FIC: "The Glorious 10th of May" for irena_candy

[bethbethbeth]

Recipient: irena_candy
Author: vissy
Title: The Glorious 10th of May
Rating: R
Pairings: Dudley Dursley/Piers Polkiss
Word Count: 5400
Warnings/Content Information (Highlight to View): *under-18 sex*.
Summary: Dudley is the Dark Lord of Romance. He'll kick seven shades of shit out of anyone who says otherwise.
Author's Notes: Thank you to T for her beta help and bethbethbeth for her modding (and patience!)



Piers ran around the school track with his earphones in but the only thing he listened to was his own steady panting; the Walkman was just there for show. Not that he was likely to get jumped -- he might not be the toughest guy at Smeltings, but he was by far the fastest -- but he'd hung with the bad crowd long enough to figure out ways to avoid unwanted attention, just in case. No one would bother shit-stirring if they thought he couldn't hear.

In any case, there was nobody out and about; the other sixth formers were too busy spending an otherwise pleasant Sunday afternoon crapping themselves over their coursework and the circling A-levels to bother with Piers. Luckily none of the guys had actually figured out he had a brain between his ears else they'd be pestering him for help with their work. Piers had long cultivated such a dim-witted veneer that even his teachers were likely to faint en masse when he topped the entire class come the end of school. Only Dudley had ever known enough to copy from Piers, and he was long gone.

Piers shivered despite the sweat crawling down his face. This time last year Dudley, bloody-minded fan of The Simpsons that he was, would have been leading the other boys in a rousing rendition of the Whacking Day anthem while they all took to the woods with their sticks. As far as Piers recalled no one had ever actually spotted so much as a slow worm, much less a snake, but that had never before stopped the Whacking Day rites. However this year the glorious 10th of May had gone by unnoticed.

Only Piers remembered. Sick of the sameness of the track, he took off towards the woodland beyond the sports fields. It was darker under the trees and students were forbidden to go there alone but those rules had never stopped Piers before. He was familiar with every inch of these woods and his pace quickened even as the ground beneath him grew iffy with roots and slimy leaf litter. The complaints of startled birds accompanied him as he clambered over ditches and hurdled over rocks, and his pumping arms swept half-seen hazel branches aside before they could rake at his skin; this was the sort of running he preferred. Aside from Whacking Day, most of the students never came this far; they preferred to stick to the fringes of the forest where they could sneak some weed or a bottle of cheap booze while they skived off class. Piers didn't bother with that sort of stuff anymore. It wasn't much fun without Dudley around.

Five minutes passed, then fifteen and more. Piers kept half an eye on his watch, wary of missing tea. Without Dudley around, there was no one to save him any food. The lowering sun flashed between the trees; the sky looked clearer than it had for months. It had been a foggy, almost endless winter and the sullen grey walls of Smeltings had pressed too close until Piers could barely breathe; the world had felt all to cock. Easter holidays had brought no relief; Dudley was still missing and the Dursley house remained empty. For such a busybody town, Little Whinging was weirdly quiet when it came to the missing Dursleys, and number four Privet Drive seemed to discourage the notice of its neighbours; people hurried past its overgrown garden wall, their eyes averted. Piers' mum looked puzzled when he asked if there'd been news, almost as if she'd never heard of the Dursleys before, and it was a similar story at Smeltings where neither staff nor students seemed to give Dudley a thought. If it weren't for Dudley's boxing prizes still shining in the school trophy cabinet Piers might've started to think he'd been an imaginary friend all along.

Piers wasn't that cracked yet but he did believe Dudley was dead, lost to the winter's horrible mists. The pall had lifted in the last week or so, as if the planet had finally broken free of the Twilight Zone, but there'd been no word of Dudley. Piers spoke of his suspicions to no one; it wasn't like anyone would pay attention to him anyhow. Nobody else had seen the way Dudley's nutter of a cousin once set a giant snake on them. Nobody else knew about the scar on Dudley's bum (and Dudley never did get past the second hub of Hexen, he was so freaked out by the Porkalator) or the way his tongue sometimes lolled too long from his mouth. And Piers was the only one who'd ever witnessed Dudley's sobbing nightmares.

But ghosts and giants were make-believe, witchcraft was Hollywood stuff, Doctor Dolittle was just a stupid kid's book; Piers would be laughed out of the Little Whinging constabulary if he tried to suggest otherwise. Fat lot of good it did anyone if Piers got himself carted off to the loony bin -- and Dudley wouldn't be any less dead.

Piers scrubbed at his wet cheeks; it was just sweat, really, and the catkins making every inch of his face crawl with itches. Hunger gnawed and he angled back in the direction of the school, squinting against the sun as the light flickered through the canopy and dried his face. All winter he had had the strongest, strangest feeling the leaf burst would not come this year, but proof otherwise surrounded him, right on schedule; even the ash trees were coming into leaf. His outstretched fingers trailed at the bark, hunting for luck as he passed.

Then his hand found another hand, shockingly hot and strange in the quiet of the forest, and fingers wrapped about his wrist, pulling him to a halt.

The breath left his lungs like a punch to the guts, stopping his scream before it could surface. He wrenched his hand free and lurched on. The path evened as the ash and oak trees gave ground to beech, but Piers' stride was bollocksed up now by lack of oxygen and the sodden weight of terror, and he dropped face first into a honeyed carpet of bluebells, his Walkman flying as he was rugbytackled from behind.

"Geroff! Get the fuck off me!" he yelled, kicking back at his assailant. He scrabbled at the ground, trying to gather dirt to fling in the bloke's face, but he caught nothing but fistsful of flowers. He flung them over his shoulder anyhow. "I'll kill you, you fucker!"

"Would you stop tearing around for one second?" Piers' legs were clamped in a viselike grip and the voice was muffled against his arse, but ten months might well have been ten minutes for all the difference it made. Piers was familiar with this particular heavyweight. "What'd you run away for? It's just me."

"Fuck!" croaked Piers, blood pounding in his forehead. He thought he might chuck up. "I don't believe it. You're dead! Fuck."

"Huh? Who said I was dead?" That was definitely Dudley's chin pressed into his left buttock like a sodding brick. Piers bucked up, trying to dislodge him, and received nothing but a bruised bum for his trouble. "Oi! You want a clip upside the ear? Settle down, would you?"

"Settle down?" Piers kicked out again and managed to wriggle half out from under Dudley. "Settle down? You fall off the face of the planet while the whole world turns to shit, no one can tell me a fucking thing, and you're telling me to settle the fuck down? I'll fucking kill you myself!"

"I'd like to see you try." The dickhead had the gall to giggle and seemed unmoved by Piers' valiant efforts to sit up. "I've been looking for you all over. What are you so worked up about? You don't have to go spare!"

"I don't have to --?" Piers flailed his arms backwards, trying to get enough leverage for a decent swat to Dudley's blond boofhead. "Me and the folks get back from the Canaries to find your whole bloody family's disappeared into thin air -- no one knows anything; no one says anything -- I ask Malcolm, Gordon, all the guys, and they're a bunch of Midwich fucking cuckoos, I swear, acting like I'm talking a foreign language or something! I'm convinced I'm going mental and everything's completely bizarre --"

"Tell me about it," Dudley said agreeably.

"-- and here we are now, like, almost a year later -- and swear to God, I have never known such a freaky fucking year in my life, and I don't just mean Princess Di carking it -- and you, you swine, you're all lalala, how's it going, and by the way why don't I just ambush you in the middle of fucking nowhere without so much as a word since this seems as good a time as any to frighten the living bejesus out of you? You don't reckon that maybe, just maybe this might be the ideal moment for an otherwise sensible, sane bloke to go just a little fucking spare?"

Dudley peeled back a touch, finally letting Piers sit up, and Piers took a deep breath and wheeled on his arse to glare down at Dudley, who looked about as simple as he had the day they first met in nursery school. "So, you're upset?"

Piers spluttered. "Yeah, Big D, I'm a tad upset!"

"Because I do a bunk and you figured I was dead." Dudley's head cocked to one side, and Piers could almost see the computational iterations chugging away all Commodore 64-like behind those bemused blue eyes.

"You think?" said Piers, although plainly Dudley hadn't, not once in the last ten months. No call. No letter. No nothing.

"And also, I scared you just now." Dudley's eyes widened, as if it was all starting to come clear at last, except his head was still at something of a tilt, making him look as confused as ever.

"Der." Piers wasn't quite eighteen yet, so he'd be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure for murder. Her Majesty would surely understand the extenuating circumstances wherein Piers' best friend was a braindead, insensitive prick who deserved the shallow woodland grave Piers would give him.

"But I waved!" said Dudley, puffing up in indignation.

"I. couldn't. see. you."

"Oh. Well, I did wave. You looked pleased to see me," said Dudley, looking rather pleased himself.

"I was just pleased to see some fucking sunshine for a change."

"You big girl." Dudley gave him a friendly nudge that sent him toppling over again.

Piers just flopped back amongst the flowers and stared up at the sheltering leaves. He felt exhausted. "Why didn't you say something? Give me a heads up?"

"Huh? You had your ears in. I didn't think you'd hear me."

"D, I hate music."

"Oh. I forgot."

"'Course you did."

Dudley shook his head, looking nearly fond. "I dunno how you can keep from smacking into trees but somehow miss someone like me."

"I don't know either." Piers closed his eyes and rubbed at his belly, trying to settle the sick-making roll of fury that made his muscles clench, his back teeth grind. The hell of it was, he'd missed Dudley like mad, missed him like his shadow had missed the sun all winter long -- and wouldn't Dudley laugh to hear it, if he weren't too thick to get it. Piers knew well enough that he'd never impacted much upon Dudley's sluggish thought processes but it hadn't ever made him feel quite so lonely as it did now. "You could've said something. You should have."

"Gave you a bit of a brown trouser moment, did I?" said Dudley cheerfully. He caught at Piers' ankles and pulled. "Do I need to check your ickle bottom?"

He had the blatant nerve to sound flirtatious. It made Piers snarl. "I don't believe you! Seriously? I cannot believe you. All this time, and you reckon you can just pick up where you left off and I won't mind a bit. You still don't get it, do you? You can't just do this out of nowhere! It's not fair." He kicked out, landing a half-decent blow to Dudley's gut, feeling infuriated by his utter denseness.

Dudley just laughed and tightened his proprietary grip, dragging Piers closer until Piers' trainers propped against Dudley's wide shoulders and their thighs snugged up together...god, god. "Aw, I get you," Dudley said, rubbing at Piers' trembly legs almost in comfort -- like Piers had a hope in hell resisting the might of those butternut squash biceps of Dudley's -- except Dudley eased his hold, letting Piers' shins slip and curl down his sides while he crouched forwards, covering Piers like a down-filled duvet and forcing his thighs wide with an acid ache. Fuck, that brought back a memory or two. Piers wrapped his arms across his face, trying to shield his eyes and hold back the helpless little animal noises that tried to escape his throat, but Dudley took him by the wrists and pushed his hands above his head, his breath too hot against Piers' skin as he said, "I've got you."

Piers' face burned beneath Dudley's furrow-browed scrutiny. Such a loyal fucking lapdog, panting for his master despite a year's neglect; he couldn't even help humping an unruly stiffy up against Dudley's soft belly -- and didn't Dudley smile to feel that token of devotion, the smug bastard, like he'd ever done anything to deserve it. "I really thought you were dead. Like, I had serious visions of human fucking sacrifice, magic Mafia dead," he said, and his cheeks scalded hotter to hear the desolation evident in his voice, hating to think what Dudley could make of it even as he was helpless to hide it. He bit his bottom lip but still the loneliness slipped out, telling on him. "I thought you were gone forever."

"You're blushing!" Dudley said, but his face seemed to soften as he regarded Piers' plainly unmistakable distress, which just made Piers feel even more exposed.

"No I'm not," he ground out uselessly.

"And you're hard," said Dudley, rolling his great hips into Piers' splayed, betraying lap.

The blunt movement pushed the breath from Piers and he shut his eyes hard against the sight of Dudley, even if he couldn't close his thighs. "Shut up, you cunt. I hate you so much."

"You really missed me," Dudley said, an almost wondering note to his words.

"Missed you?" said Piers, straining at the grip on his wrists as he silently begged his leaky eyeballs not to betray him. "I fucking mourned you, you miserable fucker."

"Poor Piers," Dudley hummed. "Poor, poor Piers."

And that did it, damn it, because instead of taunting he sounded in dead earnest. A ragged sob broke from Piers' throat and a tear dribbled down his face. He blinked in frantic denial and found his blurry field of vision filled with Dudley's face, and then a mouth closed over his own, awkward, wet and unfamiliar. It was Piers' first kiss.

His eyelashes stuttered to stillness. Dudley was too close -- Piers could smell chocolate biscuits and milky tea on his skin, could feel the snort of breath against his cheek, could hear nothing but the thud of blood through his veins -- and Piers wanted him closer, wanted this never-expected kiss to outlast the summer and even the sun itself.

Because for all Dudley's rampant hungers, his greedy fat fingers that had touched every part of Piers, he didn't kiss. Piers had tried; he'd nibbled across Dudley's shoulders and stuck his tongue in Dudley's ear, he'd nuzzled at Dudley's neck, dragged his fingers through his hair and drawn their mouths close -- but Dudley never kissed.

Piers didn't know why. His mum would probably say it was Fear of Intimacy or some such rubbish she'd read about in Women's Weekly but it seemed to Piers that he and Dudley had always had intimacy coming out their ears. Dudley had cleaned him up after Piers wet the bed their first night at Smeltings. Piers had combed Dudley's body with a magnifying glass for ticks that time Dudley was convinced he'd contracted Lyme disease. He remembered every toy Dudley had ever broken, every kid he'd ever bashed -- and he and Dudley had groomed, fed and fucked like a pair of chimpanzees once they'd adopted the gratifying pastime of Piers-poking, right up until Dudley disappeared.

But Piers-pashing was a whole new kettle of fish. Pufferfish, maybe: moreish, but potentially fatal. Dudley wasn't really scared of anything that Piers knew of -- but the cold sweats and bad dreams suggested something he'd kept hidden. Piers didn't know if it was the Bad Touch sort of something -- any would-be chub chester who went after Dudley would get sorely thumped for his efforts -- but something had kept Dudley's lips closed, and odds were it related to his cousin's barmy voodoo bullshit.

Only now Dudley's lips were open and insistent against Piers' for the very first time in their lives -- and as much as Piers wanted to know what the hell had been going on, he wanted Dudley's mouth more. It was impossible to sustain anger when Dudley lapped at him like he'd been on prison rations and Piers was made of clotted cream. And wasn't it just like Dudley to do his head in until he couldn't see straight. He sighed helplessly, stupidly, into Dudley's mouth and let his own tongue touch Dudley's, wondering how they managed to pass seventeen snog-free years without climbing the walls.

But Dudley flinched back, just enough that Piers could see a fretful neediness swallowed back behind dampened lips and a worried expression, and Piers really did want to cry to see such a look on Dudley's normally stolid face, to hear the hesitation in his voice as he asked, "Is -- is that okay?"

"I -- um, should I be asking that?" said Piers. He wished rather desperately that Dudley would let go of his wrists because it was terrible and wrong that Dudley should look so vulnerable and Piers wanted very much to hug him. And other stuff, of course -- their pricks still rubbed at one another as if to say all this talking nonsense was a load of bollocks and oughtn't they to get on with more important matters -- but perhaps there was something to this intimacy thing after all, because, as awful as it was to see Dudley looking almost scared, as much as it made him want to lose his rag with whoever was responsible, Piers wouldn't have missed this strange, slippery moment for anything. "Are you okay?"

Dudley let go of his wrists, unprompted. He seemed surprised to have been holding them down in the first place. As he sank back onto his haunches, his hands stroked down the length of Piers' arms, gentle on the soft skin. Piers squirmed as a pair of thumbs dipped and tickled into his underarms and squirmed harder as Dudley brought his fingers to his face and breathed Piers' sweat scent in, but Dudley just smiled and said, "I'm okay. More than okay."

"Oh," said Piers. "That's good."

"And you're okay?" There was a heedful undertone to the simple question that shouldn't have shocked Piers as much as it did -- because if Dudley cared about anyone in this world, Piers figured it was him -- except he hadn't known Dudley could care quite like this, that Dudley would wait for his answer in a way that said it mattered, very much.

"I'm okay too," he muttered, although he wasn't entirely certain. He stared at Dudley's lips and nibbled nervously at his own, and when he saw that Dudley was doing some staring of his own he reached up to draw Dudley back down against him. Dudley had a neck much like the trunk of an old oak tree, but he bent for Piers, gathering him in. Piers groaned at the breathless pleasure of Dudley's belly bearing down upon his own, his hips sliding into Piers', and they kissed again and then again, until Piers thought he might burn with the sweet embarrassment of it, until he was grinning too hard and wide to fit even Dudley's generous, mobile mouth. He pulled back a little -- a little being as much as he could -- and nudged his pointed nose against Dudley's chin. "You need to get your kit off before I tear it off myself."

Dudley grinned too. "You're not too cold? The sun's going down."

"Who cares? I've got a lovely radiator right here to keep me warm," said Piers, giving in to the urge to squeeze Dudley tight.

"Ooph, lovely, am I?" asked Dudley. His dug his fingers into the back of Piers' damp t-shirt, pulling it to one side to lick at Piers' nape, making Piers' knees shake. "A lovely bit of crumpet, that's me."

"Shut up and pretend I'm not in a complete state."

"I will if you will. And we'll kick seven shades of shit out of anyone who says otherwise."

"Deal," Piers agreed. Dudley shifted his weight, sitting up far enough to draw the t-shirt over Piers' head. His skin looked pallid and his chest too thin beneath Dudley's bulk, but Dudley's expression was rapt utterly, as though Piers were a feast spread for his pleasure. The cool air made pebbles of Piers' nipples -- fuck but they were sore, all that running chafed them like mad -- and Dudley watched with avid eyes while his blunt fingertips teased over Piers' soft sides, his sharp ribs.

Dudley pulled at his own clothes, tugging shirt and jumper off together and making a haystack out of his hair, until Piers' mouth watered, his fingers aching to touch. Dudley's gut hung low over his belt, undulating obscenely as he rocked his hips, pushing Piers' thighs even further apart until Piers writhed over the crushed bluebells, sucking in their honey scent while he reached for Dudley's lazily swaying tits. They were a plush handful, bobbing beautifully in his cupped hands, the apricot teats spilling over his thumbs. Piers squeezed Dudley's tits together to form a deep, twilit cleavage, whispering, "Gorgeous, gorgeous," as Dudley bucked hard against him, his head thrown back and his belly wobbling.

They strained against one another, fretted by their remaining clothing but hard-pressed to stop the compulsive rocking. Dudley finally dragged Piers' hands free and pressed them into the ground. "Stay," he ordered, and Piers obeyed, pliant while Dudley knelt back and hauled his legs high. He pulled at Piers' ridiculous orange running shorts, catching them on his cock with a quiet apology, but when the scrap of material snagged around Piers' knees, Dudley rolled him backwards without warning, forcing him arse up and holding him there. Piers' trainers tottered in the air and his bollocks bulged tight between his thighs as Dudley kept a firm grip on his knees, keeping him still with effortless strength. The swollen wet tip of Piers' cock dragged over his belly with every hitching breath, but there was no other relief until Dudley crouched down and forced his face between Piers' arse cheeks, shaking his head back and forth, a dog savaging his prey. His thick, sloppy tongue lapped at Piers' sac and lashed along his crease, and Piers whined with need, pushing his arsehole shamelessly towards Dudley's mouth like a bletted medlar.

Dudley stabbed at him repeatedly with his stiffened tongue, then gentled the shock with languid wet licks from stern to stem. He raised his head and ground out, "Want fingers?"

Piers nodded frantically, gasping, "Uh-huh."

Dudley pressed his thumbs behind Piers' knees and warned, "Keep them still."

"I will, promise."

Dudley swept his palms down the back of Piers' upraised thighs as Piers struggled to hold himself steady. He twisted his fingers in his rucked-up shorts but couldn't keep his legs from trembling. Dudley just laughed, a filthy sound. He pinned Piers' legs back with one stout arm and nosed his hungry way back between Piers' cheeks, flicking his tongue at the sensitive rim of Piers' hole until it loosened enough for a fingertip, then a knuckle, then two. Dudley worked him slowly, patiently, prising him open and frigging him with spit. "Good boy, good Piers," he crooned, nipping at Piers' cheeks if he wriggled. "Such a good boy."

"Just fuck me already, you great berk," Piers pleaded in frustration. The exquisite pressure in his cinched body was mounting to something approaching agony.

"You telling me what to do now?" asked Dudley, driving two fingers deep inside Piers. "Keep your hair on."

"Please," Piers choked out.

"Please," singsonged Dudley, but his would-be mockery sounded pretty fucking urgent to Piers. "Gagging for it, but I can feel how tight you are. You didn't go slutting around the school while I was gone, did you? You waited like a good boy."

"So good," Piers moaned. He clenched at Dudley's fingers, needing more.

"But it's been a long time," said Dudley, his tone musing, teasing. "I don't reckon you can take me like this, on just a gobbet of spit."

"Can so, you shit. You just try me."

"I'll try you," said Dudley. His fingers crooked and dragged, making Piers hiss for relief. "I'll try you so hard."

Piers couldn't hold back a mewling little kitten complaint as Dudley pulled his fingers free. Dudley rose slowly like the full moon above him. Piers' breath caught at the clank of Dudley's belt buckle, the metal slither of his flies, and then Dudley dropped his baggy gangsta jeans around his ankles and stared down at Piers with serious fucking intent. Piers shoved frantically at his own twisted shorts, trying to free up his legs, and then Dudley's hands were on him again, dragging off his shorts and shoes and tossing them aside; Piers didn't see where they ended up, and he didn't much care.

Dudley lumbered to his knees and levered himself back between Piers' legs, a gorgeous press of flesh. Piers shifted restlessly on his back, trying to reach as much skin as he could. His thighs splayed, open and gluttonous, stretching to the fine point of pain, and his knees climbed the doughy softness of Dudley's sides, searching for purchase. Dudley lifted the dimpled hang of his belly and settled it over Piers' dick, which nestled into the well-remembered warmth. Dudley fumbled between their thighs, stroking the head of his own dick along the crease of Piers' arse and nudging at his hole. It was too dry, too raw, but Piers couldn't help straining for him regardless, and they bore down on one another, cautious, inexorable, until the tip of Dudley's dick was caught and held, and Piers could let him inside with a gulping sigh.

The soreness was satisfying, perfect. The best part for Piers was the way he was so thoroughly pinned down, the way he could barely breathe. They rocked together beneath the sinking sun until everything narrowed to the urgent roll of motion, the simple imprint of skin. Piers' back curled against the soft ground beneath him and his head swayed from side to side, impossible to still until Dudley did it for him, catching Piers' hot face between his hands and stopping his mouth with his own.

And he won't forget the way Dudley chanted sweetheart sweetheart against his lips, even if they never speak of it again.

Mind you, if passion inspired blush-making endearments, then relief brought out downright garrulity in Dudley. No sooner did he ease his weight from Piers and wipe the tackiness from their skin with Piers' crumpled t-shirt (Oi, use your own, you filthy grot!) than he sat down and spilled everything. "Had to come back, didn't I? It's Whacking Day, after all," he said, petting Piers' exhausted dick in a meaningful manner.

Piers groaned at this attempted quippery, but he felt rather pleased to discover that Dudley remembered the date after all. "I'm guessing you've done nothing but whack off since you left."

"You might be right." Dudley's forehead scrunched in profound thought as he wriggled back into his jeans and mulled over his more recent activities. "Not much else to tell, really. I evaporated here with my cousin. Turns out there was a fairly grim battle just over a week ago now -- all over now, everything's good -- and I would have got back earlier except our minders had thrown themselves into the thick of things, got knocked for six, and of course no one knew where we were until poor old Diggle -- not a bad bloke really, but a bit on the titchy side, shouldn't be allowed near a war zone -- anyhow, he came to his senses and coughed up our secret location. So Harry came and sprung us -- and about time, too, I was going to throw a dumb-bell at my dad's head if I had to listen to his moaning much longer -- and he got us installed back at Privet Drive like we'd never been gone. We didn't even find any boobytraps or anything, so I'm beginning to wonder if the whole exercise was a complete waste of time, although Harry certainly did look rough, I'll say that much, so maybe there was something to it after all. And my mum was bleating about all the dust everywhere and my dad was carrying on about his job, and I said to Harry: just magic me out of here PDQ before I'm forced to throttle the both of them."

Piers couldn't remember ever hearing Dudley say as much in one breath before in his life. "So he did?"

"'Course. I don't think he wanted to be there any more than I did. So he grabbed me by the arm and epilated me straight to the dorm -- just like a transporter beam, really, except it felt like stuffing myself into my mum's girdle, not that I've ever done that before, promise --"

"Wait, you mean you could beam anywhere you'd like, and you came back to school?"

"I had to find you, didn't I?" said Dudley, like there couldn't be anything more dead obvious.

Piers had no idea what to say to that. He cast about for his trainers and busied himself with the laces, quite unable to meet Dudley's eyes. "So you're, what? Going to see out the last term, finish your exams?"

"Yeah, it'll be all tuck boxes and nature rambles," said Dudley. With unexpected thoughtfulness he manhandled Piers into his own massive jumper; it was scratchy and warm against Piers' skin and he couldn't resist rubbing his cheek on the sleeve. "Why not? I haven't had much to do except swot over my schoolbooks all this time. I'm not too shabby at it either, turns out, and Diggle wasn't a bad tutor."

"And you don't reckon the school'll notice you just popping up out of nowhere?"

"They didn't notice I was gone, did they?" Dudley shrugged into his shirt. "Harry says it's some sort of spell. Imperceptibilious? Impercepti-something. Huh, come to think of it, no wonder you couldn't see me at first. Anyhow, it's supposed to wear off gradually and then it'll be like I was never gone. No one will know any different."

"I'll know," said Piers, wrapping his arms around his knees.

"Well, der." Dudley ruffled his hair. "You're different."

"Yeah," Piers agreed softly. He buried his nose between his knees, feeling unspeakably shy. "Yeah, I guess maybe I am."

"And I bet you were bored rigid without me around." Piers didn't dignify the remark with a response, although he squawked when Dudley hauled him to his rather wobbly feet by the scruff of his neck. He attempted to straighten the jumper but Dudley rucked the left sleeve up to peer at Piers' watch. "Hey, brilliant! We won't even miss dinner if we hurry."

"You must be slipping, D," said Piers, retrieving his hand to rub it over his grubby bottom. "You'll have to try a bit harder next time."

"What more do you want? I just tupped you on a bed of bluebells. I'm the Dark Lord of Romance." Dudley slung a heavy arm around Piers' shoulders, dragging him close for a wet peck on the cheek. "And you're my Princess Piers."

"Shut it," said Piers, wiping the spit off.

"Shan't," said Dudley.

And the embarrassing thing was, Piers did feel a bit like royalty at that moment, even as Dudley chivvied him back towards Smeltings like a first-year.

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