FIC: "What's Cooking" for curia_regis
Recipient: curia_regis
Author: chaos_rose
Title: What’s Cooking?
Rating: R
Pairings: Millicent Bulstrode/Dudley Dursley
Word Count: 2,945
Warnings/Content Information (Highlight to View): *Masturbation, language, and naughtiness.*
Summary: Dudley’s gone a lot of places and done a lot of things that nobody expected him to do, but there are still surprises out there.
Author's Notes: I’ve wanted to write Dudley and Millicent for a long time, but I had never imagined them together until now. I hope that you’ll enjoy the story.
The voluptuous brunette licked the drip of white from her lips, gazing at him with sparkling eyes and pink cheeks. Her whole body moved in a slow-motion quake of delight as she moaned, “So nice you’ll want to taste it twice!” Her jubblies quivered, barely contained by the thin, shiny material of her top, her black hair in disarray as she took another lingering lick.
And waved cheerily to the camera with a wide, dimpled smile.
“Coming to you from BBC Two, I’m Millie Bulstrode, the Kitchen Witch. See you next week, lovelies!”
Reaching for the box of tissues next to his bed, Dudley thought that there might be something more pathetic than beating the bishop to the star of a cookery show, but for the life of him he could not think of what it might be. Though he generally denied himself the cakes and fatty foods he craved, Millie Bulstrode was as much a secret, guilty pleasure as sticky toffee pudding. Viewers complained time to time about her occasional bawdiness, but that was part of the charm - the icing on the cupcake, so to speak.
“Next week on Kitchen Witch - Oh, My Goodness, What a Tart!”
Mum would be horrified.
Dudley chuckled and picked up the remote, turning off the telly. “Nighty-night, Millie, you naughty dear.”
It was not that Dudley could not get laid. He could get laid every night of the week and most afternoons besides, but what he could not do was sustain a relationship to save his life. In any case, most of the girls he met in his line of work were looking for WAGs status, not a presenter and host for BBC’s rugby coverage. As the host for the Daily Scrum, his hours were weird and his job demanding, but his family was even weirder - and he wasn’t talking about Harry, either.
Hell, Harry was... normal. Weird-normal, but normal. Even had a girlfriend.
His parents were completely barking, and while Dad had been getting a bit nutters for a while, Mummy now had a seat next to him on the crazy bus. In a way, Dudley was grateful for his shifting schedule, as it allowed him to experience the crazy on an irregular basis. Inflicting his parents on an unsuspecting date was a quick trip to Never Call Me Again.
He set his alarm and pulled the covers up. Maybe somewhere out there was a girl for him who was just as jolly and happy as Millie appeared to be.
***
The sport department’s weekly meetings were always colourful and sometimes boisterous, but when one of the executives was due to visit and bring to them the ‘vision’ for the coming quarter, Dudley generally played Poppit on his laptop whilst trying to look engaged. These meetings almost always engendered equal parts laughter and pained incredulity and today was no different, with posh little metrosexual Allan Braithwaite appointed to preach to the heathens.
“So what we’ve been thinking is on Red Nose Day we’d have people from the different studios pop in and visit each other.” Dudley listened somewhat incredulously as Allan spoke with a boffin’s earnestness. The Daily Scrum was a rugby show - Dudley’s show, built lovingly from when he was a lowly commentator covering Rugby Union into a move to a London studio and a spot on the BBC. “A complete mix of interests from every show that shoots here. People will tune in just to see where their favorite personalities go.”
The silence from the Scrummies was accompanied by gobsmacked expressions.
Dudley stood, fidgeting uncomfortably. “Allan, look, it’s a great idea - for other shows. We’re rugby. Our watchers are obsessed with rugby. For shit’s sake, man, they stay up until the wee-smalls to watch the matches from halfway across the world! They argue on the forums and drive from John o’Groats to get a seat in the audience. They tune in for rugby and shouting and violence.”
Christ alone knew who they’d be stuck with.
Allan smiled brightly and patted his arm. “I’m sorry, Dud. The Powers That Be have already decided. Don’t you worry about a thing - it’s going to be brilliant.”
Dudley knew those words by heart, and mentally supplied his Bossianese-to-Dudleydursish translation.
He was so very, very buggered.
***
The build-up to Red Nose Day was composed of equal parts merriment and dread. The Scrummies were a creative, enthusiastic bunch, and combined with willing players from the teams they covered, came up with inventive skits to be aired on the day. Dudley was the one who came up with the Rugby Cookery Show.
The skit included such exotic offerings as beef and and fire, pork and fire, sausage and fire, chicken and fire, pickled things you do not want to look at too closely, and items fried in vintage grease such as fish and chips and scotch eggs. And, after the whole thing went deliberately pear-shaped with much more fire than intended, a ‘physician’ reclaiming the pickled items, and scotch eggs coming out with greater tensile strength than golf balls, there was advice on how to clean the mess before the wife came home and went orbital, and finding good takeaway.
He was taking his bows with a fire extinguisher in his hand. The skit had been a rollicking success! The audience was convulsed with laughter as the ‘Hazard Squad’ boxed up his kitchen set. Perhaps, Dudley was thinking, the Powers That Be had canned the whole ‘visiting’ thing when the doors at the back of the sound stage opened and there she was.
“Hello, lovelies! I just moved in down the hall, and I’ve brought cupcakes!” Her smile was dazzling, her top as red as a fire engine and cut to there, but she was holding a massive sheet pan with possibly three dozen cupcakes. The audience - almost all male - was silent for a long moment.
Allan was right behind her giving him a thumbs-up.
Oh, bugger.
Millie Bulstrode was coming down the stairs, right to him, and he fell back on seven years of improvisation as commentator to get him through.“Let’s give a big Scrummy welcome to Millie Bulstrode, the BBC’s own Kitchen Witch!”
“OI, MILLIE!” The Scrummies’ shout seemed to loosen everyone up, and she was being greeted as if she was a player from another team.
“Oi, the the wife watches you all the time - your pork pies are the best!”
“My mum did your fondant frosting for my wedding cake and it was posh.”
“I bought your book for my baby girl when she went out on her own - the one with three and four ingredient stuff? She says it saves her daily-”
“Millie! The kids love your ‘Take Away Twins’ book - they even cook dinner twice a week!”
All the way down the steps and across the set, Dudley thought it was hard to say who was more chuffed; Millie for the recognition and greetings or the audience for meeting her. For his part, Dudley was terrified and confused. He’d been watching ‘Kitchen Witch’ since it first went on-air from a crap studio in Pebble Mill and now here she was, as big as life and just as gorgeous as she stepped on set.
“Welcome to the Daily Scrum, Miss Bulstrode, and what lovely cupcakes you have.” The audience laughed uproariously. Whoops. That didn’t come out exactly right, did it? Well, he was looking at the cupcakes. Mostly. “Er-”
Her lips puckered a little as if to kiss or laugh, and then the pert thing said, “I love it so when my cupcakes are appreciated! As you can see, we decorated them especially for the Scrummies, with the logos and colors of their favorite teams.”
Was she flirting with him? “I’d like one, please.”
“You should have two, Mr. Dursley - cupcakes are always better in pairs.”
Yes, she was flirting with him, in a fun and over-the-top television way. “I’m Dudley, my dad’s Mr. Dursley.” He picked out a pair, the cakes heavy in his hands and smelling of chocolate, buttercream and cherries. “I’ve not put my hands on finer cupcakes.”
She skipped the obvious ‘How’s your father?’ joke and looked at him with cinnamon-brown eyes. “I could not wish to put my tender cupcakes in better hands.”
Was Allan going apoplectic? Yes, Allan was going apoplectic. Time to dial it down. “I watch your show all the time, you know.” Dudley confessed. “I’ve not missed an episode since you were at Pebble Mill.”
Her smile warmed and somehow deepened, and her voice was to his ears as warm caramel to his tongue. “Really? Do you like to cook, Dudley?”
It was hard to believe that he was talking with her, really talking with her. “I do, a bit. Lots of low-carb stuff. I’m still in training for the ABA.”
“Oh, boxing! I saw your exhibition match on telly when we were doing the pork pies.”
“So you enjoy sport?” The audience made a noise of anticipation. “You’ve all got dirty minds, and the first to come out with ‘Wink-wink, nudge-nudge’ gets it.” He pointed his finger in a sweeping wave. “Your mums might be watching, so behave!”
Millie put on the face of patented innocence. “My maternal grandfather was a boxer in the RAF and is a dedicated Bristol Rovers fan. When I was in school and university in Canada, I learned to like hockey.”
“Ah, but what about rugby? It’s the sport of kings!” He looked at the audience. “Present company excepted. They’re a bunch of-”
***
Harry sat gaping at the telly, mug of hot chocolate halfway to his mouth. Family was family, and out of some weird sense of kinship, Harry would tune into Daily Scrum just to keep up with what Dudders was doing. What his parents thought of him dropping university and going into (as Aunt Petunia always sniffily called it) a trade, God only knew, but it had made Dudley happy and successful, so good on him. It was Dudley’s guest that had his jaw flapping in the air.
Granted, he’d tuned in to catch the risque conversation over cupcakes, but-
“Gin! Ginny! Oh, bloody hell, you have to come see this! GIN!” He put his mug down on the coffee table where his feet had just been.
“I’m in the BATH!”
It had taken him a few moments to place the woman in the low-cut red top, but when she turned her profile to the camera, he knew who it was - and who she had been. “It’s Millicent Bulstrode! On telly!”
He could heat the water pattering onto the bath mat as Gin got out, and he pretended not to hear the dire mutterings she made as she towelled off and put on her robe.
“Welcome to the world outside the Ministry, Harry.” She came in wearing her old Holyhead robe, wrapping her hair in a tatty towel. “Millie Bulstrode’s had a television show for the past five years. She’s the Kitchen Witch.”
“On Muggle television? On the Beeb, for shit’s sake!” She’d been a Slytherin, and on the Inquisitorial Squad, but when she hadn’t turned up after Hogwarts or applied to the Amnesty Commission he’d assumed that like a lot of other Death Eaters she was either dead or fled. “What the hell-”
Ginny stole his mug. “She didn’t come back to school after Headmaster Dumbledore was killed, Mum said that her mum was a Muggleborn and sent her to school abroad. Canada. I remember, she made beavertails on her show.”
It took a few tries to get his mouth to say anything and when he did, the best he could manage was -
“Bugger.” A half-blood in Slytherin. God, but he could pity that.
“A lot of half-bloods and Muggle-borns went Muggle after the war, Harry.” Gin smiled tightly. The old divisions were still there, just held less openly. “Wizarding kind didn’t exactly make our best case to them.” She paused, looking more keenly at the screen. “He really likes her. I mean really.”
Dudley ran his hand over his hair, smiling down at Millicent, who was not as ugly... or not at all as ugly as Harry remembered her. It was possible that she was even kind of cute. Then again, Dudley had changed so much, too, from the fat, hateful little git who couldn’t find knickers in his size into someone who could play the sport he covered.
And into a fairly decent human being, for having Petunia and Vernon for parents.
People changed. They could change. Or sometimes, maybe, they were just never who you thought they were in the first place.
***
“I’m a Bees fan.” Mille stated.
Dudley felt his heart do that twee thing called skipping a beat. “They’re playing the Wasps tomorrow night at 16.00, you know.”
Millie stamped a foot in a stylish high-heel. “Oh f-fishsticks! We were so busy with the move and the new set-”
Then, from some unknown part of his brain-
“And I have the best seats there are.”
Jaws all around the studio dropped - including Millie’s, her eyes going wide.
“You’ve just asked me out on live television,” Millie said. “You do realise that, don’t you?”
Allan had his face in his hands, and dimly Dudley could hear moaning of the what-have-I-wrought variety.
“Wellll... if you can’t stand to see your Bees get a leveling...” Dudley bounced on his toes. He could feel it - that second when you knew the goal was going to happen. “But Bees fans are tough.”
“You’re on, Dudley,” she said, “But I’m packing us a hamper.”
It was possible, slightly possible, that he had died last night and because of virtues unknown, had gone to heaven.
***
Two separate viewerships immediately ran from telly to computer, firing up the ether with their opinions for and against. On rugby boards and mommyblogs, on Livejournal and Dreamwidth and Blogger people aired their opinions and guesses. Myspace, Twitter and Facebook were full of 140-character blurts for and against.
It was fanservice. It was a put-on for Red Nose. No! Dudley was secretly having it off with Cam Herrington from the Newcastle Falcons - everyone knew that!
What was Millie thinking, going out with some hulking bruiser like that? He was all but down her top! Oh, come off it, half her viewership is all but down her top for thirty-five minutes every week!
***
“Now, tell me everything you want.”
This was going out on live telly. Dudley could not actually tell Millie what he wanted. He was fairly certain that Allan would pop his clogs on the spot and some of the more elderly Powers That be would stroke right out.
“To eat.”
Answering that honestly would get him fined and was not the thing one ought to say during pre-first date prep.
“For dinner.”
Oh, that! Dudley started to open his mouth. She levered it shut with a finger on his chin.
“NOT the stuff you eat to keep in shape, but the stuff that you want.”
The last word of the sentence was infused with all of his love-hate of food. Issues that maybe Millie shared. Dudley looked deep into her eyes and said, “Hotpot - with thick chops. And potted cheese. Toasting bread. Brussels sprouts with walnuts and bacon - I remember that show, too.”
Some girls wanted sweet nothings whispered in their ears, from Millie’s expression he might do best with produce.
“I could do some appetizers - miniature pies in mutton, or chicken and ham, or steak and oyster.” She crossed her arms as she thought, and that did truly magnificent and distracting things to her jubblies.
“Sausage rolls!” Dudley exclaimed. “I love those, especially with cheese in.” If the boom mic wasn’t picking up a few growling bellies, they’d have to scrap them and buy new. Even the audience was getting into it calling out the names of favorites.
“Fidget pie!”
“Panhaggarty!”
“Rissoles! Ain’t right to go without rissoles.”
“Panhaggarty, ya stupid bastard.”
“Ain’t a hamper without rissoles!”
But that was nothing to the ‘discussion’ over dessert, and when the debate over lemon meringue pie or roly-poly was an appropriate dessert for a rugby field in April, Dudley had to go to a commercial break before more mayhem could break out.
***
Dudley stood at the gate of the Wasps’ home ground and, no, Allan he was not bloody fidgeting! He hadn’t seen Millicent since her appearance in his studio, but they’d had some epic telephone chats for the rest of the week, and even a bit of it’s-not-a-date sack lunch in the courtyard. In private, she preferred to be called Millicent. Dudley liked it - it was like holding a sweet in one’s mouth to say her name.
Oh, bugger, he was far gone.
Allan, however, was all but skipping in circles over the rocketing ratings for both shows in the overnights. There was even talk of Dudley guesting on Millicent’s show sometime in the upcoming season.
A flash of red appeared from the London night, and her car pulled into the valet’s station. Dudley found himself focusing on the vanity plate for a moment. BROOM. Well, it only made sense, what with her being the Kitchen Witch. Then even that thought was gone when Millicent got out of the car - wearing a Bee’s away-colour jersey.
His heart did that twee beat-skipping when she smiled at him, too.
Far gone? Yes. Care? Not a bit.
***
Dudley Dursley did the Daily Scrum on live telly from Adam’s field with a lipsticked kiss mark on his cheek and an ear to ear grin.
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Author: chaos_rose
Title: What’s Cooking?
Rating: R
Pairings: Millicent Bulstrode/Dudley Dursley
Word Count: 2,945
Warnings/Content Information (Highlight to View): *Masturbation, language, and naughtiness.*
Summary: Dudley’s gone a lot of places and done a lot of things that nobody expected him to do, but there are still surprises out there.
Author's Notes: I’ve wanted to write Dudley and Millicent for a long time, but I had never imagined them together until now. I hope that you’ll enjoy the story.
The voluptuous brunette licked the drip of white from her lips, gazing at him with sparkling eyes and pink cheeks. Her whole body moved in a slow-motion quake of delight as she moaned, “So nice you’ll want to taste it twice!” Her jubblies quivered, barely contained by the thin, shiny material of her top, her black hair in disarray as she took another lingering lick.
And waved cheerily to the camera with a wide, dimpled smile.
“Coming to you from BBC Two, I’m Millie Bulstrode, the Kitchen Witch. See you next week, lovelies!”
Reaching for the box of tissues next to his bed, Dudley thought that there might be something more pathetic than beating the bishop to the star of a cookery show, but for the life of him he could not think of what it might be. Though he generally denied himself the cakes and fatty foods he craved, Millie Bulstrode was as much a secret, guilty pleasure as sticky toffee pudding. Viewers complained time to time about her occasional bawdiness, but that was part of the charm - the icing on the cupcake, so to speak.
“Next week on Kitchen Witch - Oh, My Goodness, What a Tart!”
Mum would be horrified.
Dudley chuckled and picked up the remote, turning off the telly. “Nighty-night, Millie, you naughty dear.”
It was not that Dudley could not get laid. He could get laid every night of the week and most afternoons besides, but what he could not do was sustain a relationship to save his life. In any case, most of the girls he met in his line of work were looking for WAGs status, not a presenter and host for BBC’s rugby coverage. As the host for the Daily Scrum, his hours were weird and his job demanding, but his family was even weirder - and he wasn’t talking about Harry, either.
Hell, Harry was... normal. Weird-normal, but normal. Even had a girlfriend.
His parents were completely barking, and while Dad had been getting a bit nutters for a while, Mummy now had a seat next to him on the crazy bus. In a way, Dudley was grateful for his shifting schedule, as it allowed him to experience the crazy on an irregular basis. Inflicting his parents on an unsuspecting date was a quick trip to Never Call Me Again.
He set his alarm and pulled the covers up. Maybe somewhere out there was a girl for him who was just as jolly and happy as Millie appeared to be.
***
The sport department’s weekly meetings were always colourful and sometimes boisterous, but when one of the executives was due to visit and bring to them the ‘vision’ for the coming quarter, Dudley generally played Poppit on his laptop whilst trying to look engaged. These meetings almost always engendered equal parts laughter and pained incredulity and today was no different, with posh little metrosexual Allan Braithwaite appointed to preach to the heathens.
“So what we’ve been thinking is on Red Nose Day we’d have people from the different studios pop in and visit each other.” Dudley listened somewhat incredulously as Allan spoke with a boffin’s earnestness. The Daily Scrum was a rugby show - Dudley’s show, built lovingly from when he was a lowly commentator covering Rugby Union into a move to a London studio and a spot on the BBC. “A complete mix of interests from every show that shoots here. People will tune in just to see where their favorite personalities go.”
The silence from the Scrummies was accompanied by gobsmacked expressions.
Dudley stood, fidgeting uncomfortably. “Allan, look, it’s a great idea - for other shows. We’re rugby. Our watchers are obsessed with rugby. For shit’s sake, man, they stay up until the wee-smalls to watch the matches from halfway across the world! They argue on the forums and drive from John o’Groats to get a seat in the audience. They tune in for rugby and shouting and violence.”
Christ alone knew who they’d be stuck with.
Allan smiled brightly and patted his arm. “I’m sorry, Dud. The Powers That Be have already decided. Don’t you worry about a thing - it’s going to be brilliant.”
Dudley knew those words by heart, and mentally supplied his Bossianese-to-Dudleydursish translation.
He was so very, very buggered.
***
The build-up to Red Nose Day was composed of equal parts merriment and dread. The Scrummies were a creative, enthusiastic bunch, and combined with willing players from the teams they covered, came up with inventive skits to be aired on the day. Dudley was the one who came up with the Rugby Cookery Show.
The skit included such exotic offerings as beef and and fire, pork and fire, sausage and fire, chicken and fire, pickled things you do not want to look at too closely, and items fried in vintage grease such as fish and chips and scotch eggs. And, after the whole thing went deliberately pear-shaped with much more fire than intended, a ‘physician’ reclaiming the pickled items, and scotch eggs coming out with greater tensile strength than golf balls, there was advice on how to clean the mess before the wife came home and went orbital, and finding good takeaway.
He was taking his bows with a fire extinguisher in his hand. The skit had been a rollicking success! The audience was convulsed with laughter as the ‘Hazard Squad’ boxed up his kitchen set. Perhaps, Dudley was thinking, the Powers That Be had canned the whole ‘visiting’ thing when the doors at the back of the sound stage opened and there she was.
“Hello, lovelies! I just moved in down the hall, and I’ve brought cupcakes!” Her smile was dazzling, her top as red as a fire engine and cut to there, but she was holding a massive sheet pan with possibly three dozen cupcakes. The audience - almost all male - was silent for a long moment.
Allan was right behind her giving him a thumbs-up.
Oh, bugger.
Millie Bulstrode was coming down the stairs, right to him, and he fell back on seven years of improvisation as commentator to get him through.“Let’s give a big Scrummy welcome to Millie Bulstrode, the BBC’s own Kitchen Witch!”
“OI, MILLIE!” The Scrummies’ shout seemed to loosen everyone up, and she was being greeted as if she was a player from another team.
“Oi, the the wife watches you all the time - your pork pies are the best!”
“My mum did your fondant frosting for my wedding cake and it was posh.”
“I bought your book for my baby girl when she went out on her own - the one with three and four ingredient stuff? She says it saves her daily-”
“Millie! The kids love your ‘Take Away Twins’ book - they even cook dinner twice a week!”
All the way down the steps and across the set, Dudley thought it was hard to say who was more chuffed; Millie for the recognition and greetings or the audience for meeting her. For his part, Dudley was terrified and confused. He’d been watching ‘Kitchen Witch’ since it first went on-air from a crap studio in Pebble Mill and now here she was, as big as life and just as gorgeous as she stepped on set.
“Welcome to the Daily Scrum, Miss Bulstrode, and what lovely cupcakes you have.” The audience laughed uproariously. Whoops. That didn’t come out exactly right, did it? Well, he was looking at the cupcakes. Mostly. “Er-”
Her lips puckered a little as if to kiss or laugh, and then the pert thing said, “I love it so when my cupcakes are appreciated! As you can see, we decorated them especially for the Scrummies, with the logos and colors of their favorite teams.”
Was she flirting with him? “I’d like one, please.”
“You should have two, Mr. Dursley - cupcakes are always better in pairs.”
Yes, she was flirting with him, in a fun and over-the-top television way. “I’m Dudley, my dad’s Mr. Dursley.” He picked out a pair, the cakes heavy in his hands and smelling of chocolate, buttercream and cherries. “I’ve not put my hands on finer cupcakes.”
She skipped the obvious ‘How’s your father?’ joke and looked at him with cinnamon-brown eyes. “I could not wish to put my tender cupcakes in better hands.”
Was Allan going apoplectic? Yes, Allan was going apoplectic. Time to dial it down. “I watch your show all the time, you know.” Dudley confessed. “I’ve not missed an episode since you were at Pebble Mill.”
Her smile warmed and somehow deepened, and her voice was to his ears as warm caramel to his tongue. “Really? Do you like to cook, Dudley?”
It was hard to believe that he was talking with her, really talking with her. “I do, a bit. Lots of low-carb stuff. I’m still in training for the ABA.”
“Oh, boxing! I saw your exhibition match on telly when we were doing the pork pies.”
“So you enjoy sport?” The audience made a noise of anticipation. “You’ve all got dirty minds, and the first to come out with ‘Wink-wink, nudge-nudge’ gets it.” He pointed his finger in a sweeping wave. “Your mums might be watching, so behave!”
Millie put on the face of patented innocence. “My maternal grandfather was a boxer in the RAF and is a dedicated Bristol Rovers fan. When I was in school and university in Canada, I learned to like hockey.”
“Ah, but what about rugby? It’s the sport of kings!” He looked at the audience. “Present company excepted. They’re a bunch of-”
***
Harry sat gaping at the telly, mug of hot chocolate halfway to his mouth. Family was family, and out of some weird sense of kinship, Harry would tune into Daily Scrum just to keep up with what Dudders was doing. What his parents thought of him dropping university and going into (as Aunt Petunia always sniffily called it) a trade, God only knew, but it had made Dudley happy and successful, so good on him. It was Dudley’s guest that had his jaw flapping in the air.
Granted, he’d tuned in to catch the risque conversation over cupcakes, but-
“Gin! Ginny! Oh, bloody hell, you have to come see this! GIN!” He put his mug down on the coffee table where his feet had just been.
“I’m in the BATH!”
It had taken him a few moments to place the woman in the low-cut red top, but when she turned her profile to the camera, he knew who it was - and who she had been. “It’s Millicent Bulstrode! On telly!”
He could heat the water pattering onto the bath mat as Gin got out, and he pretended not to hear the dire mutterings she made as she towelled off and put on her robe.
“Welcome to the world outside the Ministry, Harry.” She came in wearing her old Holyhead robe, wrapping her hair in a tatty towel. “Millie Bulstrode’s had a television show for the past five years. She’s the Kitchen Witch.”
“On Muggle television? On the Beeb, for shit’s sake!” She’d been a Slytherin, and on the Inquisitorial Squad, but when she hadn’t turned up after Hogwarts or applied to the Amnesty Commission he’d assumed that like a lot of other Death Eaters she was either dead or fled. “What the hell-”
Ginny stole his mug. “She didn’t come back to school after Headmaster Dumbledore was killed, Mum said that her mum was a Muggleborn and sent her to school abroad. Canada. I remember, she made beavertails on her show.”
It took a few tries to get his mouth to say anything and when he did, the best he could manage was -
“Bugger.” A half-blood in Slytherin. God, but he could pity that.
“A lot of half-bloods and Muggle-borns went Muggle after the war, Harry.” Gin smiled tightly. The old divisions were still there, just held less openly. “Wizarding kind didn’t exactly make our best case to them.” She paused, looking more keenly at the screen. “He really likes her. I mean really.”
Dudley ran his hand over his hair, smiling down at Millicent, who was not as ugly... or not at all as ugly as Harry remembered her. It was possible that she was even kind of cute. Then again, Dudley had changed so much, too, from the fat, hateful little git who couldn’t find knickers in his size into someone who could play the sport he covered.
And into a fairly decent human being, for having Petunia and Vernon for parents.
People changed. They could change. Or sometimes, maybe, they were just never who you thought they were in the first place.
***
“I’m a Bees fan.” Mille stated.
Dudley felt his heart do that twee thing called skipping a beat. “They’re playing the Wasps tomorrow night at 16.00, you know.”
Millie stamped a foot in a stylish high-heel. “Oh f-fishsticks! We were so busy with the move and the new set-”
Then, from some unknown part of his brain-
“And I have the best seats there are.”
Jaws all around the studio dropped - including Millie’s, her eyes going wide.
“You’ve just asked me out on live television,” Millie said. “You do realise that, don’t you?”
Allan had his face in his hands, and dimly Dudley could hear moaning of the what-have-I-wrought variety.
“Wellll... if you can’t stand to see your Bees get a leveling...” Dudley bounced on his toes. He could feel it - that second when you knew the goal was going to happen. “But Bees fans are tough.”
“You’re on, Dudley,” she said, “But I’m packing us a hamper.”
It was possible, slightly possible, that he had died last night and because of virtues unknown, had gone to heaven.
***
Two separate viewerships immediately ran from telly to computer, firing up the ether with their opinions for and against. On rugby boards and mommyblogs, on Livejournal and Dreamwidth and Blogger people aired their opinions and guesses. Myspace, Twitter and Facebook were full of 140-character blurts for and against.
It was fanservice. It was a put-on for Red Nose. No! Dudley was secretly having it off with Cam Herrington from the Newcastle Falcons - everyone knew that!
What was Millie thinking, going out with some hulking bruiser like that? He was all but down her top! Oh, come off it, half her viewership is all but down her top for thirty-five minutes every week!
***
“Now, tell me everything you want.”
This was going out on live telly. Dudley could not actually tell Millie what he wanted. He was fairly certain that Allan would pop his clogs on the spot and some of the more elderly Powers That be would stroke right out.
“To eat.”
Answering that honestly would get him fined and was not the thing one ought to say during pre-first date prep.
“For dinner.”
Oh, that! Dudley started to open his mouth. She levered it shut with a finger on his chin.
“NOT the stuff you eat to keep in shape, but the stuff that you want.”
The last word of the sentence was infused with all of his love-hate of food. Issues that maybe Millie shared. Dudley looked deep into her eyes and said, “Hotpot - with thick chops. And potted cheese. Toasting bread. Brussels sprouts with walnuts and bacon - I remember that show, too.”
Some girls wanted sweet nothings whispered in their ears, from Millie’s expression he might do best with produce.
“I could do some appetizers - miniature pies in mutton, or chicken and ham, or steak and oyster.” She crossed her arms as she thought, and that did truly magnificent and distracting things to her jubblies.
“Sausage rolls!” Dudley exclaimed. “I love those, especially with cheese in.” If the boom mic wasn’t picking up a few growling bellies, they’d have to scrap them and buy new. Even the audience was getting into it calling out the names of favorites.
“Fidget pie!”
“Panhaggarty!”
“Rissoles! Ain’t right to go without rissoles.”
“Panhaggarty, ya stupid bastard.”
“Ain’t a hamper without rissoles!”
But that was nothing to the ‘discussion’ over dessert, and when the debate over lemon meringue pie or roly-poly was an appropriate dessert for a rugby field in April, Dudley had to go to a commercial break before more mayhem could break out.
***
Dudley stood at the gate of the Wasps’ home ground and, no, Allan he was not bloody fidgeting! He hadn’t seen Millicent since her appearance in his studio, but they’d had some epic telephone chats for the rest of the week, and even a bit of it’s-not-a-date sack lunch in the courtyard. In private, she preferred to be called Millicent. Dudley liked it - it was like holding a sweet in one’s mouth to say her name.
Oh, bugger, he was far gone.
Allan, however, was all but skipping in circles over the rocketing ratings for both shows in the overnights. There was even talk of Dudley guesting on Millicent’s show sometime in the upcoming season.
A flash of red appeared from the London night, and her car pulled into the valet’s station. Dudley found himself focusing on the vanity plate for a moment. BROOM. Well, it only made sense, what with her being the Kitchen Witch. Then even that thought was gone when Millicent got out of the car - wearing a Bee’s away-colour jersey.
His heart did that twee beat-skipping when she smiled at him, too.
Far gone? Yes. Care? Not a bit.
***
Dudley Dursley did the Daily Scrum on live telly from Adam’s field with a lipsticked kiss mark on his cheek and an ear to ear grin.
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