Dudley and Laura Dursley were married on June the first, 2002. If you'd asked Vernon Dursley, that girl was the worst thing that could have possibly happened to his Diddykins, however, nobody seemed to ask Vernon much of anything these days. Vernon was a particularly normal person, and he'd expected Dudley to turn out much the same thank you very much, but there's a certain level of weird that one tends to attain when one has Harry Potter for a cousin. Oh yes, Vernon knew all about his wonderful, world saving abilities. But that did not change the fact that that boy was a horrible influence and I don't care if he is your cousin, no! We are not attending his wedding Dudley, go back to your room. Because for god's sake, the boy was a freak and who knew what kind of horrible witchcraft tomfoolery might go on with his crowd? He might not have known it then, but he was absolutely right.The boy's wedding was where all of the trouble began. It was where Dudley met Laura.
It had been a completely normal February day. It was dark and dreary. There was that awful, grey colored slush on the ground and Vernon (Mr. Dursley to those of you that don't know him very well) was wearing his warmest sweater. In other words, it was exactly the way that February days should be and it was absolutely perfectly average. If you couldn't already tell, Vernon liked it when things were average. Vernon was sitting by the telly, drinking a nice cup of warm tea-not hot, warm-when the doorbell rang. Grumbling to himself slightly, Vernon stood up and opened the door only to find the bane of his existence waiting for him on the doormat, in a similar fashion to the way he'd originally found him.
Harry Potter and some bird were standing on his doorstep. Harry bloody Potter was at his house with a girl. The girl was smallish, had flaming red hair and was much too pretty be with his nephew. The three of them stood there staring at each other until Petunia called from in the kitchen.
"Vernon, who's at the door? Are you inviting them inside?" Vernon turned to glare at Harry and his…guest. He moved to close the door when the girl stopped him.
"Hi. My name is Ginny Weasley," she began in a voice that was sickeningly sweet, the kind one would use with a toddler when they misbehaved. "May we come in?" And when she didn't wait for him to welcome her in (not that he would have, mind you) Vernon was officially convinced that he didn't like this Ginny girl at all.
Vernon led the three of them to their sitting room where Petunia was sitting and reading a Good Housekeeping magazine. She looked up when they entered and immediately the false smile she always wore when guests were involved was replaced with a scowl.
"What are you doing here?"
"Well I, I mean I didn't" Harry began.
"What Harry is so eloquently trying to tell you," Ginny cut in when she noticed Harry's floundering. "Is that the two of us are engaged, and while you were horrible to him growing up-Don't try to deny it-my mum thought it would be nice to invite you. After all, you're Harry's only family." Petunia stood up angrily.
"What makes you think we would want to be there? We saw enough of you when you still lived here." Ginny rolled her eyes dramatically.
"Do you even know how important Harry is? He has saved the world so many times and you don't even ca…"
"Look Ginny, it's fine. I told you I didn't want to come back here."
"But Harry, seriously…"
"No, let's just get out of here," Harry turned to face the Dursleys and grabbed something out of his coat pocket. "Look, come, don't come, I don't really care. I'm going to leave an invitation with you just in case, but please feel free to ignore it." At that Ginny grabbed his hand and the two of them were gone. As in, vanished into thin air.
Of course the first thing Dudley noticed when he came over for his twice-weekly visit was the Scarlet and Gold invitation, still sitting where Harry had left it as neither Petunia nor Vernon wanted to touch it.
"Mum, Harry's getting married?" Dudley asked, more shocked that somebody would want to marry Harry than anything else.
"Yes, him and –she shuddered-some girl came over to tell us about it. But we're not going."
"Why not?"
"You can't possibly want to go to their wedding. Their type of people will be there!"
"And? It's still his wedding. There will probably be an open bar, and mum, you can criticize how tacky it is and how terrible all of their dresses are." In truth, Dudley wasn't sure why he wanted to go to Harry wedding, he just knew that he wanted to.
"Well I'm definitely going. What day does it say on that card?"
The wedding was on December 24, 2000. It was held in a big church in an utterly unfamiliar neighborhood (which, unbeknownst to Dudley was the Church in Godric's Hollow where Harry's parents had gotten married and near the house that Ginny and Harry now lived in. Dudley was the only Dursley to attend. Aside from the occasional spell, it was a nice wedding. If his mum had been there, and it had been a different couple getting married, she would have called the décor tastefully eclectic. Ginny was wearing a white, sleeveless dress that was fairly plain, but she seemed to shine in it, and had her bright red hair in a twisty updo that looked both insanely complicated and simply effortless. The ceremony was short enough that it didn't put people to sleep, but long enough that it felt appropriate. When it came time for the reception Dudley noticed that there wasn't a place card with his name on it. He'd never actually called to confirm that he was coming, so why would they have one for him? It was bad enough that he was crashing the wedding of the cousin that he'd always treated horribly, but now apparently he wouldn't even have a place to sit!
"Sir!" Dudley heard a voice call. He turned and pointed to himself and noticed a woman sitting at one of the nearby tables waving and nodding at him.
"I noticed you standing at the cards and frowning, so I figured that you probably couldn't find yours or were sitting at a bad table. In any case, I thought I was going to bring a date, but he canceled so there's an open seat next to me if you want it."
Well, what did anyone say to that except thank you very much of course I'll sit here, so that's exactly what Dudley did.
"Hi. My name is Laura Creevey."
"Dudley Dursley." They talked for quite awhile. As conversations tend to do, it started out as small talk and quickly turned into something more. Dudley found that he actually rather enjoyed talking to Laura. They were both at Uni, he studying Maths (the one subject he was any good at) and she Literature. Once they had exhausted all other topics, the conversation came to rest on the bride and groom.
"So, how do you know them, Dudley?"
"I'm actually Harry's cousin."
"I didn't know harry had any family, I'd just heard about that terrible muggle family that…" she broke off at Dudley's sheepish expression.
"Oh. I didn't realize," she began.
"No, we deserve that. As much as my father would've hoped, I didn't end up being a completely terrible human being. After Harry left for good I made some new friends and went off to Uni and got a great roommate. I don't know, I just grew into a different person. Enough about me, how do you know them?"
"Oh, well my two younger brothers, Colin and Dennis, went to school with Harry and Ginny. When Colin died in the war they, Ginny especially, were really good about explaining to me and our parents what was going on and she helped us go through the pain. She lost her brother during the war, so she knew what we were going through."
"So I take it you didn't go to Hogwarts or whatever that place is called?"
"No, completely non-magical over here."
Dudley and Laura went on exactly five dates after that before she told her parents. Seven before Dudley told his. Exactly a year and four months after they'd first met he proposed. And if they kept the fact that Laura's brothers were wizards from the Dursleys, well, who can blame them.
