Nine and a Half Years Later: Everybody's Pregnant (2/2)
Title: Nine and a Half Years Later: Everybody’s Pregnant (2/2)
Author: kanedax
Spoilers: Deathly Hallows & Previous Chapters
Characters: Harry, Dudley, Neville, the Weasley men
Rating: R for language
Word Count: 3,911 words
Summary: Dudley gets away
Notes: It’s now the future.
I don’t own these characters. They belong to JK Rowling.
Everybody’s Pregnant (1/2) / Previous Chapters / The Financial Diviner
The table fell silent. Harry fell back down into his seat as this news hit him. “Oh, God…” he breathed.
“Look, I should go,” Dudley said quickly. “I… I need to get some air… clear my head. I’ll… I guess I’ll take one of the Floos on the other end of town. I just need a few minutes.”
“Sorry, Dudley,” said Ron, looking helplessly around the table. “God, I don’t know…”
“It’s alright,” said Dudley. “You don’t have to say anything. I’ll… I’ll talk to you guys later.”
And before anyone could say anything else, Dudley Dursley was out the door of the Hog’s Head and in the streets of Hogsmeade, leaving Harry, Neville, and the Weasley men to glance up at each other nervously before looking back down at their drinks.
“Well, that ended the festivities quickly,” Charlie said eventually. “Bloody hell…”
“What’s a heart attack?” George asked, looking around the table. “Did something attack his heart?” Harry thought he was joking, but then realized that cholesterol and artery blockage were far down on the list of risk factors when they could be removed magically.
“Harry?” Ron asked, leaning over to his best friend. “Are you alright, mate?”
Harry didn’t know what to say. God, what could he say? Out of all of the Dursleys, Uncle Vernon had always been the worst of the lot. Dudley could beat him up whenever he wanted. Petunia could look down his nose at him, make him do every chore in the house. But Vernon was the only one who openly loathed him, who always looked at him like he was a leper. Or a piece of dog shit stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
But still…
“He forgot his coat,” Harry said quietly, nodding his head slightly toward the seat that had been filled by Dudley a minute before. Dudley’s jacket, a gray Columbia winter coat, was draped across the backrest.
“I’ll bring it with me when I pick up Fleur and Susan,” said Bill.
“No, I’ll bring it to him now,” said Harry, standing up. “I need to talk to him.”
“Harry,” Arthur Weasley said, putting his hand on Harry’s arm. “Harry, there’s something I should tell you…”
“Don’t,” Harry said. “If Dudley wants to tell me whatever went on between you two, then he will. But it seems like it’s his secret. I don’t want you to tell me if he doesn’t want me to know.”
“Harry…”
“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Weasley,” said Harry, pulling his cloak from the coat rack before taking Dudley’s coat from the back of the chair. “I’ll talk to you all later, right?”
“I’ll follow you out,” said Neville, taking his own cloak from its hanger and wrapping it around himself. Harry nodded in acceptance.
“If you don’t come back, Floo us when you get home,” said Ron. “Hermione, Ginny, and I will get a lift from one of the others. We’ll wanna know what happened.”
“Okay,” Harry nodded, then walked out the door and into the cold December snow.
Harry and Neville stood under the lamp outside of the Hog’s Head’s front door. The snow had been coming down thick, and was up to their ankles in the usually-cleared street. Harry looked down to see a pair of fresh footprints fading into the distance, but the darkness clouded his vision before he could see where Dudley had gone off to.
“Dudley?” he called out.
“Harry, I’m gonna head back to my place,” said Neville. “I’ll Floo to the Burrow from there.”
“Yeah, alright,” Harry said with a sigh. “Have a safe trip, okay?”
“Always do,” said Neville, shaking Harry’s hand. “I’m sorry to hear about your uncle.”
“Yeah,” Harry repeated, taking another glance along the cobblestone road. “I’m not the one I’m worried about, though.”
“I know,” said Neville. “Look, if you want to send me an owl, go ahead. Uri and I are going to be in Venice the whole week, so it won’t be chasing us very much.”
“Sure, I can do that,” said Harry. “I’ll see you later.”
“See ya,” said Neville, patting Harry on his shoulder, already dusted with flakes, before walking off toward his flat, the opposite direction of where Dudley’s footprints lead.
If it were any other month, I’d be screwed right now, Harry thought, studying Dudley’s tracks and following them.
“Dudley?” he called into the darkness. “Dudley, you still around? I got your coat!”
There was no answer. Harry didn’t expect there to be. But he didn’t need to look very far before the footprints trailed off the street to the side of one of the Hogsmeade buildings. There, Harry found…
“Jesus,” Harry gasped, jogging over to his cousin. “Dudley!”
Dudley was hunched over, one hand pressed against the wall of the shop (Madam Puddifoot’s, Harry noticed). He was making horrible retching noises, and at his feet…
“Dudley, are you alright?”
Dudley coughed roughly, and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “It’s probably good I decided to skip the fried chicken,” he rasped. “But otherwise I’m pretty fucking far from alright.”
“Well, have your coat, at least,” said Harry, “and have a… umm…” He looked around the street, and realized that the curbs were just as packed with snow as everything else. “Have a lean. Take a breather.”
Dudley nodded, pulled his coat on, and leaned his back against the wall of Puddifoot’s. Harry did the same.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Harry said. “You’re probably not the only one who’s vomited outside this place before. You should see it at Valentine’s Day, it’s…”
Harry trailed off, glancing over at Dudley. His cousin’s head was tilted back, face towards the falling snow, his eyes closed, his breathing slow.
“I’m sorry,” said Harry. “I know this is a shock…”
“Not really,” Dudley muttered. “Part of me’s not really surprised. The writing’s been on the wall for a while. He hadn’t been treating himself very well since the divorce, and he was never the healthiest guy to begin with. Only a matter of time before he had one too many cigarettes, one too many drinks of whisky, one too many trips to the all-you-can-eat prime rib buffet at the casino on Canal Street.”
“Still doesn’t make it any easier…” Harry said quietly.
“No,” Dudley replied. “No, it doesn’t…”
“How’s your Mum taking it?”
“I don’t know,” said Dudley. “She sounded kinda… umm… didn’t sound much of anything at all on the phone. She’s kinda hated him since your wedding. But I don’t think she’s taking it very well anyway.”
“If there’s anything I can do,” said Harry, “You know we’re here. Me and Ginny both…”
“Yeah, I know…”
“And I don’t know if there’s any word on the funeral yet,” Harry continued, “But if you want us to be there…”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” said Dudley.
"Look, Dudley, I know that Vernon and I never saw eye to eye. But he was still my uncle..."
"Actually, he thought you were a criminal."
"Well, I know he said it," Harry insisted, wondering why he was trying to argue this point, "But he accepted more than I ever thought he would as time went on. I have to at least be there to show that..."
"No, I mean, he really thought you were a criminal," Dudley said, his eyes dropping to the snow-covered street. "He thought that you're in Belmarsh, serving a ten-year sentence for armed robbery."
Harry stared at his cousin, whose eyes continued to study his shoelaces. "What are you talking about? Uncle Vernon never had his memory modified..."
"Harry, I didn't know what else to do!" Dudley cried out, looking back at Harry with pleading eyes. "He was insane! I couldn't just... I couldn't just leave him like that!"
"Dudley, calm down," said Harry, looking up and down the street to see if they were alone, then leaned in to speak more quietly. "What happened? You haven't seen Uncle Vernon since you moved back."
Dudley studied Harry's face. "You have to promise me," he said. "Promise me this doesn't go anywhere. My Mum can't know about this."
"I can't promise..."
"Harry..."
"Dudley, what happened?"
Dudley closed his eyes. His head hung low.
"Dudley," said Harry quietly, leaning in, "I'm sorry. If you don't want to say anything, you..."
"Last year," Dudley said, "About a week before the wedding, I got a letter from Dad asking to meet up with me the night before the wedding. I didn't know why; I wasn't sure if he had wanted to make up to me, if he wanted to tell me I was a fucking idiot for marrying a witch, I don't know what."
"Did you even send him an invitation?" asked Harry. "How did he know about the wedding?"
"Mum put the engagement announcement in the newspaper."
Harry nodded. Petunia knew to keep her head down about the magical world, but of course there wouldn't be a problem with doing that. She was raised as a Muggle, she wanted to keep with Muggle societal norms. It's not like the announcement read Dudley Dursley, construction manager, to wed Susan Bones, Ministry of Magic official.
"So I got together with him," Dudley continued. "After the rehearsal dinner, I took a Floo out to Surrey. Met him at St Martha-on-the-Hill. And he tried to talk me out of it, of course. Tried to convince me that I was making a mistake, that you all were brainwashing me. That the worst thing in the world would be for me to have a wizard for a kid, and that's where I was going if I married Suze."
Dudley took a deep breath.
"He didn't like that very much," he said. "And he... God, I don't know what the hell happened to him since the divorce. He fell in with the wrong crowd, which I know sounds really stupid when you're talking about someone like Dad. But it's right. He knew that he couldn't tell anyone about you and the others. But he also thought he needed to get us out of here. Well... get me out of here. He wrote off Mum a long time ago, thought it was our grandparents to blame, that Mum was just as bad as Aunt Lily. So he started looking around for other alternatives. Found some extremists, I don't know if it was on the internet or what, but he met some people who convinced him that... that..."
"That what?"
"That we were being influenced by dark forces," said Dudley. "That you were demons or evil creatures or whatever. And that we were being possessed. They got to him, they convinced him that this was right. And he was fucking gone.
"He attacked me. Shot me with a fucking taser. Tried to destroy my crystal. Used bloody holy water, for chrissake. Poured a bottle all over the crystal, and another one on me, trying to exorcise me or something."
"Jesus..." Harry breathed. This can't be right. Dudley's talking about Uncle Vernon? "So what did you do?"
"I got the hell out of there," Dudley said, his voice shaking. "I didn't have to run away. I told him that I wasn't possessed, told him that you weren't the Antichrist. Took my crystal back and left."
"And he didn't come after you?"
"He was a mess," Dudley said. "I... I didn't know what to do. I couldn't leave him there, couldn't... couldn't let him go back to America, knowing the length that he was willing to go, where his mind was at. So I went to the only people I could think of: Mr. and Mrs. Weasley."
Harry thought back to a few minutes ago, the meaningful look between Arthur and Dudley.
"You altered his memory..."
"They made him believe the story that he was telling everyone else," said Dudley. "The story that he had been telling Aunt Marge, telling his co-workers, telling our neighbors and everyone else who had been wondering about where you went every school year, and especially after Dedalus and Hestia took us back in '97."
"That I was a criminal," Harry said, his stomach sinking.
"Pretty convincing, if you think about it," Dudley said with a reluctant smirk. "Mum and Dad had been saying that James and Lily Potter, a black sheep and a waste of space, got themselves killed in a car accident and left you on our doorstep to be a misery in our otherwise perfect life. That you were just as bad as your parents had been, and were attending St. Brutus’s. After we moved to America, my Dad told Aunt Marge that you had relapsed, gotten dangerous. That you had put a hit out on us, and that we were placed into Witness Protection so that you or your goons couldn’t find us.”
“And Aunt Marge didn’t do anything?” asked Harry. “She didn’t think I was going to be a danger to her?”
“Of course not,” said Dudley with a sneer. “She always hated you, but at the same time she always thought that she had the upper hand. She wouldn’t dream that you would dare try to hurt her, not with all of her dogs guarding her.”
“So that’s what you told everyone,” said Harry. “That’s how you covered it up.”
“I didn’t,” said Dudley, and Harry could see in his eyes that he meant it. “After we left Privet Drive, I was all for you, mate. It was Dad that kept coming up with this shite, Mum was having troubles with it, too. But it made enough sense where we just sort of went with it, since, for all we knew, we were never going to see you again anyway.”
“After we came back for your wedding, and after the fiasco that came out of that, Dad just kept building up the story. He told Aunt Marge that you had gotten off on a technicality, and you ended up marrying one of your fellow delinquents after you knocked her up.”
Harry glared at Dudley. He knew he shouldn’t think badly of someone so recently departed. Ginny’s a knocked-up delinquent, is she?
“It was Dad, Harry, seriously,” Dudley said quickly, seeing the anger in Harry’s eyes. “I didn’t even know that he had come up with any of the after the wedding shit, except that they used some sort of truth serum on him before they altered his memory. To make sure that everything clicked.”
”Veritaserum,” Harry said, trying to force his anger down. “It’s a truth potion, extremely powerful. Arthur actually used it on Uncle Vernon?”
“After he got permission, yeah,” said Dudley. “He convinced the Ministry that this was a special case, and they agreed with him. I guess the Aurors were ready to alter Dad’s memory after the reception, but Mr. Shacklebolt talked them out of it. Now he recognized that it was a mistake to have let Dad go free, and figured it was better late than never to screw with his head.
“So Mr. Weasley contacted the Ministry, and he and Mr. Shacklebolt tracked Dad down. He hadn’t gone very far, but I guess it’s pretty easy to find someone if you use the right magic. Mr. Weasley knocked him out with his wand, and they used the truth stuff on him, and did whatever they did with his brain.”
Harry nodded. If Kingsley, the Minister of Magic, had personally involved himself into the operation, Harry knew that it was important. He also recognized that the Minister held himself accountable for his mistakes, and was more than willing to get his hands dirty to fix them. Not a lot of Ministers would do that, thought Harry.
“So they told him to go back to Milwaukee,” Dudley continued. “To live his life. As soon as he got into bed that night, he forgot that he ever came here. He remembered everything that they had told him to remember. And he lived the last year of his life believing that Mum and I had left him because we believed you had turned a corner. That you failed us by getting re-arrested and tossed into prison a year after you and Ginny got married. And that he could gloat to himself, to Aunt Marge, and to his colleagues at the drill factory that he was smarter than all of us, because he saw what a miserable person you would turn out to be from the moment you showed up on our doorstep.”
Harry leaned quietly against the wall of Madam Puddifoot’s, staring out onto the darkened street, his mind trying to wrap itself around everything that had just come into it.
“And don’t worry,” said Dudley. “I don’t think you’re a miserable person. Neither does Mum.”
“Thanks,” said Harry. “It’s just… it’s just a lot… I can’t believe that you did that…”
“The way I see it, I didn’t have a choice,” said Dudley. “It was better for everyone. He was a danger to all of you while he was in the state that he was in. He couldn’t be locked up, because that would raise too many questions on the Muggle end. And he died a strong man, just like I always knew him. He might have believed things that weren’t the truth, but at least he died sure that he was right, and not as the jittering psychotic that I saw that night in the woods.”
Harry nodded. “I won’t tell Petunia,” he said.
“Good,” said Dudley. “I don’t want her to know about any of this. Like I said, this story never leaves this space. I know it, you know it, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley know it, and Mr. Shacklebolt knows it.”
“And Susan?”
“Suze knows that I met up with him that night,” said Dudley. “That he tried to talk me out of marrying her, and that I said no. As far as she knows, that was the end of it. I was already miserable at the wedding after what had happened. I love her too much to have even thought about ruining our wedding day.”
“You put up a good front, though,” Harry said with a smile.
“Well, I felt better about it after a while,” said Dudley. “Besides, nothing quite like seeing Susan in her wedding gown to make me realize I made the right choice in standing up to him.”
“Besides,” Dudley continued with a smile, “Another one of the advantages of being where I’m at is that I know there’s something after you die. And that Dad’s there right now. And that hopefully he knows the real truth.”
“That magic is real,” Harry nodded. “That all of this is real.”
“Actually,” Dudley said hesitantly, “I was talking about the truth about you. He… he remembered that magic was real. Even to the end. They couldn’t take that away from him, or else it would contradict Aunt Marge’s memory of Hogwarts.”
Harry’s eyes widened. “What?” he gasped. “Aunt Marge went to Hogwarts?”
“No!” Dudley said quickly. “No! Well… technically yes. They weren’t students there, but both Dad and Aunt Marge visited once. Their cousin was a wizard, and Grandmum and Granddad Dursley dragged them along to some graduation ceremony. That’s how he developed his hatred for magic, and that’s how he met Mum.”
“Aunt Petunia was there too?” asked Harry. “Because of my Mum?”
“Yeah,” said Dudley. “But it was a fucked-up relationship. I don’t even think any of my family knew that that was where they met, since they were both trying to make themselves as invisible as possible. They exchanged addresses, and when they started dating they told my family that they had met at a school social.”
“And Aunt Marge didn’t know any of this?”
“Aunt Marge blocked it out of her memory,” said Dudley. “If she even remembers any of it, she remembered that she hated cousin Benjy, that she had a miserable time at the ceremony, and that she wanted to leave as soon as she got there. She never made the connection that Mum and Dad met there, never made the connection that Mum’s sister was a witch, and never made the connection that you were a wizard. She was dense that way.”
“If it weren’t Aunt Marge we were talking about,” said Harry, “I wouldn’t believe a word that you just said…”
“Yet there it is,” said Dudley with a sigh.
“Cousin Benjy…” Harry said quietly.
“Mrs. Weasley thinks that it was someone named Benjy Fenwick,” said Dudley. “One of her brother’s friends.”
“It sounds… he sounds familiar,” Harry said.
“Benjy Fenwick,” the gruff voice of Alastor Moody echoed through his mind, and Harry saw a gnarled finger pointing to a photograph, “he copped it too, we only found bits of him… shift aside there…”
“He was a member of the Order of the Phoenix,” said Harry. “The original group, that is, not the one that I was living with during my fifth year. He was friends with my folks.”
“So Mrs. Weasley’s probably right?”
“I think so,” said Harry. “I might be able to dig up a few photographs of him, if you’re interested.”
“Yeah, definitely!” said Dudley, perking up. “Blimey, that would be cool.”
“I can ask Hagrid, too,” said Harry. “He was working at Hogwarts when your Dad’s cousin was going to school there. He’d know for sure who was in my Mum and Dad’s year.”
“That would be great,” said Dudley, and the two lapsed into silence.
The Dursleys knew, Harry thought. And were proud enough of a wizard to attend a ceremony for him at Hogwarts.
He knew that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge were anti-everything, but he was still glad to know that most of the Dursleys would have accepted him and his family, had they been given the opportunity.
“I should go,” said Dudley, looking up towards the snow. “I need to get to Mum.”
“Okay,” said Harry. “Do you want me to come with?”
“No,” said Dudley quietly. “I think it should just be me. If you beat Bill to the Burrow, pick up Suze for me? Tell her where I’m at?”
“Yeah, no problem,” said Harry, reaching into his pockets to feel the jingle of keys. “I parked the van there before I Flooed here.” It’s a Ford Galaxy, he thought. Not exactly a sports car, but a vehicle’s a vehicle, especially with two, soon to be three, children. “I’ll try to talk Bill and Fleur out of driving her, since Diagon’s way out of their way. And I’ll let her know where you’re at, in case she wants to come to your Mum’s house.”
“Alright,” Dudley nodded. “Cool. Umm… yeah.” He looked down awkwardly at his cousin (Dudley was taller than Harry, not to mention bulkier). “Thanks for listening.”
“Thanks for talking,” said Harry. “Still not used to all of the words coming out of your mouth, but it’s good to hear, despite the circumstances.”
“Right,” said Dudley, slowing down. “I’ll probably be on the plane tomorrow for the funeral, so…”
“Have a safe trip,” said Harry. “And I’m sorry again.”
“Thanks,” said Dudley. “You’re a good person, Harry. I just hope my Dad knows it now.”
Harry nodded and patted Dudley on the shoulder. Dudley nodded back and, in quiet assent, the two parted ways, Harry Potter back to the Hog’s Head, Dudley Dursley toward the Floo Station at the end of Hogsmeade Village.
Everybody’s Pregnant (1/2) / Previous Chapters / The Financial Diviner
Author: kanedax
Spoilers: Deathly Hallows & Previous Chapters
Characters: Harry, Dudley, Neville, the Weasley men
Rating: R for language
Word Count: 3,911 words
Summary: Dudley gets away
Notes: It’s now the future.
I don’t own these characters. They belong to JK Rowling.
Everybody’s Pregnant (1/2) / Previous Chapters / The Financial Diviner
The table fell silent. Harry fell back down into his seat as this news hit him. “Oh, God…” he breathed.
“Look, I should go,” Dudley said quickly. “I… I need to get some air… clear my head. I’ll… I guess I’ll take one of the Floos on the other end of town. I just need a few minutes.”
“Sorry, Dudley,” said Ron, looking helplessly around the table. “God, I don’t know…”
“It’s alright,” said Dudley. “You don’t have to say anything. I’ll… I’ll talk to you guys later.”
And before anyone could say anything else, Dudley Dursley was out the door of the Hog’s Head and in the streets of Hogsmeade, leaving Harry, Neville, and the Weasley men to glance up at each other nervously before looking back down at their drinks.
“Well, that ended the festivities quickly,” Charlie said eventually. “Bloody hell…”
“What’s a heart attack?” George asked, looking around the table. “Did something attack his heart?” Harry thought he was joking, but then realized that cholesterol and artery blockage were far down on the list of risk factors when they could be removed magically.
“Harry?” Ron asked, leaning over to his best friend. “Are you alright, mate?”
Harry didn’t know what to say. God, what could he say? Out of all of the Dursleys, Uncle Vernon had always been the worst of the lot. Dudley could beat him up whenever he wanted. Petunia could look down his nose at him, make him do every chore in the house. But Vernon was the only one who openly loathed him, who always looked at him like he was a leper. Or a piece of dog shit stuck to the bottom of his shoe.
But still…
“He forgot his coat,” Harry said quietly, nodding his head slightly toward the seat that had been filled by Dudley a minute before. Dudley’s jacket, a gray Columbia winter coat, was draped across the backrest.
“I’ll bring it with me when I pick up Fleur and Susan,” said Bill.
“No, I’ll bring it to him now,” said Harry, standing up. “I need to talk to him.”
“Harry,” Arthur Weasley said, putting his hand on Harry’s arm. “Harry, there’s something I should tell you…”
“Don’t,” Harry said. “If Dudley wants to tell me whatever went on between you two, then he will. But it seems like it’s his secret. I don’t want you to tell me if he doesn’t want me to know.”
“Harry…”
“Don’t worry about it, Mr. Weasley,” said Harry, pulling his cloak from the coat rack before taking Dudley’s coat from the back of the chair. “I’ll talk to you all later, right?”
“I’ll follow you out,” said Neville, taking his own cloak from its hanger and wrapping it around himself. Harry nodded in acceptance.
“If you don’t come back, Floo us when you get home,” said Ron. “Hermione, Ginny, and I will get a lift from one of the others. We’ll wanna know what happened.”
“Okay,” Harry nodded, then walked out the door and into the cold December snow.
Harry and Neville stood under the lamp outside of the Hog’s Head’s front door. The snow had been coming down thick, and was up to their ankles in the usually-cleared street. Harry looked down to see a pair of fresh footprints fading into the distance, but the darkness clouded his vision before he could see where Dudley had gone off to.
“Dudley?” he called out.
“Harry, I’m gonna head back to my place,” said Neville. “I’ll Floo to the Burrow from there.”
“Yeah, alright,” Harry said with a sigh. “Have a safe trip, okay?”
“Always do,” said Neville, shaking Harry’s hand. “I’m sorry to hear about your uncle.”
“Yeah,” Harry repeated, taking another glance along the cobblestone road. “I’m not the one I’m worried about, though.”
“I know,” said Neville. “Look, if you want to send me an owl, go ahead. Uri and I are going to be in Venice the whole week, so it won’t be chasing us very much.”
“Sure, I can do that,” said Harry. “I’ll see you later.”
“See ya,” said Neville, patting Harry on his shoulder, already dusted with flakes, before walking off toward his flat, the opposite direction of where Dudley’s footprints lead.
If it were any other month, I’d be screwed right now, Harry thought, studying Dudley’s tracks and following them.
“Dudley?” he called into the darkness. “Dudley, you still around? I got your coat!”
There was no answer. Harry didn’t expect there to be. But he didn’t need to look very far before the footprints trailed off the street to the side of one of the Hogsmeade buildings. There, Harry found…
“Jesus,” Harry gasped, jogging over to his cousin. “Dudley!”
Dudley was hunched over, one hand pressed against the wall of the shop (Madam Puddifoot’s, Harry noticed). He was making horrible retching noises, and at his feet…
“Dudley, are you alright?”
Dudley coughed roughly, and wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “It’s probably good I decided to skip the fried chicken,” he rasped. “But otherwise I’m pretty fucking far from alright.”
“Well, have your coat, at least,” said Harry, “and have a… umm…” He looked around the street, and realized that the curbs were just as packed with snow as everything else. “Have a lean. Take a breather.”
Dudley nodded, pulled his coat on, and leaned his back against the wall of Puddifoot’s. Harry did the same.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Harry said. “You’re probably not the only one who’s vomited outside this place before. You should see it at Valentine’s Day, it’s…”
Harry trailed off, glancing over at Dudley. His cousin’s head was tilted back, face towards the falling snow, his eyes closed, his breathing slow.
“I’m sorry,” said Harry. “I know this is a shock…”
“Not really,” Dudley muttered. “Part of me’s not really surprised. The writing’s been on the wall for a while. He hadn’t been treating himself very well since the divorce, and he was never the healthiest guy to begin with. Only a matter of time before he had one too many cigarettes, one too many drinks of whisky, one too many trips to the all-you-can-eat prime rib buffet at the casino on Canal Street.”
“Still doesn’t make it any easier…” Harry said quietly.
“No,” Dudley replied. “No, it doesn’t…”
“How’s your Mum taking it?”
“I don’t know,” said Dudley. “She sounded kinda… umm… didn’t sound much of anything at all on the phone. She’s kinda hated him since your wedding. But I don’t think she’s taking it very well anyway.”
“If there’s anything I can do,” said Harry, “You know we’re here. Me and Ginny both…”
“Yeah, I know…”
“And I don’t know if there’s any word on the funeral yet,” Harry continued, “But if you want us to be there…”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” said Dudley.
"Look, Dudley, I know that Vernon and I never saw eye to eye. But he was still my uncle..."
"Actually, he thought you were a criminal."
"Well, I know he said it," Harry insisted, wondering why he was trying to argue this point, "But he accepted more than I ever thought he would as time went on. I have to at least be there to show that..."
"No, I mean, he really thought you were a criminal," Dudley said, his eyes dropping to the snow-covered street. "He thought that you're in Belmarsh, serving a ten-year sentence for armed robbery."
Harry stared at his cousin, whose eyes continued to study his shoelaces. "What are you talking about? Uncle Vernon never had his memory modified..."
"Harry, I didn't know what else to do!" Dudley cried out, looking back at Harry with pleading eyes. "He was insane! I couldn't just... I couldn't just leave him like that!"
"Dudley, calm down," said Harry, looking up and down the street to see if they were alone, then leaned in to speak more quietly. "What happened? You haven't seen Uncle Vernon since you moved back."
Dudley studied Harry's face. "You have to promise me," he said. "Promise me this doesn't go anywhere. My Mum can't know about this."
"I can't promise..."
"Harry..."
"Dudley, what happened?"
Dudley closed his eyes. His head hung low.
"Dudley," said Harry quietly, leaning in, "I'm sorry. If you don't want to say anything, you..."
"Last year," Dudley said, "About a week before the wedding, I got a letter from Dad asking to meet up with me the night before the wedding. I didn't know why; I wasn't sure if he had wanted to make up to me, if he wanted to tell me I was a fucking idiot for marrying a witch, I don't know what."
"Did you even send him an invitation?" asked Harry. "How did he know about the wedding?"
"Mum put the engagement announcement in the newspaper."
Harry nodded. Petunia knew to keep her head down about the magical world, but of course there wouldn't be a problem with doing that. She was raised as a Muggle, she wanted to keep with Muggle societal norms. It's not like the announcement read Dudley Dursley, construction manager, to wed Susan Bones, Ministry of Magic official.
"So I got together with him," Dudley continued. "After the rehearsal dinner, I took a Floo out to Surrey. Met him at St Martha-on-the-Hill. And he tried to talk me out of it, of course. Tried to convince me that I was making a mistake, that you all were brainwashing me. That the worst thing in the world would be for me to have a wizard for a kid, and that's where I was going if I married Suze."
Dudley took a deep breath.
"He didn't like that very much," he said. "And he... God, I don't know what the hell happened to him since the divorce. He fell in with the wrong crowd, which I know sounds really stupid when you're talking about someone like Dad. But it's right. He knew that he couldn't tell anyone about you and the others. But he also thought he needed to get us out of here. Well... get me out of here. He wrote off Mum a long time ago, thought it was our grandparents to blame, that Mum was just as bad as Aunt Lily. So he started looking around for other alternatives. Found some extremists, I don't know if it was on the internet or what, but he met some people who convinced him that... that..."
"That what?"
"That we were being influenced by dark forces," said Dudley. "That you were demons or evil creatures or whatever. And that we were being possessed. They got to him, they convinced him that this was right. And he was fucking gone.
"He attacked me. Shot me with a fucking taser. Tried to destroy my crystal. Used bloody holy water, for chrissake. Poured a bottle all over the crystal, and another one on me, trying to exorcise me or something."
"Jesus..." Harry breathed. This can't be right. Dudley's talking about Uncle Vernon? "So what did you do?"
"I got the hell out of there," Dudley said, his voice shaking. "I didn't have to run away. I told him that I wasn't possessed, told him that you weren't the Antichrist. Took my crystal back and left."
"And he didn't come after you?"
"He was a mess," Dudley said. "I... I didn't know what to do. I couldn't leave him there, couldn't... couldn't let him go back to America, knowing the length that he was willing to go, where his mind was at. So I went to the only people I could think of: Mr. and Mrs. Weasley."
Harry thought back to a few minutes ago, the meaningful look between Arthur and Dudley.
"You altered his memory..."
"They made him believe the story that he was telling everyone else," said Dudley. "The story that he had been telling Aunt Marge, telling his co-workers, telling our neighbors and everyone else who had been wondering about where you went every school year, and especially after Dedalus and Hestia took us back in '97."
"That I was a criminal," Harry said, his stomach sinking.
"Pretty convincing, if you think about it," Dudley said with a reluctant smirk. "Mum and Dad had been saying that James and Lily Potter, a black sheep and a waste of space, got themselves killed in a car accident and left you on our doorstep to be a misery in our otherwise perfect life. That you were just as bad as your parents had been, and were attending St. Brutus’s. After we moved to America, my Dad told Aunt Marge that you had relapsed, gotten dangerous. That you had put a hit out on us, and that we were placed into Witness Protection so that you or your goons couldn’t find us.”
“And Aunt Marge didn’t do anything?” asked Harry. “She didn’t think I was going to be a danger to her?”
“Of course not,” said Dudley with a sneer. “She always hated you, but at the same time she always thought that she had the upper hand. She wouldn’t dream that you would dare try to hurt her, not with all of her dogs guarding her.”
“So that’s what you told everyone,” said Harry. “That’s how you covered it up.”
“I didn’t,” said Dudley, and Harry could see in his eyes that he meant it. “After we left Privet Drive, I was all for you, mate. It was Dad that kept coming up with this shite, Mum was having troubles with it, too. But it made enough sense where we just sort of went with it, since, for all we knew, we were never going to see you again anyway.”
“After we came back for your wedding, and after the fiasco that came out of that, Dad just kept building up the story. He told Aunt Marge that you had gotten off on a technicality, and you ended up marrying one of your fellow delinquents after you knocked her up.”
Harry glared at Dudley. He knew he shouldn’t think badly of someone so recently departed. Ginny’s a knocked-up delinquent, is she?
“It was Dad, Harry, seriously,” Dudley said quickly, seeing the anger in Harry’s eyes. “I didn’t even know that he had come up with any of the after the wedding shit, except that they used some sort of truth serum on him before they altered his memory. To make sure that everything clicked.”
”Veritaserum,” Harry said, trying to force his anger down. “It’s a truth potion, extremely powerful. Arthur actually used it on Uncle Vernon?”
“After he got permission, yeah,” said Dudley. “He convinced the Ministry that this was a special case, and they agreed with him. I guess the Aurors were ready to alter Dad’s memory after the reception, but Mr. Shacklebolt talked them out of it. Now he recognized that it was a mistake to have let Dad go free, and figured it was better late than never to screw with his head.
“So Mr. Weasley contacted the Ministry, and he and Mr. Shacklebolt tracked Dad down. He hadn’t gone very far, but I guess it’s pretty easy to find someone if you use the right magic. Mr. Weasley knocked him out with his wand, and they used the truth stuff on him, and did whatever they did with his brain.”
Harry nodded. If Kingsley, the Minister of Magic, had personally involved himself into the operation, Harry knew that it was important. He also recognized that the Minister held himself accountable for his mistakes, and was more than willing to get his hands dirty to fix them. Not a lot of Ministers would do that, thought Harry.
“So they told him to go back to Milwaukee,” Dudley continued. “To live his life. As soon as he got into bed that night, he forgot that he ever came here. He remembered everything that they had told him to remember. And he lived the last year of his life believing that Mum and I had left him because we believed you had turned a corner. That you failed us by getting re-arrested and tossed into prison a year after you and Ginny got married. And that he could gloat to himself, to Aunt Marge, and to his colleagues at the drill factory that he was smarter than all of us, because he saw what a miserable person you would turn out to be from the moment you showed up on our doorstep.”
Harry leaned quietly against the wall of Madam Puddifoot’s, staring out onto the darkened street, his mind trying to wrap itself around everything that had just come into it.
“And don’t worry,” said Dudley. “I don’t think you’re a miserable person. Neither does Mum.”
“Thanks,” said Harry. “It’s just… it’s just a lot… I can’t believe that you did that…”
“The way I see it, I didn’t have a choice,” said Dudley. “It was better for everyone. He was a danger to all of you while he was in the state that he was in. He couldn’t be locked up, because that would raise too many questions on the Muggle end. And he died a strong man, just like I always knew him. He might have believed things that weren’t the truth, but at least he died sure that he was right, and not as the jittering psychotic that I saw that night in the woods.”
Harry nodded. “I won’t tell Petunia,” he said.
“Good,” said Dudley. “I don’t want her to know about any of this. Like I said, this story never leaves this space. I know it, you know it, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley know it, and Mr. Shacklebolt knows it.”
“And Susan?”
“Suze knows that I met up with him that night,” said Dudley. “That he tried to talk me out of marrying her, and that I said no. As far as she knows, that was the end of it. I was already miserable at the wedding after what had happened. I love her too much to have even thought about ruining our wedding day.”
“You put up a good front, though,” Harry said with a smile.
“Well, I felt better about it after a while,” said Dudley. “Besides, nothing quite like seeing Susan in her wedding gown to make me realize I made the right choice in standing up to him.”
“Besides,” Dudley continued with a smile, “Another one of the advantages of being where I’m at is that I know there’s something after you die. And that Dad’s there right now. And that hopefully he knows the real truth.”
“That magic is real,” Harry nodded. “That all of this is real.”
“Actually,” Dudley said hesitantly, “I was talking about the truth about you. He… he remembered that magic was real. Even to the end. They couldn’t take that away from him, or else it would contradict Aunt Marge’s memory of Hogwarts.”
Harry’s eyes widened. “What?” he gasped. “Aunt Marge went to Hogwarts?”
“No!” Dudley said quickly. “No! Well… technically yes. They weren’t students there, but both Dad and Aunt Marge visited once. Their cousin was a wizard, and Grandmum and Granddad Dursley dragged them along to some graduation ceremony. That’s how he developed his hatred for magic, and that’s how he met Mum.”
“Aunt Petunia was there too?” asked Harry. “Because of my Mum?”
“Yeah,” said Dudley. “But it was a fucked-up relationship. I don’t even think any of my family knew that that was where they met, since they were both trying to make themselves as invisible as possible. They exchanged addresses, and when they started dating they told my family that they had met at a school social.”
“And Aunt Marge didn’t know any of this?”
“Aunt Marge blocked it out of her memory,” said Dudley. “If she even remembers any of it, she remembered that she hated cousin Benjy, that she had a miserable time at the ceremony, and that she wanted to leave as soon as she got there. She never made the connection that Mum and Dad met there, never made the connection that Mum’s sister was a witch, and never made the connection that you were a wizard. She was dense that way.”
“If it weren’t Aunt Marge we were talking about,” said Harry, “I wouldn’t believe a word that you just said…”
“Yet there it is,” said Dudley with a sigh.
“Cousin Benjy…” Harry said quietly.
“Mrs. Weasley thinks that it was someone named Benjy Fenwick,” said Dudley. “One of her brother’s friends.”
“It sounds… he sounds familiar,” Harry said.
“Benjy Fenwick,” the gruff voice of Alastor Moody echoed through his mind, and Harry saw a gnarled finger pointing to a photograph, “he copped it too, we only found bits of him… shift aside there…”
“He was a member of the Order of the Phoenix,” said Harry. “The original group, that is, not the one that I was living with during my fifth year. He was friends with my folks.”
“So Mrs. Weasley’s probably right?”
“I think so,” said Harry. “I might be able to dig up a few photographs of him, if you’re interested.”
“Yeah, definitely!” said Dudley, perking up. “Blimey, that would be cool.”
“I can ask Hagrid, too,” said Harry. “He was working at Hogwarts when your Dad’s cousin was going to school there. He’d know for sure who was in my Mum and Dad’s year.”
“That would be great,” said Dudley, and the two lapsed into silence.
The Dursleys knew, Harry thought. And were proud enough of a wizard to attend a ceremony for him at Hogwarts.
He knew that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge were anti-everything, but he was still glad to know that most of the Dursleys would have accepted him and his family, had they been given the opportunity.
“I should go,” said Dudley, looking up towards the snow. “I need to get to Mum.”
“Okay,” said Harry. “Do you want me to come with?”
“No,” said Dudley quietly. “I think it should just be me. If you beat Bill to the Burrow, pick up Suze for me? Tell her where I’m at?”
“Yeah, no problem,” said Harry, reaching into his pockets to feel the jingle of keys. “I parked the van there before I Flooed here.” It’s a Ford Galaxy, he thought. Not exactly a sports car, but a vehicle’s a vehicle, especially with two, soon to be three, children. “I’ll try to talk Bill and Fleur out of driving her, since Diagon’s way out of their way. And I’ll let her know where you’re at, in case she wants to come to your Mum’s house.”
“Alright,” Dudley nodded. “Cool. Umm… yeah.” He looked down awkwardly at his cousin (Dudley was taller than Harry, not to mention bulkier). “Thanks for listening.”
“Thanks for talking,” said Harry. “Still not used to all of the words coming out of your mouth, but it’s good to hear, despite the circumstances.”
“Right,” said Dudley, slowing down. “I’ll probably be on the plane tomorrow for the funeral, so…”
“Have a safe trip,” said Harry. “And I’m sorry again.”
“Thanks,” said Dudley. “You’re a good person, Harry. I just hope my Dad knows it now.”
Harry nodded and patted Dudley on the shoulder. Dudley nodded back and, in quiet assent, the two parted ways, Harry Potter back to the Hog’s Head, Dudley Dursley toward the Floo Station at the end of Hogsmeade Village.
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