Fic: Prompt 20
Title: Rogation
Author: wemyss
Prompt: 20
Pairing, or gen: Gen
Rating: BBFC PG
Warning(s): Bullying, C of E, Corinthians (pugilists), parenting inadequacy
Word count/medium: 2827
Summary/Excerpt: What Dudley had noticed was that - having taken Elspeth’s tuition to heart, and concentrating nowadays upon his companions rather than his food (and stringently healthful food it was, under her hawklike eye) - he now noticed things, whilst others were talking across one another and stuffing themselves. Odd that a healthful dietary regimen had given him a character for acute observation, but there it was.
Author’s or Artist’s notes: F, E flat, D, C, G, F, B, E flat, D, C, D, B (treble); an octave lower (basso) (Stanford Nunc Dimittus in B flat, first six measures); I am greatly obliged to B for editing and proofreading.
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.
_____________________________
Rogation
_____________________________
Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.
His lady wife, Elspeth Bulstrode-as-was, was a Born Matron, and kept Dudley, as a Reformed Character, Very Much Up to the Mark.
He was in consequence happier and healthier than in his youth, the proud father of an infant Witch named Harriet for her godfather, Dudley’s cousin, a solid and worthy citizen, and much respected - and not a little loved.
He really didn’t attend to that. What he had noticed was that he … noticed things, and attended to much more than he had done in his heedless, and cruelly bullying, youth. He might be slow - he hadn’t and knew he hadn’t Hermione’s quick wits or Ron’s freakish gift of seeing three moves ahead (he’d been unutterably relieved to find that Ron’s chess mastery didn’t extend to whist. Or bridge. Or, best of all, poker) or Harry’s gift for sudden inspired leaps and insights - but if he were slow, he was steady and sure. Muggle neighbours in Elstead; colleagues at Headway and then, with Elpseth, at Great Ormond Street; his cousin’s - and by extension, his - extended family and all their acquaintance, regarded him now, approvingly, as being steady, worthy, and sound, and as being perceptive, and had him to dine with them often.
What Dudley had noticed was that - having taken Elspeth’s tuition to heart, and concentrating nowadays upon his companions rather than his food (and stringently healthful food it was, under her hawklike eye) - he now noticed things, whilst others were talking across one another and stuffing themselves. Odd that a healthful dietary regimen had given him a character for acute observation, but there it was.
James was Very Nearly Ten, Actually, Which Is Quite near Eleven, Uncle Dudley, and So Almost a Hogwarts Firstie Already, Really. Albus was rising eight. And it was true enough, in its way: already the prison shades of School drew near the growing boys, and time should soon be when they became impossible, spotty, sullen, snarling little bloody-minded sods. With weapons. (Wands, honestly: what in buggery were Harry’s lot thinking, giving hormonal adolescents weapons: no logic in Wizards, even the best of ’em. Believed a shocking number of things before breakfast, every one of them.) Lily and her Forever Bestie, his Harriet - friends for life, at least this week - were yet to emerge as actual personalities, although one could already see what was in prospect; but Albie and Jamie (and how Jamie loathed that name: wherefore it was used the more) were already standing out as their own persons. And persons markedly different to one another, at that.
And Dudley had noticed, with growing disapproval, certain constants of their interaction. Jamie was boisterous - which Harry to his credit did rein in, with references to discipline and I don’t care what they do, we are a Service family, not a gang of Aristocrats Behaving Badly - and eminently Weasley-like and hearty. And Dudley, who wasn’t so very different to Young James in that regard, didn’t fault the boy for that, as such. Albus Severus Potter, however, was not a hearty in the chrysalis stage, although he wasn’t precisely - thank God - a budding æsthete, either. He had been able - had, it appeared, made himself able - to read from a very young age: earlier than had his brother done: and he was a voracious reader, and quiet, and had fewer, if closer, friends (the Malfoy sprog, for one) than did Jamie. Even his accidental magic tended to be of a different order, when small, to what James’ had been: Summoning a book he wanted, that sort of thing.
Nothing wrong with that, of course. Dudley, from his adult coign of vantage, looking back upon his own youth, rather wished he’d been more studious. What disturbed Dudley was the possibility - no more than that - that Albie, like Harry when small, had retreated into books and his imagination because he felt threatened or bullied by his rampageous elder brother. And that was simply not on, not if Dudley had anything to say in the matter.
Wherefore Dudley continued, slow but sure, to observe.
These were not concerns he could take to Elspeth, as he should normally have taken his concerns to her: she was too brisk and, even by Bulstrode standards, Squib or no Squib, far too much a jolly-hockey-sticks sort of person. Wherefore Dudley kept his counsel and his watchful eye.
And his observations alarmed him. No doubt it had been innocent enough in its beginnings. Nevertheless, when Dudley half-heard such comments from Jamie to Albie as, ‘I’dn’t have to put up with your being here if Mum and Dad had a daughter instead, you notice they stopped once they got Lily, you weren’t wanted then and I don’t want you tagging along now’, and, ‘You know everything about a broom bar how to stay on one, you speccy git - you’re afraid to get on one anyway’ - when Dudley overheard such barbs, and saw that Albus took them without a murmur, it didn’t want any sight of shoving or tripping to alarm Dudley. Bullying is by no means always - or indeed at bottom - physical, although it can manifest in physical bullying; and children are rum creatures, who will conspire, all too often, to conceal, even from vigilant and loving parents, their being victimised.
Dudley thought long and hard about what to do, slowly but surely, and bearing always in mind that these were not, at the end of the day, his children. He was not going to be as meddlesome as his mum had been.
Dudley had more observation than the rest of this lot combined. Bar, perhaps, fearsome old Andromeda, bless her. Dudley knew, as Ginny honestly didn’t, that Ginny resented Teddy a little because the young Lupin was in too many way’s Harry’s first and eldest son, seven years Jamie’s senior and one of the few tolerable adolescents of Dudley’s acquaintance. Dudley knew, also, as Harry nor Ginny allowed themselves to know, that Ginny loved James best because he was a complete Weasley at all points, and Lily best because she was the youngest and a girl, and Albus best because he was Harry in miniature and the most biddable of them - to a point and no further - and was the toughest and most courageous of the three of them and the one most in want of love and reassurance. And Dudley knew, as well, as Harry nor Ginny allowed themselves to know, that Harry loved Lily most because she was his baby girl (and a natural manipulator who was destined for Slytherin) and Jamie most because he was Ron all over with the worst bits left out and Albie best because he was Harry all over again as Harry should have been had Dudley and Dudley’s parents not been complete shits in Harry’s youth. And most of all, Dudley knew, as Harry nor Ginny allowed themselves to know, that for all this, the Potters had no idea of who their children were at bottom and how they differed and what each wanted most.
And how could they have done? Ginny had been the precious youngest and only girl of the most boisterous family in Wizardom. And Harry … well, Harry had been an orphan, and Dudley and Dudley’s parents, complete shits in Harry’s youth: how should he have known anything of children and parenting?
And the connexions and honorary, supernumerary aunts and uncles by courtesy…. Well. Ron regarded Jamie as the best of Harry and the Weasleys in one Quidditch-mad, Gryffindor package, and his niece Lily as Ginny all over again; Hermione looked at the Potter children and saw, whether there was anything to see or not, the Trio once more, with Lily as her avatar.
And they, and Justin and Blaise, and Seamus and Dean, Millie and Susan, the Goldsteins and the Macmillans and the Scamanders and the Longbottoms … every last one of them, bar perhaps Luna, looked at Albus and saw Harry in a second and revised edition.
Yet he wasn’t.
And, if Dudley had anything to do with it, he shouldn’t be - not without a good deal of correction, improvement, and annotation, as editions go.
The problem was that every one of those who looked at Albie and saw only Harry come again, knew Harry only from the age of eleven years: the Hero in Training and then the Hero Conquerant, annealed by fire and fined smooth and strong. Only Dudley knew the Harry of the first decade of their lives, the wounded and abused child: and had made one of those who had wounded and abused him, and would now atone for it, at any cost.
And there was not so much time left as he’d have wished. These years of stopping with the Potters, or they in Elstead with the Dursleys, in late May or early June for Rogationtide and Ascensiontide, were drawing to a close: for Hogwarts’ Easter Half broke up only after that. All too soon, first Jamie, and then Al, and afterward Lils and Harriet, should go off to school, and these sweet, bluebell-wood Springtide hols - the blessing of plough and field and river (here the Rivers Haddeo and Pulham and the infant Exe, and all the country ’round; in Elstead years, in turn, the River Wey and the plump Waverley arable), the bells and the fairs and the beating of the bounds - should cease to be family occasions with all the children present. Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.
Dudley loved Lily dearly, and James whole-heartedly, but his not terribly secret favourite was Albie, through whom, he now saw, he could make some amends. For much as he loved Jamie as if the lad were his own, there was that strain in him - perhaps from his namesake, Dudley’s Uncle James, but more likely, Dudley thought, from Jamie’s late Uncle Fred and his Uncle George, whom Dudley remembered all too well in their misspent youths - there was, by God, that strain in him that could all too easily go from brotherly ragging to outright bullying of Al, if it hadn’t done already, and Dudley thought it perhaps had done.
And he, Dudley, resolved that he’d not have it. He alone knew what Harry’s life had been before Hogwarts: the miserable life of that Harry whose after years alone the others saw when they saw looked at Albus and saw his father in him. He damned well ought to know: he’d been responsible for far too much of the misery. And he’d not ruddy well have it: Albie should not suffer the same, or Dudley Dursley’d know the reason why.
The light luncheon was over. The seething mass of the children of the War Generation - even that pallid little Malfoy sprog who was Al’s age - were eager to be off, in various schools and charms and sloths and prides and herds and flocks, according to age, character, and taste.
Albus made to follow James’ group, less because it was his brother’s than because it was Off to Do Something Interesting. Jamie laughed at him, something crueller than a punch. ‘We’re not the infants’ class, Ickle Albie. We’re saving you to beat at landmarks when we beat the bounds. Why don’t you go and play at dolls with your boyfriend - bet you both end in slimy Slytherin.’
Dudley remembered, with sudden pain, his taunt to Harry, after what he now knew to have been Voldemort’s murder of Cedric Diggory.
Dudley was not, after all, and rather to his surprise, the only observant member of the extended family. George whispered, ‘You’re right, Dud. But - I’ve tried, and there’s nothing one can do with ruddy Master James.’
‘No,’ said Dudley. ‘And that’s Harry’s concern in any case - his and Ginny’s. But I can damned well do something for Al.’
He turned to where Al and Scorpius were standing, dejected and determined not to show it. ‘Thank Christ that lot’s gone,’ said Dudley, heartily. ‘Means I can take the two of you on a ramble - and with some hopes of peace. I love Jamie, really, but he’s a bloody pillock half the time.’
George fed him the next line, as smoothly as he’d ever done with the late lamented Fred. ‘Only half?’
Dudley, turning ’round so that the lads couldn’t see him, winked. ‘Well, damn it, he spends the other half eating and sleeping, Weasley. He gets all that from you and Fred, doesn’t he.’ As George laughed, Dudley turned back to the Malfoy lad and Albie. ‘You two come along, and as we go, I’ll tell you why you want never to accept sweets from strange Weasleys.’
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
They were tramping along boldly, between the Knap and Foxlade Wood, Chantry Farm and Griffin Priors and Godric’s Hollow well behind them to the North and West, on the fringes of the Moor.
Bindweeds and corncockles, bromes, madders, and poppies, warmed to the sun in field margins, or with honeysuckle twined in hedgerows. Elder and crab and Guelder-rose flourished, and the woods were braced in oak and ash and birch.
‘I remember,’ said Dudley, ‘the last time I saw Harry off before we went into hiding and he went off to win the War. Titchy little bugger.’ He smiled. ‘But fierce.
‘You know how he got shed of Voldemort, of course.’
Albus looked sidewise at Uncle Dudley. ‘Er. Yes.’
‘Do you? I mean, an Expelliarmus, yes. Not a curse. Not an … Unforgivable.’ Dudley almost chuckled to himself at his familiarity with these outlandish terms and concepts. ‘But - do you? Because, you know, he beat the bugger with the help of all those dithering lunatics back there, and sheer b- - sheer guts, and the loyalty of that lot we’ve left thankfully behind us, sluggards that they are - ’d do them no harm to take a bit of a ramble - and the cunning and stealth, young Malfoy, of your father and your gran.’
Scorpius stood a trifle straighter as they tramped along.
‘Mind you, though, had I known about Voldemort - d’you know the bugger’s no nose by then? Extraordinary - I’d have suggested something else to Harry.’
Albus, despite himself, was interested. ‘What?’
‘Biff the bugger a snorter, just where his nose wanted to have been. Like to see a Dark Lord cast his nasty spells whilst he’s turning blue and can’t ruddy breathe.’
Albie looked at his courtesy uncle in wild surmise, and then, with Scorpius, broke down in sniggers.
They’d reached a perfect place to look out from the lane on the verge of the wood and down into the little coombe and the far village and the wild moor beyond. Dudley stopped and sighed with satisfaction. ‘Look here, Albie, and tell me truthfully, you’ve never been tempted to hex Jamie?’
Al looked at him this time with horror, tempered only by the feeling that poor old Uncle Dudley, who was after all through no fault of his own a … well, not a Muggle, entirely: a Squib, more or less … couldn’t possibly understand what he was asking. Dad would slay him - any of them - for such a thing.
‘I would,’ said Scorpius, defiantly. ‘He keeps on this way, I well might do. I’m sorry, Al, but honestly, he’s ghastly, your brother.’
Dudley interrupted before Al and Scorp could quarrel. ‘He doesn’t know how to be a big brother, that’s all. Good God, Albie, your Uncle Bill’s only ten years younger than your grandfather Potter’d have been. So that’s no guide for Jamie. And Teddy’s always been careful not to presume too much by acting as if he really were Harry’s firstborn rather than his godson - which is damned obliging of him, really, given the bloody awkwardness of the whole business.’
Albus’ eyes were wide, as were Scorp’s. They were suddenly growing up in a concentrated rush, realising all at once many things, not least that Uncle Dudders was a damned sight cleverer than Albie had thought him.
‘So you mustn’t hex him or turn your wand on him, particularly if your father’s forbidden it. And I shouldn’t wish you to do. There are much better ways of correcting his behaviour when he’s being unbearable to you.’
Albus by now was beyond speech even for questioning.
‘Albie, m’boy - and I think you want it also, Scorp - I am going to impart arcane Muggle knowledge to you both.’ He grinned evilly. ‘Lads … you are going to learn to box. ’
_____________________________
FINITE
Author: wemyss
Prompt: 20
Pairing, or gen: Gen
Rating: BBFC PG
Warning(s): Bullying, C of E, Corinthians (pugilists), parenting inadequacy
Word count/medium: 2827
Summary/Excerpt: What Dudley had noticed was that - having taken Elspeth’s tuition to heart, and concentrating nowadays upon his companions rather than his food (and stringently healthful food it was, under her hawklike eye) - he now noticed things, whilst others were talking across one another and stuffing themselves. Odd that a healthful dietary regimen had given him a character for acute observation, but there it was.
Author’s or Artist’s notes: F, E flat, D, C, G, F, B, E flat, D, C, D, B (treble); an octave lower (basso) (Stanford Nunc Dimittus in B flat, first six measures); I am greatly obliged to B for editing and proofreading.
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.
_____________________________
Rogation
_____________________________
Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.
His lady wife, Elspeth Bulstrode-as-was, was a Born Matron, and kept Dudley, as a Reformed Character, Very Much Up to the Mark.
He was in consequence happier and healthier than in his youth, the proud father of an infant Witch named Harriet for her godfather, Dudley’s cousin, a solid and worthy citizen, and much respected - and not a little loved.
He really didn’t attend to that. What he had noticed was that he … noticed things, and attended to much more than he had done in his heedless, and cruelly bullying, youth. He might be slow - he hadn’t and knew he hadn’t Hermione’s quick wits or Ron’s freakish gift of seeing three moves ahead (he’d been unutterably relieved to find that Ron’s chess mastery didn’t extend to whist. Or bridge. Or, best of all, poker) or Harry’s gift for sudden inspired leaps and insights - but if he were slow, he was steady and sure. Muggle neighbours in Elstead; colleagues at Headway and then, with Elpseth, at Great Ormond Street; his cousin’s - and by extension, his - extended family and all their acquaintance, regarded him now, approvingly, as being steady, worthy, and sound, and as being perceptive, and had him to dine with them often.
What Dudley had noticed was that - having taken Elspeth’s tuition to heart, and concentrating nowadays upon his companions rather than his food (and stringently healthful food it was, under her hawklike eye) - he now noticed things, whilst others were talking across one another and stuffing themselves. Odd that a healthful dietary regimen had given him a character for acute observation, but there it was.
James was Very Nearly Ten, Actually, Which Is Quite near Eleven, Uncle Dudley, and So Almost a Hogwarts Firstie Already, Really. Albus was rising eight. And it was true enough, in its way: already the prison shades of School drew near the growing boys, and time should soon be when they became impossible, spotty, sullen, snarling little bloody-minded sods. With weapons. (Wands, honestly: what in buggery were Harry’s lot thinking, giving hormonal adolescents weapons: no logic in Wizards, even the best of ’em. Believed a shocking number of things before breakfast, every one of them.) Lily and her Forever Bestie, his Harriet - friends for life, at least this week - were yet to emerge as actual personalities, although one could already see what was in prospect; but Albie and Jamie (and how Jamie loathed that name: wherefore it was used the more) were already standing out as their own persons. And persons markedly different to one another, at that.
And Dudley had noticed, with growing disapproval, certain constants of their interaction. Jamie was boisterous - which Harry to his credit did rein in, with references to discipline and I don’t care what they do, we are a Service family, not a gang of Aristocrats Behaving Badly - and eminently Weasley-like and hearty. And Dudley, who wasn’t so very different to Young James in that regard, didn’t fault the boy for that, as such. Albus Severus Potter, however, was not a hearty in the chrysalis stage, although he wasn’t precisely - thank God - a budding æsthete, either. He had been able - had, it appeared, made himself able - to read from a very young age: earlier than had his brother done: and he was a voracious reader, and quiet, and had fewer, if closer, friends (the Malfoy sprog, for one) than did Jamie. Even his accidental magic tended to be of a different order, when small, to what James’ had been: Summoning a book he wanted, that sort of thing.
Nothing wrong with that, of course. Dudley, from his adult coign of vantage, looking back upon his own youth, rather wished he’d been more studious. What disturbed Dudley was the possibility - no more than that - that Albie, like Harry when small, had retreated into books and his imagination because he felt threatened or bullied by his rampageous elder brother. And that was simply not on, not if Dudley had anything to say in the matter.
Wherefore Dudley continued, slow but sure, to observe.
These were not concerns he could take to Elspeth, as he should normally have taken his concerns to her: she was too brisk and, even by Bulstrode standards, Squib or no Squib, far too much a jolly-hockey-sticks sort of person. Wherefore Dudley kept his counsel and his watchful eye.
And his observations alarmed him. No doubt it had been innocent enough in its beginnings. Nevertheless, when Dudley half-heard such comments from Jamie to Albie as, ‘I’dn’t have to put up with your being here if Mum and Dad had a daughter instead, you notice they stopped once they got Lily, you weren’t wanted then and I don’t want you tagging along now’, and, ‘You know everything about a broom bar how to stay on one, you speccy git - you’re afraid to get on one anyway’ - when Dudley overheard such barbs, and saw that Albus took them without a murmur, it didn’t want any sight of shoving or tripping to alarm Dudley. Bullying is by no means always - or indeed at bottom - physical, although it can manifest in physical bullying; and children are rum creatures, who will conspire, all too often, to conceal, even from vigilant and loving parents, their being victimised.
Dudley thought long and hard about what to do, slowly but surely, and bearing always in mind that these were not, at the end of the day, his children. He was not going to be as meddlesome as his mum had been.
Dudley had more observation than the rest of this lot combined. Bar, perhaps, fearsome old Andromeda, bless her. Dudley knew, as Ginny honestly didn’t, that Ginny resented Teddy a little because the young Lupin was in too many way’s Harry’s first and eldest son, seven years Jamie’s senior and one of the few tolerable adolescents of Dudley’s acquaintance. Dudley knew, also, as Harry nor Ginny allowed themselves to know, that Ginny loved James best because he was a complete Weasley at all points, and Lily best because she was the youngest and a girl, and Albus best because he was Harry in miniature and the most biddable of them - to a point and no further - and was the toughest and most courageous of the three of them and the one most in want of love and reassurance. And Dudley knew, as well, as Harry nor Ginny allowed themselves to know, that Harry loved Lily most because she was his baby girl (and a natural manipulator who was destined for Slytherin) and Jamie most because he was Ron all over with the worst bits left out and Albie best because he was Harry all over again as Harry should have been had Dudley and Dudley’s parents not been complete shits in Harry’s youth. And most of all, Dudley knew, as Harry nor Ginny allowed themselves to know, that for all this, the Potters had no idea of who their children were at bottom and how they differed and what each wanted most.
And how could they have done? Ginny had been the precious youngest and only girl of the most boisterous family in Wizardom. And Harry … well, Harry had been an orphan, and Dudley and Dudley’s parents, complete shits in Harry’s youth: how should he have known anything of children and parenting?
And the connexions and honorary, supernumerary aunts and uncles by courtesy…. Well. Ron regarded Jamie as the best of Harry and the Weasleys in one Quidditch-mad, Gryffindor package, and his niece Lily as Ginny all over again; Hermione looked at the Potter children and saw, whether there was anything to see or not, the Trio once more, with Lily as her avatar.
And they, and Justin and Blaise, and Seamus and Dean, Millie and Susan, the Goldsteins and the Macmillans and the Scamanders and the Longbottoms … every last one of them, bar perhaps Luna, looked at Albus and saw Harry in a second and revised edition.
Yet he wasn’t.
And, if Dudley had anything to do with it, he shouldn’t be - not without a good deal of correction, improvement, and annotation, as editions go.
The problem was that every one of those who looked at Albie and saw only Harry come again, knew Harry only from the age of eleven years: the Hero in Training and then the Hero Conquerant, annealed by fire and fined smooth and strong. Only Dudley knew the Harry of the first decade of their lives, the wounded and abused child: and had made one of those who had wounded and abused him, and would now atone for it, at any cost.
And there was not so much time left as he’d have wished. These years of stopping with the Potters, or they in Elstead with the Dursleys, in late May or early June for Rogationtide and Ascensiontide, were drawing to a close: for Hogwarts’ Easter Half broke up only after that. All too soon, first Jamie, and then Al, and afterward Lils and Harriet, should go off to school, and these sweet, bluebell-wood Springtide hols - the blessing of plough and field and river (here the Rivers Haddeo and Pulham and the infant Exe, and all the country ’round; in Elstead years, in turn, the River Wey and the plump Waverley arable), the bells and the fairs and the beating of the bounds - should cease to be family occasions with all the children present. Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.
Dudley loved Lily dearly, and James whole-heartedly, but his not terribly secret favourite was Albie, through whom, he now saw, he could make some amends. For much as he loved Jamie as if the lad were his own, there was that strain in him - perhaps from his namesake, Dudley’s Uncle James, but more likely, Dudley thought, from Jamie’s late Uncle Fred and his Uncle George, whom Dudley remembered all too well in their misspent youths - there was, by God, that strain in him that could all too easily go from brotherly ragging to outright bullying of Al, if it hadn’t done already, and Dudley thought it perhaps had done.
And he, Dudley, resolved that he’d not have it. He alone knew what Harry’s life had been before Hogwarts: the miserable life of that Harry whose after years alone the others saw when they saw looked at Albus and saw his father in him. He damned well ought to know: he’d been responsible for far too much of the misery. And he’d not ruddy well have it: Albie should not suffer the same, or Dudley Dursley’d know the reason why.
The light luncheon was over. The seething mass of the children of the War Generation - even that pallid little Malfoy sprog who was Al’s age - were eager to be off, in various schools and charms and sloths and prides and herds and flocks, according to age, character, and taste.
Albus made to follow James’ group, less because it was his brother’s than because it was Off to Do Something Interesting. Jamie laughed at him, something crueller than a punch. ‘We’re not the infants’ class, Ickle Albie. We’re saving you to beat at landmarks when we beat the bounds. Why don’t you go and play at dolls with your boyfriend - bet you both end in slimy Slytherin.’
Dudley remembered, with sudden pain, his taunt to Harry, after what he now knew to have been Voldemort’s murder of Cedric Diggory.
Dudley was not, after all, and rather to his surprise, the only observant member of the extended family. George whispered, ‘You’re right, Dud. But - I’ve tried, and there’s nothing one can do with ruddy Master James.’
‘No,’ said Dudley. ‘And that’s Harry’s concern in any case - his and Ginny’s. But I can damned well do something for Al.’
He turned to where Al and Scorpius were standing, dejected and determined not to show it. ‘Thank Christ that lot’s gone,’ said Dudley, heartily. ‘Means I can take the two of you on a ramble - and with some hopes of peace. I love Jamie, really, but he’s a bloody pillock half the time.’
George fed him the next line, as smoothly as he’d ever done with the late lamented Fred. ‘Only half?’
Dudley, turning ’round so that the lads couldn’t see him, winked. ‘Well, damn it, he spends the other half eating and sleeping, Weasley. He gets all that from you and Fred, doesn’t he.’ As George laughed, Dudley turned back to the Malfoy lad and Albie. ‘You two come along, and as we go, I’ll tell you why you want never to accept sweets from strange Weasleys.’
For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
They were tramping along boldly, between the Knap and Foxlade Wood, Chantry Farm and Griffin Priors and Godric’s Hollow well behind them to the North and West, on the fringes of the Moor.
Bindweeds and corncockles, bromes, madders, and poppies, warmed to the sun in field margins, or with honeysuckle twined in hedgerows. Elder and crab and Guelder-rose flourished, and the woods were braced in oak and ash and birch.
‘I remember,’ said Dudley, ‘the last time I saw Harry off before we went into hiding and he went off to win the War. Titchy little bugger.’ He smiled. ‘But fierce.
‘You know how he got shed of Voldemort, of course.’
Albus looked sidewise at Uncle Dudley. ‘Er. Yes.’
‘Do you? I mean, an Expelliarmus, yes. Not a curse. Not an … Unforgivable.’ Dudley almost chuckled to himself at his familiarity with these outlandish terms and concepts. ‘But - do you? Because, you know, he beat the bugger with the help of all those dithering lunatics back there, and sheer b- - sheer guts, and the loyalty of that lot we’ve left thankfully behind us, sluggards that they are - ’d do them no harm to take a bit of a ramble - and the cunning and stealth, young Malfoy, of your father and your gran.’
Scorpius stood a trifle straighter as they tramped along.
‘Mind you, though, had I known about Voldemort - d’you know the bugger’s no nose by then? Extraordinary - I’d have suggested something else to Harry.’
Albus, despite himself, was interested. ‘What?’
‘Biff the bugger a snorter, just where his nose wanted to have been. Like to see a Dark Lord cast his nasty spells whilst he’s turning blue and can’t ruddy breathe.’
Albie looked at his courtesy uncle in wild surmise, and then, with Scorpius, broke down in sniggers.
They’d reached a perfect place to look out from the lane on the verge of the wood and down into the little coombe and the far village and the wild moor beyond. Dudley stopped and sighed with satisfaction. ‘Look here, Albie, and tell me truthfully, you’ve never been tempted to hex Jamie?’
Al looked at him this time with horror, tempered only by the feeling that poor old Uncle Dudley, who was after all through no fault of his own a … well, not a Muggle, entirely: a Squib, more or less … couldn’t possibly understand what he was asking. Dad would slay him - any of them - for such a thing.
‘I would,’ said Scorpius, defiantly. ‘He keeps on this way, I well might do. I’m sorry, Al, but honestly, he’s ghastly, your brother.’
Dudley interrupted before Al and Scorp could quarrel. ‘He doesn’t know how to be a big brother, that’s all. Good God, Albie, your Uncle Bill’s only ten years younger than your grandfather Potter’d have been. So that’s no guide for Jamie. And Teddy’s always been careful not to presume too much by acting as if he really were Harry’s firstborn rather than his godson - which is damned obliging of him, really, given the bloody awkwardness of the whole business.’
Albus’ eyes were wide, as were Scorp’s. They were suddenly growing up in a concentrated rush, realising all at once many things, not least that Uncle Dudders was a damned sight cleverer than Albie had thought him.
‘So you mustn’t hex him or turn your wand on him, particularly if your father’s forbidden it. And I shouldn’t wish you to do. There are much better ways of correcting his behaviour when he’s being unbearable to you.’
Albus by now was beyond speech even for questioning.
‘Albie, m’boy - and I think you want it also, Scorp - I am going to impart arcane Muggle knowledge to you both.’ He grinned evilly. ‘Lads … you are going to learn to box. ’
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FINITE