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Elspeth Dursley

Dudley Dursley felt uncomfortable. It wasn't very often that he felt uncomfortable and he didn't like the sensation one bit. Come to think of it, he didn't much fancy standing around in a train station with a pile of luggage and a ticket that no-one in their right mind would take seriously, either, and yet that was exactly what he was doing. The others were late and he wasn't impressed. A sharp faced woman in a uniform kept giving them looks and he was pretty sure that, any minute now, she was going to bustle over and start making a nuisance of herself. Luckily there were a large percentage of weird-looking people in King's Cross today. And Elspeth's owl wasn't the only one making a hideous racket.

His wife kept giving him funny looks, too, but unlike the woman in uniform, Mindy's were more hurt than anything else. She hadn't stopped fussing over Elspeth since they'd arrived and he could tell that she was going to burst into tears any minute now. Not the girl – she looked so radiantly excited that you'd have thought she were going on holidays rather than starting school. Dudley supposed that years of listening to James and Albus boasting about it over their Christmas dinner would rather do that to a child.

No; it was his wife who was going to break down. All these years they'd been married, and she'd always known exactly what his cousin was, but somehow Dudley didn't think she'd fully grasped the greater implications the day when Elspeth had made the peppershaker explode during one of her tantrums. It wasn't that Mindy was stupid but – well, actually, it probably was. His wife was very, very pretty and he cared a lot about her, but intellectually impressive she wasn't. She always got this cowed expression at Christmas when Hermione Weasley rang the doorbell, and she was wearing a similar look now.

Elspeth prodded him sharply in the stomach and when he glanced down at her, he found her glaring up at him with an impatient, cross expression crumpling up her blonde eyebrows. "You said Lil would be here, Dad."

She was right, he had said that. He'd agreed some time ago that it would be best to meet the others here. Partly because he didn't fancy the prospect of sending his daughter through a ruddy wall on her own – and he still wasn't entirely sure if it would let him through or not – but mainly for the simple reason that it was what Elspeth had wanted. And what his daughter wanted, his daughter got.

"They're probably late," he muttered. Harry had said they'd be driving from Grimwauld Place, and the traffic was pretty bad. They were probably sitting in a jam somewhere. That, or one of the boys had pulled some stupid stunt and slowed them down. The Potter children could be trouble. Dudley still wasn't sure that he really wanted Elspeth going off to school with them; Christmas time was more than enough as far as he was concerned. And he'd already found her a place at a fine school that Mindy had had her heart set on. But when the letter had come, he'd simply let her open it. Maybe he wasn't as smart as the Weasley woman, but he remembered well enough how pointless his father's battle against the bloody things had been.

Suddenly a high-pitched squeal split the air and there was a mess of arms and pale hair as Lily Potter appeared at a run and caught his daughter up in a fierce hug. Elspeth squealed just as loudly in return, and her father grimaced at the volume. A few minutes later, the rest of his cousin's family arrived.

" Dudley," said Harry by way of greeting, and Ginevra hugged Mindy sympathetically.

"Harry," replied Dudley in kind, and then, when Ginevra had released her, he put an arm around his wife's narrow waist and hoped she wasn't about to start blubbing. There was an awkward silence amongst the adults, filled in by the sound of the girls chattering at full speed, and Albus throwing in the odd comment. James hung back with his luggage and looked bored.

The thing was, Dudley never knew quite what to say to his cousin. It wasn't that they weren't on friendly terms these days. They were. But what does a salesman discuss with an auror?

"Excited, Ellie?" asked Harry's wife with a smile.

Elspeth beamed and nodded so enthusiastically that her blonde hair flew around her face, then asked, "D'you think Lil and I will end up in the same House, Auntie Ginny? I want to sleep in the same dorm. I asked Dad but he was being boring and said he didn't know."

Ginevra shot him a smile, and then answered, "You'll have to take that one up with the Sorting Hat, poppet."

His daughter nodded earnestly and then started chattering on about her owl. Dudley still wished she could have chosen something normal, like a cat.

Harry did something so that they could all enter Platform 9 ¾ and then, there on the other side and faced with the gleaming steam engine that would take their daughter away, Mindy Dursley really did break down.

"She shouldn't go," she sobbed tearfully against his shoulder, after Elspeth had hugged them both tightly but briefly, and then dashed off with Lily to find a seat. "It's not right. She should stay with us."

He patted her helplessly on the back and, deep down, agreed with her completely. The whole thing was a stupid idea. But how could he fight the facts? His daughter was a witch and it was his fault, it came in his blood he supposed, and there was nothing he could do about it. Besides, the question was irrelevant. Elspeth wanted to go to Hogwarts.

And what his daughter wanted, his daughter got.