the reasons why he enjoyed these jaunts so much. Well, that and spending time with a certain someone.
Their group was not exactly inconspicuous. For a start, there were half a dozen Aurors plus Dudley and nobody hangs out in a crowd of seven in a pawnbroker's. Added to that was the fact that although she had been wrong about a lot of things concerning wizards, Dudley's mum had been spot of when it came to their dress sense: they looked weird. Dudley tried to explain to them how to dress normally but they never got it.
Harry and Hermione didn't do so badly - they'd been raised normal after all - their clothes were just out of date. The rest of them were hopeless. Ginny, Ron and Seamus wore mismatched combinations like shell suits with flat caps with Jesus-creepers, or bowler hats, leotards and wellies. Lee had the potential to look really cool, but his outfits never went with his dreads and he insisted on eyeball-searing colours in every situation.
Luna was the worst, though. He still had no idea what her jewellery was made out of, though she liked to spend hours explaining it to him. On the few occasions when she wore shoes, they never matched each other. Today it was a trainer (no sock) and a croc (furry hiking sock). She'd got that mad twinkle in her eyes now, too, as she stared at something on a high shelf.
"I think it's a glunk," she said excitedly to Harry.
He looked confused. "We're just here to find the vase, Luna," he said.
"A glunk?" Hermione asked scathingly. "What on earth is a glunk meant to be?"
"Not now, 'Mione," Ron said.
"Ronald Weasley! She's at it again. You can't just let her get away with it. I have read every respectable Bestiary in every Wizarding library, and I have never --"
"Not now!" Seamus said.
"It's not happy up there," Luna insisted.
"Why on earth would an imaginary Mag-- erm, creature, be in a Mu-- ordinary place like this, Luna?" Hermione tried to snap, but was hampered by remembering as she went along that they weren't supposed to refer to magic in front of what they called Muggles and Dudley called normal people.
Harry gave her a warning look.
"You could just as easily ask what a cursed vase would be doing here," Luna pointed out.
The rest of them looked round to make sure no normal people had heard them, which naturally made them look even more suspicious.
"I can't reach the glunk," Luna said, oblivious.
"Leave it!" Harry insisted.
Luna turned her big eyes on Dudley. "You're tall," she stated. "You could lift it down for me." She pointed at something which he had thought was a biscuit tin. "He's so sad, and you could make him so happy," she added dreamily.
Dudley sighed. Just because he didn't understand didn't mean he didn't care. What harm could it do to pass her an empty tin? They might actually look like they were customers at last. He reached up and grabbed the tin, overbalancing the ugly orange pot next to it in the process. He automatically tried to right it with the hand holding the tin. The pot was saved, but the lid fell off the tin.
Instantly, a creature leaped out of it: all grey fur and teeth and claws. It landed on Luna's face. She screamed and screamed and then she stopped, falling to the floor. Devastated, Dudley froze as the hideous beast gnawed on Luna's face. Dudley dropped the tin with a clatter while the rest of the Aurors sprang into action.
As Ron and Ginny donned gloves, then pulled the thing off Luna, Lee shouted, "We've got to get her back to Diagon before it takes effect!"
"What about St Mungo's?" Hermione asked.
"Too late, this needs containing!" Lee snapped back.
"We can't risk contaminating Muggles," Harry agreed.
Keeping hold of Luna's bloody body, Ginny and Ron spun and disappeared. Dudley had seen that trick before, but the rest of the punters in Moneyspinners must have been gob-smacked. He didn't have a chance to check their reactions, though, because Seamus grabbed hold of him and did the spinning-disappearing-teleporting thing, too.
He hated it. It squeezed his insides something rotten. But that was nothing compared to what was happening to Luna's insides. She lay in bits in the middle of what looked like an olde-worlde-themed shopping precinct. Dudley had been here before with Harry a couple of times. It was called Vertically or Diagonally or Elliptically or something daft. Beside her lay the twitching, grey creature with six wands trained on it and all sorts of coloured lights zapping it. When it stopped moving, Lee grabbed it and with a pop he was gone.
"Right!" Harry commanded, though his voice was shaky. "We need to get Luna somewhere secure!"
The mangled body started to twitch.
"Er, Harry--" Dudley started, but there wasn't time.
In one movement, Luna leaped up, teeth bared in a snarl, and Dudley managed to grab hold of Harry and Ginny, throwing them into an alleyway. "Run!" he yelled at the same time. He caught a snapshot view of Luna's face - of red eyes and grey skin, as he pulled Ron, Hermione and Seamus with him back towards another building. "Zombie!" he warned.
Hermione struggled out of his grasp at the last minute, just as he was slamming the door shut.
"Don't be ridiculous," she said. "Zombies are the imaginings of a Muggle entertainment industry which has no understanding of the realities of Inferi on which they have based--" But she said it on the wrong side of the glass door and she was cut off by the undead thing which had once been Luna sinking its fangs into her cheek. After that, Hermione just did screaming.
Seamus and Ron both grabbed at the door handle, but Dudley threw himself in front of it. They'd have to get past his big arse to get that door open. "Zombie!" he said. "And now Hermione's one, too."
"My 'Mione," Ron whimpered.
"It's not her, mate. There is no Hermione any more. No Luna," Dudley said, as gently as he could. "They're zombies. Undead, living dead. You know? Like in the movies."
The door rattled against his back as Hermione threw herself against it. Dudley guessed from his companions' expressions that she was not a pretty sight; he was glad that he was facing into the empty herb shop.
"I've never seen a movie," Ron replied.
"I've seen porn movies," Seamus offered. "Are there clean ones, and all?"
"Er. Yeah, mate. There's kids' movies and everything."
"They wouldn't be having the sex in, I'm guessing."
Ron stopped Dudley from replying by asking, "So in these zombie movies, then, how do they cure them?" just as Luna joined Hermione in banging on the glass of the door.
Dudley turned his head to assess the state of the two undead witches, then shook his head, sadly. "Can't be done. They'll just keep attacking people, and when they bite them, then that person gets infected and they become a zombie."
"So how do we stop them?" Ron asked grimly.
Dudley fixed him with a determined stare. "We have to destroy them. Blow them up, shoot them, knock their heads off."
"Eeeooohew," Seamus said and pulled a face.
"Yeah," Dudley agreed, "it's disgusting, but it's got to be done."
"Or?" Ron asked.
"Zombie apocalypse," Dudley replied solemnly.
"What --?" Ron started.
A hideous gurgle of bloodlust rose from the street and the banging on the door stopped. The three of them turned to watch an elderly wizard in a lilac top hat emerge from an Emporium opposite. With unnatural speed, the zombies rushed after him and dragged him to the ground together.
"There's no time to explain," Dudley said hurriedly. "We have to formulate a plan of attack." He nodded. "That's what is done at this point in the movies."
"It'll need guns, I suppose," Seamus said wisely.
He and Dudley looked at one another expectantly.
"Can you magic us some guns, then?" Dudley said eventually.
Ron and Seamus shook their heads. "Can't be done," they said in unison.
"It's one of those law things, like a natural law. Hermione can explain it - oh..." Ron looked miserable. "But that's ok, 'cos you're a Muggle and Muggles always have guns. Guns are a Muggle thing."
"Look, it's not like the telly!" Dudley said, exasperated. He wondered then whether Ron had ever seen any television programs, and if he hadn't, then where he had got the idea that Muggles all carried guns. "You need a license," he started, "and you have to be like a farmer or something to get one, and even if I had a legitimate reason for having a gun - because I don't think I'd get away with 'zombie attack' - my police record would be against me - doesn't matter, not explaining now - and you two don't even have birth certificates so you couldn't apply, and anything to do with the council takes bloody weeks and then they lose your file, so there'd be no point applying anyway because by the time we had the licence, Western Europe would have been destroyed. Even if I knew where there was a gun shop, which I don't."
Seamus looked thoughtful. "Well there is my Uncle Kevin in the North. I did hear a rumour that he might have access to the odd shooter and maybe a spot of semtex, but that was a while ago--"
"Apparate to him! Now!" Ron yelled, transfixed by the scene of carnage through the window as the zombie in the top hat dragged a dumpy witch out through a window displaying cauldrons, devouring her as he went. With a pop, Seamus wasn't there anmore.
"How long do you think he'll be?" Dudley asked Ron.
Ron shrugged. "I could try out some hexes on them in the meantime."
"No, I've got a better idea." Dudley gripped Ron by the upper arms and looked into his eyes. "You find somewhere to hide. Stay safe."
"But I --"
Ron's remonstrations were cut off by another terrible blood-thirsty gurgle. They both turned to the glass panelling in the door. Harry was running towards the zombies, firing off magic spells or whatever from his wand. Several of them appeared to hit the growing group of shuffling, moaning undead who advanced on him at unfeasible speed. None had any effect, though. Within seconds, the horde was upon the scrawny hero.
Ron sank his head onto Dudley's chest and muffled a sob there. "Not hexes, then," he muttered. "It's hopeless. If Harry can't save us then what on earth can anyone else do?"
"Leave it to me," Dudley said firmly. "Hide safely, I'll be back, soon." He looked into Ron's eyes and saw a deep admiration within them.
While the zombies were busy gorging on his cousin, Dudley slipped out of the shop and ran gracefully and speedily along the quaint street. There was a pub in the middle of it and through the pub - Dudley remembered -- you could get back to civilisation.
Within seconds he found himself haring up the King's Road, checking his wallet, looking for a newsagent's or some kind of mini-mart. Thank goodness it was October. Pretty quickly, he found a convenience store displaying the Fireworks Code. He pulled the boxes of fireworks from the displays and into a couple of the wire baskets piled up by the door. He slammed them triumphantly on the counter.
The shopkeeper eyed him suspiciously. "That's my whole stock," he complained.
"How much?" Dudley panted.
"I'm not ringing anything up until you've proved to me that you're over eighteen."
Dudley sighed and pulled out his driving licence. The shopkeeper took a long time examining it and comparing the photo on it with Dudley's face. Dudley's foot twitched impatiently, but he didn't tap it. Finally, the shopkeeper handed the card back. He pulled out one box and scanned it, then took forever extracting a flimsy plastic bag from a hook behind the counter to put it in.
Dudley bit his tongue. Mentioning a zombie apocalypse in Magic London would only get him sectioned under the Mental Health Act, which was bound to slow things down.
"You'll need to be careful when and where you let these off," said the shopkeeper. "It's illegal to use fireworks between eleven p.m. and seven a.m."
"Ok. Great. Not a problem," Dudley said quickly, hoping that the man might pick up his own speed in response.
Instead, he slowly extracted the box of fireworks at the bottom of one basket and passed it across the scanner. "Except for on the first day of Chinese New Year when that's extended until one a.m. the following day."
Dudley weighed up the speed he could gain by smacking the guy and running off with the fireworks, against the likelihood that the police would catch him before he'd made it back through the Leaky Arms or whatever it was called.
"And on the day of Diwali until one a.m. the following day," the shopkeeper continued, slowly bagging the next box.
Dudley remembered something about the Leaky Bucket which distracted him from his mounting infuriation. Wasn't it meant to be tricky for normals to see it? Was he going to be able to get back to Horizontally? And then when you were in there, didn't you need to tap some bricks with a wand or something?
"And on the fifth of November until midnight."
Dudley felt a bit sick. He picked up a couple of Mars bars from the rack in front of him and dropped them into one of the wire baskets. He checked his watch and wondered what state the Wizard shopping centre was in now.
"...and on New Year's Eve until one a.m. on New Year's Day. That'll be five hundred and seventy eight pounds and fourteen pence," the shopkeeper finished with.
"Right." Dudley pulled out his debit card. "You can get two hundred on that one." He pulled out a credit card. "That's got a one hundred and fifty limit." He pulled out all his notes. Twenty five quid. He keyed in his PIN number. "And that's a JJB voucher for two hundred which I got for my birthday."
"That's not legal tender here. Does this look like a JJB Sports?"
Dudley dug desperately through his wallet. "Look," he said finally, "I'll throw in this twenty quid credit note for Next and my phone if you'll take the JJB voucher."
The shopkeeper thought about it. Finally, slowly, he nodded. "And fourteen pence."
When he eventually got out of the corner shop, Dudley sprinted back the way he had come, searching frantically for something that looked like it didn't want him to see it. He went too far the first time and turned round. As he sped back up the road he remembered that he was going to need matches or something to light the fireworks with. It was as he turned back to a newsagent's he'd already passed twice, that he caught the grimy little pub out of the corner of his eye. He took mental note of the shops either side of it without looking directly at it.
He bought half a dozen cigarette lighters (muttering something about how they made great birthday presents when the woman looked at him funny) because although he'd seen Seamus set fire to things with his wand more often than he wanted to remember, he had no idea if the wizards would manage that trick with fireworks fuses.
When he got back inside the Leaky Gusset - or whatever it was called - he was greeted by a crew of three zombies in dishevelled robes who had the barmaid cornered on the top of the bar. Without a thought for his own safety, Dudley deftly yanked a rocket out of one of the carrier bags and lit the end. There was no chance of 'standing well back' now, whatever the Fireworks Code might recommend.
He launched it like a javelin into the centre of the micro-horde. As the pretty colours exploded, limbs and brains showered the wood-panelling. The decor was ruined, but that was no loss, the place could do with a makeover anyway. Maybe they'd get a pinball machine.
The barmaid was standing on top of the bar still, screaming her head off. Dudley waded through body parts to lift her gently down.
"Oh, you saved me, you saved me! My hero! How can I ever repay you?" she simpered, fluttering into his embrace.
"No need for that," he said, even though she did have a pretty good rack on her and ordinarily he wouldn't have said 'no'.
"Oh, but there must be something I can offer you." She lowered her lashes and began to unbutton her blouse.
"I, erm.. I haven't really got time. Shame."
"It doesn't have to take long and there are some rooms upstairs."
Mentally kicking himself he said, "You'd better go up there and hide then. I've got more zombies to destroy!"
"You're so brave and wonderful." She sighed. "Maybe afterwards? I'll be right here. My name's Lavender."
"Thanks, Lavender. I'll be back." He hefted his armoury of fireworks and turned to face the other door - the one to Laterally or whatever. He stopped. "Erm, I don't suppose you could just let me out first? I don't actually have a wand thingy."
She looked like she was tempted towards a lascivious play on words, but she must have picked up on his urgency, because instead of making jokes about his wand thingy she hurried out to the back of the pub to tap in the entrance code. On the way out behind her, he pulled out another rocket and gripped it with one hand, holding one of the lighters in the other.
As the wall closed behind him, Dudley took stock of the scene of devastation. He could hear their gurgling war cry, but he couldn't see any actual zombies. The clothes and the possessions of the people whom they had once been, were left scattered all over the cobbles, along with glass and shattered wood and rubble from the buildings which they had destroyed. He listened carefully to determine which way he should go to find them.
As he did so, he heard a soft whimper of fear. He sought out its source and found a slim, blond man cowering behind a water butt. Dudley was about to tell him to find a better hiding place, when the red of a pair of eyes flashed in the dark doorway beyond him. Without hesitating, Dudley lit the rocket and threw it, shouting to the blond to keep down.
The zombie exploded, dropping fragments of body parts all over the expensive-looking robes of the man he now recognised as Dr Malfoy. Healer Malfoy. Whatever. Draco - the one with the funny tattoo with the snake on it.
Draco ran into Dudley's arms and looked up into his face. "Thank goodness you were here!" he gushed. "What would I have done?"
Their attentions were caught by a movement near to where Draco had just been hiding. Dudley had to loosen the good doctor's grip a little in order to reach his next weapon. One of the undead was climbing up the side of the building. Unfortunately, what Dudley pulled out was a Catherine Wheel, but it would probably still do some damage.
"Oh Merlin!" Draco gasped in horror. "Pansy! She's in there!"
A dark-haired, pug-nosed woman appeared at the window and screamed her little heart out.
"Never fear!" Dudley said. His voice seemed to have got deeper.
He pushed Draco off, lit the Catherine wheel and ran towards the terrified woman. Leaping up, he caught the top of the door and swung his legs onto it. Then he stood and, in one movement, managed to shove the spinning, sparking firework into the zombie's chest, wrap an arm around the lady, and leap to the ground.
"Now," he said to the grateful pair as he landed, "You two had better find somewhere a lot more secure to hide out."
"Will you come and find us when you've saved everyone?" asked the brunette, licking her lips. "So I can reward you properly?"
"Shove off, Pans! He saved me first, I'm the one who's going to reward him!" snapped Draco.
"There will be plenty of time for both of you after I've saved Wizardkind," Dudley said. "One at a time." He thought. "Or both at the same time if you like."
"Oh yes, oh yes, we'd like that!" they said in unison.
"Don't forget," Draco said as Dudley started to move away from them.
"I won't forget, Draco, Pansy. We'll have a lot of fun together." He winked.
As he bounded away he tried to decide whether he should have the threesome before or after he did the barmaid. This hero business wasn't without its pleasant side.
The smell of the walking dead, however, was not so pleasant. He followed his nose to the other end of the shopping precinct where a mob of them were hammering at the walls and windows of Wheezes. He hoped George wasn't inside.
Dudley pulled out a handful of fountains and shoved them into his belt. He tied together the carrier bags containing the rest of the fireworks and slung them over one shoulder before lighting all the fuses on his belt and rapidly lobbing the fountains into the crowd, where they whizzed and popped a little and shone with tinkling colours and blew the zombies to bits.
Wiping flesh and guts from his face, Dudley sprinted for the front door of the shop. He had begun to leap over the decimated corpses of the undead, when he heard a wet multiple groaning behind him. When he turned, he saw a crowd advancing on him. He recognised one of them as Head Auror Robards. That meant that Harry's lot were without management as well as minus their hero.
There were too many, they were too close; he didn't have time to unbox the fireworks and light them. Hoping there was a back door, he changed direction and worked his way round the building.
There was an open window! Dudley really hoped that George wasn't inside; surely he wouldn't have overlooked something so obvious. He secured the window behind him and climbed through the stockroom onto the shop floor.
When he got in there he realised why George hadn't had time to go round and do a security check. The stocky redhead was hanging from a light fitting and spraying water out of his wand at the dozens of zombies roaming the aisles beneath him. The water held them back, but it wasn't actually destroying any of them. Like lightning, Dudley shinned up a display of ton tongue toffees (which didn't affect him in the least. Oh, no, he was totally over all that). Perching elegantly on a top shelf, he organised his arsenal. He fashioned ammo belts out of the carrier bags, and attached the Roman Candles to it. Somehow, his shirt had fallen open and his pectorals were looking at their most impressive - all shiny with sweat. The zombies didn't seem to have noticed him yet. He looked over to George, whose face was red and whose grip was slipping on the light chord, and knew how little time he had for preparations.
With a quick scan, he assessed the layout of the enemy below him. He gripped two mines in each hand and his lighter in his teeth. He lit the fuses and aimed them into the four precise positions he had previously located. First the fountains blew up the four zombies closest to them, and then, with four huge bangs, the crackling stars cleared a space around them and finally, sounding like machine-gun fire, prettily coloured sparks disposed of the last of the creatures.
George slipped down to the ground. Dudley leaped down to stand beside him. He helped George to his feet.
"Is it over?" George asked.
Dudley looked to the plate glass display window where the next legion of hungry zombies approached.
"Not by a long chalk," he said.
"That's a shame." George gazed into his eyes. "I could really do with sucking some heroic cock about now."
Dudley chuckled. "Maybe later." He winked.
"Fireworks! Inspired." George was thoughtful as he stroked down Dudley's smooth, strong forearm. "I've got some wet-start ones upstairs. I should use those." George ran a hand over Dudley's exposed chest. "You are so hot," he whispered.
"I'm afraid we've got some more urgent issues than just getting me off."
Just then there was a crack. The two men stopped caressing each other to glance at the front of the shop. The zombies had broken the window, soon they would be inside.
"Upstairs!" Dudley ordered.
They reached George's apartment just in time to slam the door shut. The unmistakable sound of zombie footsteps sounded on the stairs behind them. George waved his wand thing and furniture started flying towards the door, then piled itself up as a barricade against it. As the door rattled the structure wobbled a bit, but it kept the door shut.
"Is there another way out?" Dudley asked.
A large four-poster bed skidded to a halt in front of him.
George raised an eyebrow. "I was hoping you might stay for a while."
Dudley looked at the expanse of orange bed linen; he looked at George's bare forearms and beautiful eyes. He was almost exactly Dudley's perfect man. Almost. Dudley sighed and shook his head.
"Maybe later. I've got a world to save I'm afraid."
"You're heroic Dudley Dursley," the handsome ginger man replied. "There's a window back here. I hope the Inferi haven't located it yet. I'll secure it behind you and then I'll dig out my wet-start fireworks."
Dudley gifted George a quick wave as he dropped three floors to the ground. He spotted a lone zombie behind a market stall, another in a tree, a third crawling along a gutter. He lit his arsenal and began lobbing them with his new deadly aim.
The explosions attracted more of the legion of the undead. Dudley stood his ground, destroying them as they approached. He heard footfalls behind him and turned sharply with a fountain in his fist, but overrode his instinct to chuck it when he recognised Lee. There was a popping sound and Seamus appeared as if by magic (well, not as if by magic, of course, but actually by magic) with a pile of guns and ammunition belts at his feet and a rocket-launcher in his grip.
"Duck," he said.
Dudley ducked and Seamus fired over his head into the midst of the oncoming mob.
Lee indicated the heap of weapons. "Help yourself," he offered.
"Don't mind if I do," Dudley replied smoothly.
He'd never held a gun before, but shooting came as easily to him - he found - as eating. The three of them formed a circle in the market square, facing out and shooting at all the zombies who kept on coming, and then kept on coming and then all of a sudden it was quiet. The three men turned round.
"You think that's it?" Lee asked.
"I think that is it," Dudley replied. "Though you can't ever be too careful with zombies."
They waited another moment. "Well," Seamus said. "I reckon that really is it. I say we have a circle jerk to celebrate!"
"Great idea!" Lee replied and started to unfasten his trousers.
Just then, Ginny ran out of one of the shop doorways, crying and aiming straight for Dudley. "Oh, you've saved us, you've saved us," she sobbed. "My Harry is dead! Whatever am I going to do without him?"
"Actually I think you'll find that he's undead," Seamus corrected.
"It's the sex I'll miss the most," she howled, clinging to Dudley's arm. "Will you cover that side of things for me, Big D?"
Sometimes a hero just had to do these things. And as girls went she was almost perfect. Almost. She was very similar to his one great love, but she wasn't quite right, and nor was George. Returning to Lavender was a tempting idea, the threesome with Draco and Pansy was a very, very tempting idea - but there was something he had to do before he attended to anything else. He gently removed Ginny's hands. He hoped she would recover from the heartbreak of rejection.
Just then a bearded zombie wearing a navy robe covered with stars and moons leaped out of an upstairs window. Instantly, Dudley threw his last rocket at it and it exploded gloriously over the cobbles.
He stepped carefully through its remains without getting any on his shoes and ran back through unfamiliar streets quite certain of his way. He reached the cobbled street in front of the Emporium at the point in Adjacentally where they had first teleported in with Luna's body. Finding it locked, he smashed through the glass panel of the door behind which they had hidden from her and Hermione. He found the one he was looking for hidden behind a display cabinet.
"Ron! You're safe!" Dudley scooped Ron up into his arms. "It's alright now, they've gone."
"You're my hero," Ron said and sank his head onto Dudley's chest. "I've always loved you, Dudley, but I was afraid to admit it. I can't hide my feelings any more. You've saved us all and you are wonderful - so much better than any wizard or witch could ever be. Will you be my boyfriend?"
"Oh, Ron. I love you, too. I thought you'd never ask."
Dudley kissed Ron then and their bodies spun together, floating, twisting, spinning. The colours blurred. Dudley found himself lying down. He couldn't feel Ron any more. His eyes were closed. He opened them.
Someone was leaning over him. Ron? No. A woman. The barmaid. And she was doing something to his forehead. He was in a bed. Lavender. That was what she'd said her name was. But he'd known that already, he realised. They had met before. She had changed her clothes and they weren't nearly as attractive and low-cut as they had been in the Leaky Sheath. That was the wrong name. What was the pub called again?
Lavender pulled back and looked into his face. "You're awake, then," she said. Her voice wasn't as friendly as it had been and her expression soured as she eyed him. Maybe she knew about Ron and she was jealous.
He looked round the room. It had old-fashioned furniture in it. It was a different sort of tasteless to the pub décor, though. He recognised it. It was Harry's house. Whatsitsname: Grim Old Place. It smelled how he remembered: stale dust, varnish, magic and boiled cabbage. How had he got here? How long had he been asleep or unconscious or whatever he'd been? Maybe she'd been waiting for her shag for ages and that's why she was pissed off with him.
He startled as she pulled something greyish out of his head on the end of her wand. She viewed it with disdain. "Well then, this'll be the last one," she hissed cryptically.
"What's going on?" he asked.
She looked down at him in tight-lipped fury. "Barmaid!" she spat. "Barmaid? You know full well I've got a responsible position at the Ministry, we've met enough times at Harry's stuffy dinner parties. You think that just because a woman's got curves, she can't have any brains. You fantasise about her serving you and pandering to you. You think I'd be impressed by you? Let you anywhere near me?"
She carried the grey gloop over to the chest of drawers on the other side of the room and shook it off the end of her wand and into a wide, stone bowl which was sitting on it. Then she bent down and stuck her head in it. He allowed himself to feast his gaze on her arse. Looking wasn't cheating; it didn't make him love Ron any less.
She might have a minging attitude but she had a great body. If she wasn't a barmaid then what had she been doing behind the bar? She couldn't blame him for making an honest mistake. It had been her who had come on to him, not the other way round. She had definitely been up for it. She was really bitter about something now, though. Maybe he'd kept her waiting too long. Or it was her time of the month.
She straightened up and turned round. Now she was smiling. No - she was laughing. At him. "In your dreams," she said.
She magicked up a big test tube and sucked a load of grey gunk out of the bowl and onto her wand to drop it into the test tube. "I'll tell Harry you're awake," she muttered as she left with it.
Dudley lay back and thought. He tried to piece things together. The last thing he remembered was kissing Ron. What had happened after that? He had no idea, so he remembered the kissing Ron time some more. His hand shot out out of his pants when the bedroom door opened.
Harry entered at the front of his Auror team. They were all alive and unscarred. Wizards must have found a cure for zombism. Dudley scanned the faces until he found Ron and gave him a broad smile, only Ron wasn't looking at him, his face was bright red and he was looking at the floor.
Dudley sat up. They didn't look nearly as impressed or pleased as he thought they ought to be after he'd just saved them from a zombie apocalypse. Harry looked at him, opened his mouth a few times, then shook his head.
Finally, he blurted out, "What on earth made you think I was seeing Ginny?" Luna patted his hand and he looked round and started to pull back, but then he stopped himself and smiled warmly at her. "I mean, granted, steaming in and firing off random hexes until I got myself devoured probably is what I'd do. But - no offence Ginny - but not in a million years!"
Luna hushed him, then she turned to Dudley. "I'm very sorry. It was my fault in a way. There wasn't even a glunk there at all in the end."
What was Luna's fault? That thing eating her face?
"Of course there wasn't, there's no such thing," Hermione said.
The team was ranged around the room now, leaning on all the dusty dark-wood furniture.
"Not now, 'Mione," Ron remonstrated automatically, though his colouring hadn't paled any and he still wouldn't look at Dudley.
"Anyway," Luna said, "you'll be pleased to know that I've lost my job as a result."
"Pleased?" Dudley asked. He'd often wondered what kind of a warped police service would employ a weirdo-among-weirdoes like her, but that didn't mean he wanted her to be fired.
"Nobody's pleased about that," Harry said softly, looking into Luna's eyes. "Well..."
"You are, Harry. I don't mind." She explained to Dudley: "The Auror brigade frowns on relationships between colleagues. So now my affair with Harry is not a secret anymore which is nice. I think I'd like to be a bus conductor next."
Dudley looked over at Ginny to see what she thought of these revelations but she didn't seem to mind. It was definitely Dudley she was glaring at.
"Healer Malfoy will be here in a moment to check you out," Harry said. "I'm sure by now you've worked out what happened."
"Er. Not really," Dudley admitted.
Hermione stepped forward. "You found the cursed vase," she said. "So we ought to be thanking you really, I suppose. Not that I appreciate you having me turned into the living dead and I can't help wondering what motivated that. Lavender's taken the vase to the Department of Mysteries to be studied." She smirked a twisted grin. "I thought you had her about right."
Dudley was still confused and he must have looked it because Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes before continuing: "The vase which you knocked off the top shelf."
"Ugly orange pot?"
"That's the one. Any Muggle who touches it is doomed to fall into an immediate coma wherein their fantasies will be played out with such realism that should they die in the fantasy then their body would succumb to actual death. It's a very nasty little curse. Bloody clever, though," she said with an admiration which earned her a lot of dirty looks from everyone in the room. It didn't take long for most of them to be directed back at Dudley again.
"Fantasy?" Dudley asked. The bottom of his stomach felt like it had just dropped into the no-doubt cobwebbed space below the bed. "No zombies?"
"Well, no. As you had me say just before I was attacked, zombies don't actually exist. They really are the entertainment industry's deliberate misinterpretation of the Dark magic phenomenon of Inferi. In the case of Inferi, the dead are made to walk. Those who are alive cannot be infected--"
"Not now, 'Mione," Seamus said. He was looking at Ron like he'd been waiting for him to say that. Ron wasn't looking at anything but his feet though.
Dudley felt his own colour rise. Ron was obviously mortified. It meant that Ron knew. They all knew. He'd been secretly in love with Ron for years and nobody had known. Now everyone did. Dudley felt sick. He wondered where his Mars bars had gone. Then a wave of sadness washed over him. Ron didn't love him back. He felt like he'd lost something. He'd never had it, though, he realised. None of it had ever happened. He hadn't even bought those Mars bars.
"You'd better get some rest," Harry said. "The Healer has been sent for."
"Healer Malfoy?" Dudley asked, suddenly remembering. A cold sweat broke over his face.
Harry looked amused, which wasn't fair. "Oh yes," he said. "That Healer."
Dudley swore.
Harry lead Luna by the hand out of the room, with Ron scampering after them and Hermione and Seamus following. Ginny and Lee, however, exchanged a look and approached the bed instead of leaving.
Lee leaned in threateningly close to Dudley. What was he pissed off about? He'd come off quite well, Dudley thought. If the problem was the proposed circle jerk then he was over-reacting.
"You will never," Lee said through gritted teeth, "be covering the sex side of things with Ginny. Don't you even think about her in that way. Got it?"
"Got it," Dudley said quickly.
"I wouldn't be hiding in a doorway while you fought my battles for me anyway," Ginny added. "If Magical creatures were attacking us it would be me who'd be saving your useless fat arse."
"Yes. I know. Sorry."
"Sexist pig," she sneered.
"You do not think of her sexually ever again. Right?" Lee growled.
"He's got it, sweetheart," Ginny said. "You can stop threatening him."
"If I so much as catch you looking at her then I will pull every tooth from your head and insert them in your testicles."
"I get it!" Dudley raised his hands in surrender. As they left, though, he muttered, "You're not supposed to be shagging her, you know. I'll tell on you and you'll lose your jobs." It didn't make him feel much better, though.
He waited nervously for the doctor. He wondered how much he'd know. Everyone seemed to know everything. He didn't want to be examined by a doctor with whom he'd publicly fantasised about having a threesome.
Eventually he heard the familiar posh voice on the other side of the door, snapping, "I don't need an escort!"
"Just in case," Seamus replied as he threw the bedroom door open without even knocking. "There he is, the racist bastard."
Dudley was too confused to be as embarrassed as he should have been at seeing Malfoy.
"Not all Irish people have links with terrorism you manky English git."
Oh. That.
"Semtex!" Seamus said derisively. He folded his arms and watched as Malfoy examined Dudley.
Dudley suspected that the examination was more humiliating and painful than it need to be.
"I'm a happily married man," Malfoy grunted as he stuck his wand someplace where wands shouldn't be allowed to go. "Threesome, indeed! Cowering in alleyways indeed!"
Dudley was alone for what felt like a long time after they had gone. The more he thought about it, the more he recognised elements of his adventure from his usual fantasies. He should have known it was all too good to be true. He'd wanked before to mental images of Lavender, Dr Draco, his friend Pansy Pug-face, Seamus, George - oh hell! George.
He hoped to God nobody was going to tell George about this. The four-poster bed with the orange sheets. George's fingers running over his chest... He pulled back his T-shirt and looked down at his chest. It was a lot flabbier. He was wearing a T-shirt. Naturally he was, he always did. There never had been a shirt with buttons which could come undone to leave him looking like Rambo. He'd never had shiny, muscled, exposed pecs, but they were a recurrent image in his fantasies.
So was getting one over on all the clever magic people. He frequently dreamed of saving witches and wizards and having them therefore admit that he was actually superior to them. And of course he longed to be a hero like Harry.
How could he have thought it was real? Even if the vase had tricked him with the rest of it, the idea that Ron could ever return his adoration was preposterous. He felt dreadful. His secret crush had been laid bare for public view. Ron was never going to speak to him again. No Weasley would. In fact, Dudley was never going to be able to show his face among Magicians ever again.
Daylight faded beyond the curtains and Dudley wondered how long he had been in this bed. He hoped someone had told work that he wouldn't be coming in. He ought to look for his phone and call in sick. Harry had told him to sleep which was a joke. He was in far too much turmoil.
He thought he heard a light knocking at the door. It seemed unlikely. All the visitors he had had here had just barged in. He listened. There was the sound again.
"Erm. Yes?" he called out, sitting upright.
The person who opened the door was the one Dudley had expected least. He liked to look at Ron, to smile at him, but now he couldn't; he never wanted to see Ron again. Dudley looked down at his hands.
"Erm, so, yeah," Ron started. "Like I thought I might. Erm. See how you are?" He closed the door behind him.
"Alright," Dudley mumbled.
"Did you get some sleep?"
"Not really."
"Oh. I thought you were asleep or I would have come earlier. Malfoy said it would be good for you. Like he knows anything."
Dudley couldn't help grinning at that.
Ron looked like he was considering the next thing he had to say. He took a deep breath. Then he leant in a faux casual way against the chest of drawers. With a shrug he asked. "You wouldn't really be interested in him, um, like that, would you? Not even with Pansy thrown in."
"God, no! I don't know where that came from!"
"Great! I mean, whatever. It doesn't matter or anything."
"It doesn't? No, no of course it doesn't."
"So you don't fancy Malfoy?"
"No!" Dudley thought for a moment. "In fact I don't know where any of it came from. Everybody's blaming me for what happened - didn't happen I mean - but it wasn't me was it, it was the vase with the spell on it, wasn't it?"
Ron pulled a reluctant face. "Actually, mate, it doesn't work like that. Not from what Lavender and Hermione were saying."
Dudley admitted defeat with a sigh. The whole episode had been redolent with the standard motifs of his fantasies, he knew it had all come from him. He'd been hoping to fool Ron, though.
"The vase just sinks its victim into his or her own subconscious."
"Yeah. Figures." Dudley looked briefly at Ron and found him looking back. They both looked away quickly. "So, like, if it all just happened in my head then how come the rest of you know what was going on? Was I like talking in my sleep or something?"
"No, we used this thing."
Dudley had to look up to see what Ron was talking about. It was the wide bowl on the chest of drawers, just beside Ron's elbow.
"What's that?"
"It's a Pensieve. Lavender extracted your memories as soon as you'd had them and we all viewed them in there."
"That's a bit much!" Dudley felt violated.
"I know, mate, I know. You had to be monitored for your own safety, though. In case you got close to death and then you would have really died."
"How did it take all of you to watch out for that?"
"Well, it's part of the investigation," Ron said lamely.
"That's not good enough! You've been trespassing inside my head!"
Ron muttered some kind of apology.
"I'll never be able to look any of your lot in the eye again."
"Don't say that!" Ron took a couple of steps towards Dudley's bed then stopped himself. "I mean, it'll be alright. They'll all get over it." He tried to look nonchalant again. "You know when Luna bit Hermione and we were in that herb shop?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, well, I said - I mean you had me saying - something about 'My Hermione'. It's not that it matters or anything but she's not. She hasn't been mine for years."
Dudley felt himself smiling and then put a halt to that. "Whatever. Sorry. Got that wrong," he said.
"Look." Ron hesitated for a moment, clearly weighing things in his mind. Then he took another decisive step towards Dudley. He was within touching distance. Dudley clasped his hands together and dug the nails into his palms.
"Look," Ron said again. "Why me? At the end, after all those hot birds and my brother and that, why did you go back to me? Why would anyone chose me out of everyone on Diagon Alley?"
Diagonally. That's what it was called. Dudley didn't know how to answer. He swallowed.
"Nobody ever chose me first for anything," Ron said, looking at a spot on the wall. "I'm the sidekick, the youngest son. I'm not particularly clever or strong or good-looking or magical. There's people who are better than me at everything. I'm quite funny sometimes, but not like Seamus or George. I'm not a total nerd like Neville, but I'm not really cool like Lee or Cho or Charlie."
Dudley couldn't stop them any longer, his hands rose up to take Ron's. Ron looked down into his face. Dudley felt his mouth moving up and down. He squeezed Ron's hands. How could Ron not see himself clearly? Dudley wanted to articulate how wonderful he found him but the sentences wouldn't form. All he managed to croak was "You're perfect."
"What?" Ron sank onto the bed. He didn't pull his hands back, but he still looked confused.
"You've got everything. You're all those things. I've been..." Crushing on you? In love with you? Hoping for you? Dreaming of you? Fancying you? Longing for you? "...watching you for years." That was not a good choice of words.
"How long?" Ron asked.
"Since I met you," Dudley admitted.
They looked into each other's eyes.
"Just me?" Ron asked.
Dudley looked down. "No, you know I, uh, notice other people. You've seen my thoughts. I think about sex. A lot. Most virgins do." He'd never before confessed to being that to anyone. It was probably a bad move to do so now.
"So not just me. You watch lots of people?" Ron sounded disappointed.
"It's not the same. I really like you, Ron. I know I'm not good enough for you, but I like you best. It's more than that. I ogle tits and bums and forearms and pretty faces. I have to own up to that after what you've seen inside my head. But it's not like how I feel about you." Dudley took a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound. He might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. He needed to stop quoting his Great Aunt Doris now and get on with it. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Procrastination is the thief of time. "I'm in love with you, Ron Weasley," he blurted.
He waited for Ron's reaction. He looked in his face and all he saw was surprise. He looked away. "Go on, you might as well run off and laugh at me with your mates," he muttered. Ron's hands slid from his grip. Dudley waited for him to stand up and walk out.
Then the hands were back and they were on Dudley's cheeks. He looked up into Ron's eyes, but within seconds Ron's features had blurred as he came too close to focus. Then they were kissing.
It felt real, but Dudley couldn't help wondering. He hoped hard that this wasn't just another fantasy.