Chapter 1: A Magical Trip to Diagon Alley

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, though if I did, I'd probably lease him out to the highest bidder.

The first time Dudley learned about the magical world was from reading his mother's diary. At the young age of seven, he had snuck into his mother's bedroom and retrieved the book which she almost always kept hidden. Reading the diary, he learned of a magical world that existed, hidden behind the mundane one that he inhabited.

Dudley's aunt (who he had been told had died in a car crash) was apparently a witch, and though his mother's writing had tinted the entire account in a tone of disgust, Dudley knew right then and there that he had to be a wizard, no matter what it took. He wasn't going to be just any wizard either. He had to be the most powerful wizard to have ever lived.

You see, ever since he had been young, Dudley knew he was destined for greatness. He knew that someday he would rule the world. He wasn't really interested in enslaving people or killing them or anything, he just wanted to own everything. He would deal with everything else afterwards, once he had an entire cabinet of people to manage the world for him.

In the more immediate moment though, Dudley began to pay more attention to his cousin, Harry. The bespectacled boy was allegedly a wizard. This certainly explained the many odd things that happened around Harry, such as the way his hair always grew back overnight no matter how much you cut it, or the way that he would somehow disappear from dead ends when he was being chased. Dudley soon began sneaking downstairs and cutting off large amounts of Harry's hair to examine (which turned out to be, regretfully, just normal hair), and since Harry's hair always grew back by morning, nobody was any the wiser.

Dudley's second exposure to the magical world came when he was nine. His obsession with magic had grown to the point where his parents had actually sent him to Mrs. Figg's house, with Harry, while they were out having a "nice dinner". While Mrs. Figg was busy showing Harry her cat pictures again, Dudley had explored the old dusty house, and had soon stumbled upon a collection of letters and books hidden in a dusty cabinet. He had quickly noticed words like "Wizard", "Magic", and "Spells" on the books and letters, so he had simply stuffed them all into his bookbag to look at later.

The books, as it turns out, consisted of several volumes on Wizarding history and culture, and few books on basic household potion brewing (although the potions all seemed to require such ingredients as "powdered dragon scales" or "flobberworm mucus"). The letters turned out to be a correspondence between Mrs. Figg and a man named "Mr. Dumbledore". Every letter appeared to be detailing Harry's status and welfare, though based on Dudley's firsthand experience, it seemed that Mrs. Figg was leaving out an awful lot.

After studying these letters and books, Dudley was able to put together a fairly good picture of what the wizarding world was like. Now he only had to wait for the inevitable letter from Hogwarts that would arrive when Harry turned eleven.

In the weeks leading up to Harry's birthday, Dudley spent a great deal of time building up an assortment of items that could reasonably pretend to be magic (such as a few trick cups, some ribbons hidden in false fingers, and a couple sparklers down his sleeves), most of which he bought with money from selling his birthday presents. He had even extracted some of Harry's blood (once again while they boy was sleeping) and put it in a tiny flesh-colored bag on the end of his index finger, in case magic was determined through some sort of blood test.

What Dudley could never be prepared for was the hectic few days of constantly moving around after his father had first seen that letter. Even more so, Dudley could not possibly have been prepared for the literal giant who had knocked down the door to their shack. Dudley could only stand there in a mixture of fear and wonder as the man had squeezed himself through the doorway.

"Couldn't make us a cup o' tea, could yeh? It's not been an easy journey..."

The giant man made for the couch, and Dudley quickly and respectfully moved out of the way. Soon, the giant and Harry were having a bit of a talk, eventually culminating in Hagrid calmly informing Harry that he was a wizard.

Soon after that things started to go bad, and his parents started threatening Hagrid. This was when Dudley decided to make his move. It's now or never, he affirmed as he stepped forwards.

His father was currently raving on about magic. "We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish."

"Stop it, Dad." Dudley said, his voice steely. All eyes in the room turned to him as he faced down his father. "I can't believe that you knew about something like this and still treated Harry this way." Dudley turned away from his father, a look of disgust on his face, and strode over to where Harry and Hagrid sat. "Excuse me, mister Hagrid sir. Could I ask how you check for wizardry? I've been having all these weird things happen to me recently, and I'd like at least to check."

The giant seemed taken aback. "Er, well I guess I know the magic identifyin' spell…" Hagrid started rummaging through his robes, and soon pulled out a slightly greasy white business card. "Jus put a drop a blood on 'ere," he said, pointing to the card.

Dudley nodded nervously. He was glad that he had prepared the blood, though he was a bit disappointed that he never got to use the sparklers that he still had hidden in his sleeves. Dudley carefully pricked the blood bag on his finger with a needle and squeezed out a drop of Harry's blood onto the card. Hagrid then pointed his umbrella at the blood drop and muttered something under his breath. The blood immediately started to bubble, and soon turned green.

Hagrid looked at the now green blood on the card, then to the slightly pudgy boy in front of him. "I don' believe it," he finally said. "Looks like yer a wizard as well."

There were immediately several shouts around the room, from Vernon's cry of betrayal and shock at Dudley being revealed to be a wizard, to Harry's cry of sadness for the very same reason. Petunia hadn't said anything, but simply stood there in shock, mouthing the word "wizard" over and over again. It took over an hour and a couple stunning spells, courtesy of Hagrid, for them to calm down. Eventually the two elder Dursleys had been locked into their room, and Harry, Dudley and Hagrid in the living room, sitting around the fire.

Hagrid had told them about Harry's parents' deaths, and about Voldemort. Dudley had stayed mostly quiet throughout the whole story, but once he had heard about Voldemort, Dudley realised that he was a man who also had great ambition, but had gone about trying to reach his goal in the worst way imaginable. Dudley decided that when he took over the world, it would be through making allies, not enemies. Eventually, after Hagrid had sent off an owl to confirm that Harry had gotten his letter, and to report the discovery of another wizard in the household, the three of them went to sleep.

Dudley woke up to the sound of tapping. Grumpily, he sat up and saw an owl outside the window, trying to get in. He untangled himself from his bedsheets and opened the window, yawning as the bird thrust a paper-bound leg at him.

"Ye gotta pay him five Knuts." Dudley turned as he heard the slightly hoarse voice from the couch. "Here." The giant carefully fished a few coins out of his coat pockets and tossed them to Dudley.

Dudley looked at the coins. "Are these coins… solid copper?"

"Aye," said Hagrid, still waking up. "An' Sickles are silver, an' Galleons gold."

Dudley stared at the coins in shock. "You use solid gold coins as currency?" he exclaimed. He shook his head. There had been a few mentions of "golden Galleons" in the books, but he hadn't expected them to be solid gold!

Looking down at the copper coins in his hand Dudley reasoned that copper, at least, wasn't all that bad. He took the newspaper from the owl and placed the Knuts in the bird's money pouch, then tossed the newspaper to Hagrid.

Soon Harry woke up as well, and the three of them all left the island via Vernon's boat. Harry and Dudley sat on opposite sides of the boat, still not entirely comfortable with each other's presence. Hagrid only sighed, chalking this up to yet another case of sibling rivalry.

Dudley was the first to speak up. "So, this Diagon Alley place. How has a place that big been kept hidden for so long?"

"Well, the whole place 's surrounded with all kinds a muggle deterrents, an' the only place anyone can get in er out es through a magically locked door. Fer the most part muggles could only find it if they already knew it was there."

Dudley nodded, then moved on to more questions about the workings of the wizarding world. He asked about everything from how they trained their owls to deliver the post like that to how their pictures moved, although a great majority of his questions were simply answered "Magic". Harry was strangely quiet throughout all this, though he still asked a few questions.

Soon enough the triad arrived at the Leaky Cauldron. Almost as soon as they had entered, people started clamoring around Harry, trying to shake his hand. Hagrid soon shooed them off, and the three made their way through the pub to the back wall. As the group stepped through the magical archway, Dudley and Harry both gasped at the amazing sights before them.

Crowds of people roamed about in multicolor robes. As Harry and Dudley walked down the street they saw signs advertising absolutely everything they could imagine.

"Try the New Every-Flavor Ice Cream from Bertie Botts!" read one sign. "Need Space? Don't worry! New and improved Mokeskin pouches will hold everything you need!" read another.

"Yeh two'll be needin' some school supplies," Hagrid said. "But we gotta get yer money first. For that, we'll be headin' to the best wizarding bank there is. Gringotts."

The three walked to the grand marble building at the end of Diagon Alley. Once through the doors, Dudley began thinking. He would need money if he wanted to get anything, but his parents weren't likely to give him anything after he'd been marked a wizard. "Say, Hagrid. My parents have pretty much disowned me at this point, so how am I going to be able to buy anything?"

Harry, on Hagrid's other side, also had concerns. "Yeah Hagrid. I don't have any money either."

Hagrid chuckled. "Yeh don't think your parents left you with nothin' do ya Harry? As for yeh, Dudley, I suppose yeh'll have to borrow some o' Harry's money. That fine with yeh, Harry?"

Harry nodded a bit timidly. Dudley resolved that once he'd gained some power, he would pay back everything to Harry at least double. It was the least he could do, seeing as it was because of Harry that he was able to trick his way into this world.

The trio reached the front desk, where a strange creature that Hagrid had called a goblin sat. "Morning." Hagrid said. "We've come ter take some money outta Mr. Harry Potter's safe." Hagrid rummaged around in his coat for a bit before placing a tiny golden key and a letter on the counter. "I've also got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore. It's about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen."

The goblin looked over the key and read the letter, then handed them back to Hagrid. "These both seem to be in order. I'll have someone take you down to the vaults immediately. Griphook!"

A goblin who was presumably Griphook arrived in the lobby and took them through a side door. They found themselves in a stone passage with rails along the floor, and a cart sitting on it. Griphook directed the three of them into the cart, and soon they were off.

After a blurred few minutes of speed, turns, and almost falling out of the cart at least thrice, they finally arrived at a vault door, which Griphook immediately moved to unlock while the three other passengers were still trying not to throw up.

Dudley recovered instantly the second he saw the massive piles of copper, silver, and gold coins stacked up in the vault. His eyes widened as he took in the massive piles of wealth within.

"The gold ones are Galleons," Hagrid explained. "Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough." Dudley wasn't really one for math, but even he knew that heaps and heaps of pure gold coins was a lot of money.

Hagrid took out a couple of fairly small bags, and helped Dudley and Harry shovel only a disappointing hundred Galleons into each bag. As they turned to leave, Dudley hung back a bit, making a big deal out of inspecting one Galleon while he snatched an additional hundred or so Galleons and hid them in his jacket pockets.

"Come on now, boy," called the goblin from the entrance. "I've got to close these doors now, and we only check these vaults for stragglers every ten years." The goblin chuckled as Dudley immediately ran to the door, seeing as he had no intention of being trapped here for ten years.

Dudley was very careful not to let the Galleons in his pockets clatter as they rode the minecart once again, though he they end up doing so several times during the ride. Luckily, Harry was too busy looking around, and Hagrid too busy trying not to throw up, that neither noticed. Soon enough they arrived at another much grander looking vault, and Hagrid struggled to his feet as the goblin walked up to the door.

The goblin began to stroke the door, and Dudley wondered what could be the "You-Know-What" that was in the vault. Maybe it held the most powerful wand ever, or a ring that could do anything. Dudley tried to look past Hagrid, but saw only a small object bound in paper. Whatever that is, it must be really valuable to be in a vault like this, thought Dudley.

They were soon above ground once again, now with heavier pockets (though some more than others), ready to get their school supplies. "Might as get yer uniforms," said Hagrid, nodding towards a shop with the words "Madam Malkins'" above the door. "Would yeh two mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts."

Dudley and Harry both agreed, and so they entered the clothes shop alone. As they entered, they saw another boy with pale blonde hair being fitted in the back.

"Hogwarts, dears?" asked a squat witch with the name "Madam Malkin" attached to the front of her robes. "Got the lot here. You'll just have to wait a moment." She put Harry and Dudley onto two stools near the other boy, then began fitting their robes.

"Hello," said the boy. "You going to Hogwarts too?"

Dudley, noticing the boy's expensive haircut, his highly polished shoes, and the gold lining on his robes, decided that this was an important boy to become friends with.

"Why yes I am, old sport," Dudley said, deciding to use a style of speech that he vaugely remembered from some movie about rich people. He gave the boy a smile that he knew to be both reassuring and confident. "Though I'm afraid I don't know much about Hogwarts. Could you perhaps help me out?"

The boy looked a bit surprised by his sophistication of speech, and quickly smiled back. "I do believe I can," he said. "For starters, there are four houses. There's Gryffindor for foolhardy idiots, Hufflepuff for weak doormats, Ravenclaw for know-it-all nerds, and Slytherin for people with actual ambitions and futures. My whole family's been in Slytherin, and we're one of the most powerful families in Britain."

Dudley nodded at this. Slytherin seemed like exactly the place he wanted to be. "Well, it certainly does sound like quite a good house, old sport," he said. "though I can't see Harry here being a Slytherin." Ignoring the shout of protest behind him, he continued. "Hufflepuff maybe, but certainly not Slytherin."

The kid grinned at this, and turned moved his hand forwards to shake. "You know, you're a pretty cool guy," he said. "The name's Draco Malfoy."

"Dudley Dursley." Dudley replied, shaking Draco's hand. "I'm glad I met you here, old sport."

Draco nodded, then turned to get his finished robes from the second fitting witch. "I suppose I'll see you at Hogwarts then," he said.

"I suppose I shall, old sport."

With that, the boy waved and left the shop, robes in hand. Dudley turned back, and soon Madam Malkin returned with two more sets of robes. "Here you are, dearies," she said as Harry and Dudley took their respective robes and left the shop. Harry still looked a bit dejected from Dudley's insult.

"You know, Slytherin doesn't sound like a good place at all if people like that guy are in it," said Harry grumpily.

"You're just jealous because I already have a wizard friend," said Dudley.

Harry gave a harrumph, and the two fell into silence, waiting for Hagrid's return. Dudley then realised that he would actually need to do some parts of his shopping alone, and that he would probably want to buy some extra stuff anyways.

"Say, Harry. I'm thinking of going and buying some of this stuff myself. Could you let Hagrid know? I'll meet you guys back here in an hour." Harry frowned, but still nodded, so Dudley immediately headed to the place near the entrance where they were advertising Mokeskin pouches.

He bought a medium-sized pouch for twenty Galleons and immediately put his robes and the rest of his money into it. He then headed for the wand shop, knowing that it would likely be the part of this trip that would be the hardest to bluff his way through. He rushed through the door of Ollivander's, startling the old man standing inside.

"Oh, hello there young man," the man (presumably Ollivander) said. "Are you here for a wand?"

Dudley looked around the shop, noticing the massive wall of wands behind the man. "Just give me any wand," he said, putting seven Galleons on the counter.

"Alright then, don't rush me." The man looked at him for a few seconds, then pulled a wand from the wall. "Try this one. Apple and dragon heartstring. Ten inches. Slightly ben-" He had held it out for Dudley to take, and Dudley immediately snatched it and stuffed it into his Mokeskin pouch.

"I'll take it," he declared as he spun and left the shop, ignoring the cries of protest from behind him about how a wand chooses the wizard, not the other way around.

Back on the street, he decided to pick up some potions supplies next. The books on potions he'd been reading had seemed to indicate that even people without magic could brew them, given the right materials, so he decided that potions would be a good field to focus on. He stopped by the cauldron shop to buy a standard pewter cauldron for class, and a compact mini-cauldron and lid in case he wanted to brew a potion that took a while to make. Both went into his mokeskin pouch (that thing was already proving worth all twenty galleons), and then off to the apothecary he went.

Dudley bought a surplus amount of potion ingredient on his list, and quite a few not on it as well. Satisfied that he had enough potion supplies to make as many potions as he could ever need, He then purchased up his telescope and scales on his way to the bookstore, Flourish and Blotts.

He picked up all the books he was required to buy, and got quite a few of the higher-level potion brewing textbooks as well. He bumped into Harry and Hagrid at the checkout counter as they were buying their own books.

Hagrid smiled as he saw the boy. "Looks like ye've got quite a stack o' books there," he commented, noticing how much higher Dudley's book stack was than Harry's. Harry only glared at him sullenly, as if he thought Dudley had taken more books just to show him up.

They paid for the books, which Dudley stuffed into his pouch. "Ah, got a Mokeskin pouch did yeh? Hide anythin' in there an' no one but the owner can get it out," he pointed out a bit redundantly, given that Dudley already knew how to use it. "They're rare, them."

The three of them stepped back out of the store, and Hagrid checked his copy of the list. "Just yer wand left, Harry," he said. "Ah yeah, an' I still haven't got yeh a birthday present."

Dudley saw Harry go red at that. "You don't have to," Harry said.

"I know I don't have to," said Hagrid, a bit more forcefully than necessary. "Tell yeh what, I'll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh'd be laughed at - an' I don' like cats, they make me sneeze. I'll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they're dead useful, carry yer mail an' everythin'."

The three of them entered a Eeylops Owl Emporium, where Dudley considered getting an owl as well. After all, they carried mail, which seemed to be the wizarding world's primary form of communication. Once inside, Harry gasped and moved almost immediately to a snowy white owl that stood out amongst the brown feathers of most of the rest of the store. Dudley took a bit longer to choose an owl, but eventually chose a large and noble looking one, with brown-black feathers and fierce looking eyes. The store clerk said that Harry's owl was a Snowy Owl, and that Dudley's was a Eurasian Eagle-Owl. Dudley decided to call his owl "Falcon", not because he was unable to distinguish different types of birds, but because he had always thought it a good name for a pet.

They left the shop and headed for Ollivanders while Harry thanked Hagrid profusely. Dudley simply tuned them out as he walked alongside them, flipping through his First-Year Potions textbook. It wasn't until he heard the jingling of the bell that he noticed that he had followed Harry and Hagrid back into Ollivanders.

"Good afterno- YOU!" the old man exclaimed as he noticed Dudley standing near the door. "What are you doing back here? Haven't you done enough by just grabbing the wand like that? How will we even know if the wand chose you?" The man seemed almost furious at Dudley.

Dudley's mind raced as he tried to stall for time. "Er, sorry. I was in a bit of a rush at the time, and I needed to get the wand and go." What do I do what do I do! Dudley was going into a panic.

"Oh, well you still can't just take a wand that isn't right for you," said Mr. Ollivander. "Why don't you take the wand out and we'll see if it sparks?"

That's it! Dudley realised. I'm pretty sure can pull this off. He reached his hand slowly and deliberately towards his mokeskin bag, carefully angling his hand in such a way that nobody in the shop could see his palm. He then muttered "wand" while he carefully maneuvered one of the sparklers in his sleeve into his palm, hiding flush against the wand. As he raised up the wand, he carefully flicked the tip of the sparkler, igniting it and letting the sparks loose.

To those watching him, it looked as though he simply lowered his arm to the bag, got his wand, and raised it while it sparkled.

Harry stared in shock. Up until then he had hoped that this was all some mistake, that maybe Hagrid's spell had gotten it wrong, but now that Dudley had successfully used his wand, there was no question.

Mr. Ollivander looked at Dudley quizzically, then sighed. "Well, it's not often that I get it right on the first try, but I suppose that wand is the right wand for you."

Dudley was too nervous to answer, so he simply nodded, slipping the wand and sparkler into his mokeskin pouch and hoping that the sparkler wouldn't set his books on fire.

After that, Harry had a vaguely eventful wand selection where they learned that Harry's wand was a twin to Voldemort's. As soon as they left the store, Dudley ducked into a side-alley and pulled the sparkler out of his pouch, then checked to make sure that his textbooks were alright (they were).

When he rejoined Harry and Hagrid, they seemed as though they were finishing up some discussion that didn't involve him. "Right well, here's yer tickets fer Hogwarts," he said, handing them a pair of tickets with the number "9 and ¾" written on it. "First o' September at King's Cross, it's all on yet tickets." By this time they were already leaving Diagon Alley again, and passing through the Leaky Cauldron.

The three passed in relative silence through most of muggle London, the locations formerly interesting or notable now paled in comparison to the sights and sounds of Diagon Alley. Harry and Dudley were soon standing on a train that would take them back to Little Whinging. Dudley was vaguely wondering in the back of his head how his parents had gotten off of that island, while Harry waved to Hagrid as their train took them back home.

A/N: Alright, so this story features Dudley doing things.

Within this story, I'm going to assume that potions can be brewed by muggles, otherwise Dudley will never get anything done.

Other than that, feel free to comment, review, give constructive criticism, or suggest alternate names for Dudley's owl.

Thanks for reading!