Challenge #002: Secondary Character
Title: Special
Rating/Warnings: G
Characters/Pairing: Dudley/OC, a bit of Harry
Summary: Dudley knew his son was special the minute he held him in his arms.
Word Count: 839
Registered purchases?: Both!
i.
Dudley knew his son was special the minute he held him in his arms. He thought, up until that point, that everything his wife had spouted about birth and what to expect, had been the general rubbish that she'd read from her books or heard from her friends. He loved her, god knows, but she sometimes got all sorts of mad ideas. She was very progressive, and sometimes Dudley thought that was what made her attractive. She wasn't anyone his parents may have approved of, certainly.
She told him that parenthood happened differently between father and mother. The mother, she said, bonded with the child while she carried him. She didn't take offense when Dudley got frustrated, or was somewhat distant. It was only natural, she reasoned, and even then Dudley doubted her. Could he really only be doing so because he hadn't seen his son yet?
And then he held him in his arms for the first time after a long, thirteen-hour labor, and then he knew. Catherine's books weren't lying. Her friends were onto something. Because at that moment he thought Henry William Dursley was about the most magnificent thing on the planet, and he wouldn't give him up for anything.
ii.
He was sorry that his parents had passed away before they could see Henry, but Dudley and Catherine were very happy parents. She persuaded him to allow Henry to go into classes with her as a toddler, even though he couldn't see the point in paying someone money to tell everyone what to do while the babies basically just rolled over. He thought, sometimes, that his father's cheeks would have been red with laughter at every funny antic Henry pulled, or that his mother would have fussed ever so dutifully to make sure he had his food and clean diapers and whatever else he needed. They would both have spoiled him rotten too, given him toys and clothes and anything else his little heart desired, as they had for Dudley when he was a child.
But some days he was also glad they weren't around.
He wasn't sure what they might have thought of Henry the day the Christmas tree exploded when the lights blinked too slow for him.
Or the day his birthday cake flew from his mother's hands so that he could have it right then and there without all the singing.
Or the time someone at school who had been teasing him found their mouth suddenly, and quite literally, zipped shut.
Old habits died hard. He knew his parents would have disapproved, yet he couldn't quite explain what was going on either. Or rather, he could, but it required doing things he didn't much enjoy.
So, as was a Dursley tradition, he wrote those all off as coincidences or truly unfortunate events.
iii.
Then Henry's letter from Hogwarts came, and with it, a few uncomfortable conversations.
The first was with Catherine, who had been suspecting something was up since the Christmas tree incident. What surprised Dudley was about how she'd worried less that her son was magical and was more concerned with the fact that Dudley had had an inkling, that he had known, and yet he'd never told her a thing.
"I thought I was going mad, all by myself!" she'd said, and she'd looked so heartbroken that Dudley did feel quite remorseful in the end. He'd had to soothe her nerves, tell her he was very sorry, and that he'd make it up to her somehow.
The second was with Henry, who looked fairly confused for a moment before he shrugged, as children were apparently wont to do with life-changing news like that, and asked if it meant he wouldn't be going to Snellings after all.
"Good," he'd said, once Dudley confirmed he'd be going to Hogwarts instead. "Their uniform itches."
The third was with Harry, who through some incredible circumstances he'd remained distantly in contact with. Harry, for Dudley's sake, maintained an address at the closest post office, and both sent and received holiday and birthday cards from Dudley. He showed up at a cafe in downtown London following Dudley's request, and was only too pleased to hear about Henry's letter.
"Don't worry, Ginny and I will take care of getting his stuff bought at Diagon Alley," he assured Dudley. "And his cousins will be there still, I'll let them know to expect you!"
"Is it genetic?" was what Dudley wanted to know. "Why is my son magical?"
But Harry honestly had no answers to give him, only offering that it might have skipped a generation or two since their mothers were related or something. Dudley didn't feel quite as comforted knowing the magical gene was as erratic as it was, but at least he knew someone in the inside, as he later told Catherine.
"They're good people, Harry and his wife," he assured her. (If by good one meant people that once defeated some sort of magical dark wizard and saved the world from calamity and disaster.)
Word count points: 839/30 = 28 pts
Bonus points: 10 pts
38 points for Ravenclaw!
Rating/Warnings: G
Characters/Pairing: Dudley/OC, a bit of Harry
Summary: Dudley knew his son was special the minute he held him in his arms.
Word Count: 839
Registered purchases?: Both!
i.
Dudley knew his son was special the minute he held him in his arms. He thought, up until that point, that everything his wife had spouted about birth and what to expect, had been the general rubbish that she'd read from her books or heard from her friends. He loved her, god knows, but she sometimes got all sorts of mad ideas. She was very progressive, and sometimes Dudley thought that was what made her attractive. She wasn't anyone his parents may have approved of, certainly.
She told him that parenthood happened differently between father and mother. The mother, she said, bonded with the child while she carried him. She didn't take offense when Dudley got frustrated, or was somewhat distant. It was only natural, she reasoned, and even then Dudley doubted her. Could he really only be doing so because he hadn't seen his son yet?
And then he held him in his arms for the first time after a long, thirteen-hour labor, and then he knew. Catherine's books weren't lying. Her friends were onto something. Because at that moment he thought Henry William Dursley was about the most magnificent thing on the planet, and he wouldn't give him up for anything.
ii.
He was sorry that his parents had passed away before they could see Henry, but Dudley and Catherine were very happy parents. She persuaded him to allow Henry to go into classes with her as a toddler, even though he couldn't see the point in paying someone money to tell everyone what to do while the babies basically just rolled over. He thought, sometimes, that his father's cheeks would have been red with laughter at every funny antic Henry pulled, or that his mother would have fussed ever so dutifully to make sure he had his food and clean diapers and whatever else he needed. They would both have spoiled him rotten too, given him toys and clothes and anything else his little heart desired, as they had for Dudley when he was a child.
But some days he was also glad they weren't around.
He wasn't sure what they might have thought of Henry the day the Christmas tree exploded when the lights blinked too slow for him.
Or the day his birthday cake flew from his mother's hands so that he could have it right then and there without all the singing.
Or the time someone at school who had been teasing him found their mouth suddenly, and quite literally, zipped shut.
Old habits died hard. He knew his parents would have disapproved, yet he couldn't quite explain what was going on either. Or rather, he could, but it required doing things he didn't much enjoy.
So, as was a Dursley tradition, he wrote those all off as coincidences or truly unfortunate events.
iii.
Then Henry's letter from Hogwarts came, and with it, a few uncomfortable conversations.
The first was with Catherine, who had been suspecting something was up since the Christmas tree incident. What surprised Dudley was about how she'd worried less that her son was magical and was more concerned with the fact that Dudley had had an inkling, that he had known, and yet he'd never told her a thing.
"I thought I was going mad, all by myself!" she'd said, and she'd looked so heartbroken that Dudley did feel quite remorseful in the end. He'd had to soothe her nerves, tell her he was very sorry, and that he'd make it up to her somehow.
The second was with Henry, who looked fairly confused for a moment before he shrugged, as children were apparently wont to do with life-changing news like that, and asked if it meant he wouldn't be going to Snellings after all.
"Good," he'd said, once Dudley confirmed he'd be going to Hogwarts instead. "Their uniform itches."
The third was with Harry, who through some incredible circumstances he'd remained distantly in contact with. Harry, for Dudley's sake, maintained an address at the closest post office, and both sent and received holiday and birthday cards from Dudley. He showed up at a cafe in downtown London following Dudley's request, and was only too pleased to hear about Henry's letter.
"Don't worry, Ginny and I will take care of getting his stuff bought at Diagon Alley," he assured Dudley. "And his cousins will be there still, I'll let them know to expect you!"
"Is it genetic?" was what Dudley wanted to know. "Why is my son magical?"
But Harry honestly had no answers to give him, only offering that it might have skipped a generation or two since their mothers were related or something. Dudley didn't feel quite as comforted knowing the magical gene was as erratic as it was, but at least he knew someone in the inside, as he later told Catherine.
"They're good people, Harry and his wife," he assured her. (If by good one meant people that once defeated some sort of magical dark wizard and saved the world from calamity and disaster.)
Word count points: 839/30 = 28 pts
Bonus points: 10 pts
38 points for Ravenclaw!