This is a SIOC as Dudley fanfiction.

Warning: Politic heavy, gender issues, slash, het, femslash (maybe), obesity issues, cancer issues, some pretty angsty shit, but it gets better, and there are a lot of jokes, but I suck at telling jokes, we'll see how it goes.

Hold me Tight and Don't Let Go
..::Chapter One::..

Reborn

My family was prone to bad luck.

Perhaps it was in our genes. That's what the doctors said anyways. When I say "bad luck", I don't mean it so literally. "Bad luck" is just another way of saying "death" and "grief".

My mother died of cancer shortly after her seventh child, with me being the third oldest, and it was a sad occasion for all of us. She died the same way her own father and mother died, she died the same way her grandparents died, the same way her siblings have all died saved for one younger brother. It was in our genes they said. Even before we were born, it could be said that we were all predestined to die of cancer.

But we held together as a family after mother's death. Father knew his duties, and though he was probably the most hurt out of all of us, he held together. He gave us every opportunity, cared and loved us in everyway possible, worked three jobs to help feed our seven hungry mouths. In some ways, I thought that maybe that was how he coped with her death, by giving his all and letting out all that love embodied into that frail body of his.

Alice was second to go. When the doctors announced that she was in the second stage of cancer at the tender age of thirteen, it hit our family hard. Alice never cried though. I was seventeen at the time, getting ready for my senior year and preparing for college. Alice made sure I stayed on track and didn't sacrifice my life plans for her. I remember she held my hands in her tiny shaking ones, sprinkled with freckles, and looked me straight in the eye. She gave me a knowing smile and said that I would have the heaviest burden to carry. She said that she was glad that she died now instead of bearing the burden I would have to bear. Looking back on it, I believe she knew in her heart that I would be the last one to survive out of all our siblings. She died three days later with a peaceful smile on her face.

A year later, our eldest brother, Jacob, died. Died of cancer of course.

Three years after that our father died, leaving me and my older sister, Teresa, to care for our youngest. I was finishing up college; Teresa refused to let me come back until I did. She took up dad's place as provider and parent for our siblings. We were all glad though, in some ways, because father didn't have the burden of life anymore. It was clear the death of his wife and children were wearing him down, and three jobs weren't helping. He died a peaceful death surrounded by his loving children.

Then Marco, the second youngest, died at ten.

Then Ricky.

Then Teresa.

I was twenty-seven when Matilda, my youngest and only remaining sibling, fell under the influence of our family curse. Two years later she died, leaving me the only remaining member of our family. Only then did Alice's words ring true. I was now all alone and bearing the deaths of my entire family. I'd like to say that I handled it and didn't let it pull me down but I would be lying. To be completely honest, I was a wreck. I was drowning in my grief, crushed under the weight of my burden. It took me another three years to pull myself together and by then I was thirty-two. And I thought maybe, just maybe, that I would be the one to break my family curse.

I let myself live for the first time really since college, I started getting back into society. I got more involved with my work and made my way up the industry as an up-and-coming journalist reporter and by thirty-four I was well known, had published one book with a second in the making, and had a fiancé-to-be-husband I would've married in six months time. The key word is "would've".

I'm not sure who took it worse when the news came, me or everyone else around me. For me, I had been preparing my whole life for this moment; however, in the last three years I had let myself come out of my shell and had let myself hope. That all came crashing down when my doctor said I had two years to live.

I didn't even make it two years.

I died on October 31, at my thirty-five years mark, on the day of my birth.

What I didn't expect…. was to wake up again.

I won't go into the gory details of my rebirth. It was unpleasant least to say.

It was warm.

Then it wasn't.

And I screamed and cried and whined and wondered why I couldn't move and why I couldn't see. And most of all, I wondered why I wasn't dead yet. Unless, of course, I was dead and this was the afterlife. That thought was frightening because this was some unholy type of unpleasantness. And it was fucken cold. I had a bone to pick with someone if this was the afterlife.

I spent the next who-knows-how-long in perpetual blindness, grasping blindly with my less-than-cooperative hands. It seemed that I had no motor control because my limbs refused to listen to anything I told them. It was endlessly frustrating. My near-blind vision didn't help either, and I couldn't make out anything clearly unless it was less than three inches from my face. During the first two weeks all I could make out over my stay were large hulking figures that hovered over me at undetermined intervals of time. Sometimes what felt like large hands would pick me up, other time I could hear something akin to cooing sounds while my ears still adjusted.

It didn't take long for me to come to the conclusion that I was a baby.

The idea of reincarnation had crossed my mind before. It was sort of a lovely thought, that maybe my poor abused family would get a second, and hopefully happier, chance at life. In my previous life (as I was calling it seeing as how I couldn't be sure that my last life was my first) I hadn't been particularly religious, I wondered to and from various religions neither accepting nor denying the existence of each. Reincarnation had just been one of those phases. But now I couldn't deny the fact that it existed especially now that I was a baby again.

Though I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to know all this.

I tried to keep count of time as the days went by. It was hard considering more than half the time I was asleep or too groggy to truly concentrate on the environment around me. Somewhere along the first two weeks the walls around me turned from endless white to baby blue. It took me a while to notice the change but I soon realized that I was no longer in the hospital and was probably in whatever house I would have to live in from now on.

The idea of a new home, a new family, was saddening but at the same time I was pretty excited. Maybe this time around I wouldn't have to suffer all the misery my previous life piled upon me. I just hoped that fate would leave my family curse behind me; I didn't think I could handle the grief for a second time. Maybe this time it wouldn't be cancer, maybe it be something worse. But I didn't really care what form my curse would take, I just hoped it wouldn't come at all.

By what I assumed was the two month mark I started to see a lot clearer and my hearing improved, if only slightly. I came to recognize the thin and tall woman who took care of me everyday as my mother, or at least the woman who birthed me this time around. Her voice was the clearest out of everyone I've met to pinpoint because it was shrill and high-pitched. I felt bad but had to admit that I really didn't like her voice at all.

She would come into my room everyday at least seven to ten times, taking me downstairs only twice a day and outside only three times a week every other day. It was like clockwork. I could tell she was one of those overly obsessive organized people or a neat freak. Not that I could complain, I gave my siblings much heartache over their messy habits.

It was a little horrifying when I first comprehended that I was being breast fed sometime within those first two weeks. It can be confidently said that I was properly traumatized. But over the weeks, months now, I've come to accept that this was part of my life now and I would only have to put up with it for so long before they started bottle feeding me (my new mother soon tired of breastfeeding so it didn't take long before I was eagerly –relieved to be- sucking from a bottle). It was clear my new mother loved me dearly and I knew, as I grew older, I would be one of those coddled children. I just hoped it didn't affect my personality or my ability to maintain independence (I was a grown woman after all).

I didn't nearly see my father as much. He, unlike mother, didn't see me periodically and his visits were sparse and at random intervals. He didn't coo or coddle but he had an arrogant and prideful tone to his voice that told me he bragged about me to his coworkers, or anything that had ears, as often as possible. He was a large man, huge compared to my mother. Even from my tiny and small view point I could tell his was grotesquely obese.

Then came the day that everything changed.

Part of me was relieved of my new life. Most people don't get a second chance, and none that I knew of got a second chance like mine. So when my second chance came crashing down all around me, it's acceptable that I didn't act well.

At two or three months I was still developing –and would be for a long time- and had yet to actually hear my new name. I've heard a few mumbles here and there, nothing really clear. All I knew was that my name began with either a B or a D and ended with a "–ee" sound. That was all I could get out of my ears even though my parents said it constantly. But it was always cooed at me from a distance about my crib, too far for my fresh ears to comprehend clearly.

As it was, the fateful day came when my mother picked me up and carried me downstairs and into an unfamiliar room, which I assumed was the living room. My head laid on her shoulder and my ear pressed against her towering neck. With my head so close to her mouth, for the first time since my rebirth I could actually comprehend what the women was saying.

"Vernon dear, could you hold the baby please."

I grimaced my baby face, unhappy at the name of my new father. I was immediately reminded of the fat walrus from the book series Harry Potter. My memories of that character were far from fond, and though it was never said, I always just took that the obese Uncle beat poor little Harry.

Though I supposed that I could live with my new father having that name. After all, I wouldn't be the one calling him Vernon and it wasn't like he was actually Vernon Dursley.

There was a mumbled reply and suddenly I was passed over to the hulking man and lean my head against his shoulder. I decided that I didn't like being held in these pudgy arms.

"Of course my honey flower," I would gag if I could. "What are you going to be doing?"

There was another mumbled reply, this time from Mother. Vern- Father replied with a chuckle that rumbled through his chest and vibrated my whole body. Then he spoke in a good-natured tone, "Of course! No one could expect less from the beautiful Petunia Dursley. I'm sure you'll give those housewives a run for their money." I froze.

Moth- Petunia must've noticed my sudden lack of movement because I could suddenly hear a worried tone in her shrilled voice reaching my ears. There was another shuffle and exchange of hands and I was once again held against Petunia's –my mother's- chest. I didn't move the entire time; disbelief and shock ran through me. She couldn't possibly be that Petunia Dursley. Am I going insane?

"Honey? Are you alright?" Her voice cooed to me with a frantic undertone. I felt her shift and look ahead, "Vernon! I don't think he's breathing!" I blinked against the cotton fabric of her dress, I'm not breathing? "Honey! Common dear!" Her shrilled voice rose in a crescendo and to a new pitch. "Vernon! Dudley's not breathing!"

I completely froze that that moment, all my muscles locking simultaneously. There was no way this could be a coincidence. My head grew dizzy from a lack of air and one thing kept repeating itself over and over in my brain:

I'm Dudley Dursley.

And then I snapped.

I can't really remember what happened after that. All I know was that I felt a heat, a terrible, horrifying, magnificent heat rise from what I can only describe as the deepest core of my being. I'm not sure if I screamed, Petunia was definitely, but that heat rose and charged and accelerated.

And then it exploded.

Pure, undiluted power exploded from deep within me. The sheer amount of sound was deafening as the windows shattered all around us. Petunia was screaming and screeching in my ear, I could hear Vernon yelling at a distance trying to reach his wife –or keep away from her, I still can't be sure on that. This all happened in a matter of seconds.

Then I felt the support around me disappear, I felt the rush of gravity as Petunia let go of me, coupled by the hurricane-like force of the power surging in the room, pull and push me towards the ground. I remember seeing in crystal clear detail each little fiber and string of the pastel green carpet around me as everything pulled into slow motion, the sounds of screaming, yelling, shattered glass, and creaking wood all around me before everything went black.

My last thought before I blacked out was "I can't believe my parents dropped me on my head as a baby."

I wasn't sure how long after that it took me to wake but when I did I had immediately realized that all my senses were now crystal clear and sharp. Whatever I had done speeded up my development incredibly.

Then I noticed a presence next to me. I strained to turn my baby neck towards the side, but a crystal clear picture of, who was undoubtedly, Petunia Dursley, from the Harry Potter movie franchise, greeted me. She had definite dark bags under her eyes; her hair stuck up in strange places, and her green floral dress was slightly skewed and not perfect. Overall, she looked like she hadn't slept in days and had passed out next to my white crib (I noticed that I was in the hospital).

I felt a pang then because I knew she loved me dearly, but I also knew how she and her husband would treat Harry. I was torn between my need for perfect parents and my prior-knowledge of a fictional world.

Later Petunia would wake up and see me staring at her and burst into tears.

Nothing was the same after that day. There were less coos and no more cuddles. I never saw Vernon much anymore and Petunia tried to make as little physical contact with me as possible. And though I didn't like the couple I also didn't like the feeling of being neglected. I grew up around a large family and I wasn't use to so little human contact.

Often times I would hear Vernon and Petunia arguing downstairs. I'm not sure how and when Vernon found out about the Wizarding world (I'm assuming right before or after the wedding) but they would argue about sending me off to Petunia's sister and her family. And though I probably would've been happier there I was still understandably upset and angry at such a suggestion. How could they not want me!

This pattern continued for a few more months, of which I grew depressed and lonely with no one to interact with except myself and the walls of my room.

Then one day the two entered my room. I looked up at my parents with large questioning eyes. Petunia gave me a tiny smile and hesitantly picked me up.

I gasped at the warmth of her touch and felt tears prickle in my eye. I wiggled and pressed my head into the crook of her neck and made soft baby cries. I decided to throw her a bone and hope that they won't ignore me anymore. "M-mama…"

I heard a small gasp and the once hesitant hands wrapped around me tighter, surer. "It's okay Diddykins, mama's here for you," she cooed into my hair and gave me a firm kiss on the head. "See Vernon, Dudley wouldn't hurt anyone." She held me up and faced me, a warmer smile on her face. "Isn't that right Dudders."

I gurgled happily, trying anything that would please the two with full control over my life. I noticed that even Vernon's stern face softened a bit at my baby antics.

"I… I suppose it'll be all right. You did say that your sister told you these… accidental magics happen sometimes but don't actually grow into anything right?" The man questioned uncertainly. "After all, our son couldn't possibly be some weird freak of course." His tone grew arrogant at the end and he smirked, suddenly sure of himself.

"Of course, of course," Petunia waved him off. "Lily just tainted little Dudley here a little with her freakiness. It'll amount to nothing in the end. He'll be normal. Right Diddykins?" She beamed at me. "You won't do anymore of that abnormal-ness will you?"

I didn't like where this was going. That they were just going to pass of my hurricane of accidental magic off as a one in a million kind of thing. But… I didn't want to suffer being alone again. I took a moment to think it through then responded with a happy "Mama!"

Vernon and Petunia both smiled at me.

For the next year everything seemed back to the way it was. I was their happy normal baby and I almost never did anything freaky or abnormal. When I did by accident (I really wanted that milk bottle Petunia forgot and left across the room) Petunia and Vernon would turn a blind eye. The power of human denial was truly a force to be reckoned with. It made me wonder what else people could trick themselves into believing if they wanted to hard enough.

Life was… Good. The two adult Dursleys got their normal, quiet, and eventless life back and I played my role as normal and happy baby. It seemed life would continue as such for a long time.

Then that day arrived.

I don't actually know when Dudley's birthday is, sometime in spring I would assume. But something about my actual birthday, from my previous life, made itself known when the day arrived. One the day of Halloween there was a spark in the air that made my wispy baby hair stand on end and send a shiver through me. This year was no exception. In fact, it may be even more pronounced. The atmosphere reminded me of my first time doing accidental magic. It was saturated with an energy and power that licked at my core. I couldn't help but cry and wail as my natural baby-instincts screamed at me to thrash and throw a fit. Something was going down tonight, and if memory served right two wizards would die tonight and a baby would be orphaned. Petunia had long given up trying to sooth my crying and had retired to a restless night.

My sharp eyes were sore as day turned into night and the night wore on and on, but something in me refused to let me sleep. Way past midnight, and probably sometime in the early morning before sunrise, there was a shift in the air. I sucked in a sharp breath when the light right outside my window went out. I was immediately reminded of the very first scene in Harry Potter where a lone Dumbledore steals the lights of streetlamps down a dark street. I was right. Soon you could hear the tell tale sign of a motorbike approaching. Hagrid.

Harry.

The sound of the bike went out after a few minutes and the sound of silence lasted for several more. Then suddenly there was a brief knocking coming from downstairs. My magically enhanced senses picked it up immediately. By this point my breathing was coming in and out in shallow breaths as I waited in (excitement?) tension.

There was a shift outside my door and across the hall and I heard Vernon grumbling angrily and Petunia's hushed yet worried voice. The obese man was not happy having being interrupted this late at night (and to be honest I would be very angry, and a little more than suspicious).

My eyes began to droop though, even when I heard the surprised gasp of Petunia way downstairs. The strange atmosphere had dissipated, the horrible night was over, and there was nothing left to keep me awake. I yawned widely and without my consent everything turned dark and I slept.

Phew! Glad that's done. This has been a plot bunny nagging at me for a while. I'm actually surprised no one has tried it yet (that I know of), but at the same time it makes sense.

So yes. This is an SIOC!Dudley. The first of it's kind as far as I know (and please let me know if you actually know of one. I would like to read it). I have a lot planned for Dudley (later will be referred to as Orion for reasons that will be explained later) and Harry. Obviously the story is going to be a lot different, especially since I've given Dudley power (I actually know of a fanfiction where Dudley gets powers and goes to Hogwarts, but that one wasn't a SIOC). Harry's childhood will also be a lot different since Dudley won't hate Harry (since she is actually very maternal with all her siblings in her past life) and will sort of see herself as Harry's mother in some ways.

Oh yeah, this will be Parental!Dudley/Harry with some actual romantic pairings on the side (many of which will be slash and het [maybe femslash if I feel like it, but probably unlikely]).

I hope you enjoy reading this. The next chapter we'll get into a fast-forwarded version of their childhood together so we can get to magiks as fast as possible. Also, as a heads up, this will be a very politics heavy plot. I'll try to make it as interesting as possible. I'm using this as a way to get myself into Wizarding politics and also magical theory (runes, spells, wand movement, ect…).

And before I forget, this story was actually inspired by a SIOC Katekyo Hitman Reborn fanfiction called Casalinga by Freydris. It's where the main OC character gets reincarnated as Sawada Nana. It delves quite a bit into her childhood than takes off after she meets Iemitsu and Tsunayoshi is born. Nana is also pretty badass in a homicidal but loving and protective mother way. You should go read it. I'm addicted.

Thanks for reading! Till next time. (Drop a review on your way out)

~TheFireCrest