"So what exactly is it you do for a living?" Vernon asks, scowling. He is looking for a fight, maybe, or just a reason to distrust these wizards. He has his doubts that wizards have real jobs, anyway.
"I'm an accountant," says Hestia Jones brightly.
"I'm a shopowner," adds Dedalus Diggle.
There is nothing disreputable in their answers, so Vernon grunts and keeps driving.
The safe house emerges in a distinctly magical way, bulging out of the street once Dedalus says the address. Vernon makes a pah sound to show his feelings for magic, but they go inside number 301, Coffert Lane without a word.
Vernon complains about the couch and Petunia inspects the kitchenware suspiciously, but Dudley is exploring his room. He drops his bags on the bed and looks out the window at the people on the street, pisses around with the lamp. It's clearly magical, there's no cord and nowhere for a battery, but it lights up brightly enough under the shade that he can't tell if it's a proper lightbulb.
He turns it off and it solves the mystery: there is no bulb. He lights it again and sticks a finger into the light. It's pleasantly warm.
"You're telling me there's no toaster?" he hears his Mum saying, downstairs.
"What on earth is a toaster?" says Dedalus, fascinated. "What does it do?"
Petunia sputters. "Why it- it toasts."
"There's no toaster," says Vernon in disgust. He shakes his head ruefully. "Bleeding wizards."
"Can they see us on the porch?" Dudley asks Hestia.
"No," she says. "The outline of the Fidelius- the protection charm, that is- is right in line with the house. Put a toe off of the porch and they'd see you, but you're safe on it."
"Cool," says Dudley.
He wonders how his friends are. He hasn't really been close with them lately, except Piers Polkiss, and mostly because his mum and Piers' were still chums. He doubts they miss him. Probably they just replaced him with that Travis Stubson.
He shifts in his chair. Wizards might all sort of be freaky and unusual, but this is a fantastic chair. Not that he'd say so. "So this dark wizard bloke, this You-Know-What- he's mad at Harry?"
"Yes," says Hestia. She is fidgeting with her fingers at her lips. "Harry's… it's a long story."
"I have nothing to do," says Dudley. There is no TV here. His father had yelled about it and then sulked at dinner yesterday.
"Well, there was a prophecy," says Hestia.
"A what?"
"I've gotten you a power strop," says Dedalus. He is the only one who leaves for any reason- he's possibly the least threatening Order Member there is- and today his spoils are a bag of canned soup and fresh vegetables and a cake and a power strip.
Strip, mind you. But Dudley doesn't correct Dedalus.
Dudley is inclined to be grateful, but that doesn't help that the magic safe house doesn't have any damned outlets. "We can't use it," he says. "There's no power."
"What?"
"The plug," says Dudley. "There's nowhere to plug it."
Dedalus frowns at the power strip. "Well, I'll be damned," he says. "Sorry."
"It's fine," says Dudley. What would he do with a power strip anyway? He left his computer at home.
"I'll have to get this back to Arthur," says Dedalus. He shakes his head. "Won't be an easy task, mind, the Weasleys are being more heavily watched than anyone in the Order."
"Arthur Weasley?" says Dudley. He tries to remember why he knows that name.
"How do the toilets work?" Petunia asks Hestia. "Is there a magical sewer or do you just- put everything in some magic vault to disappear?"
She is half curious and half terrified that there is a giant magical vault of sewage under the house. It's a disgusting thought.
"Merlin, no," says Hestia. "We use the sewer like you Muggles do."
"Huh," says Petunia suspiciously.
"If there's something that the Muggles got right, it's the sewers," says Hestia. "Brilliant, that."
"Hm," says Petunia.
Their first visitor is a month into the summer. Kingsley shows up and closes the door behind him.
"I've got to be brief," he says. "They don't suspect me yet but they will, eventually. Scrimgeour is dead and the Ministry is starting to cave. Pius Thicknesse is under the Imperius and has already started passing laws against Muggleborns."
Dudley, sitting in his chair a little away from the door, doesn't understand a single word of that, but Dedalus and Hestia both nod, even though their faces have grown solemn and grave.
Kingsley glances over his shoulder. "The Weasleys are being watched closely, so I wouldn't try to make any contact. Remus and Tonks are already in hiding."
Dudley turns back around, but stills when Kingsley continues.
"Harry Potter and his friends disappeared. We haven't heard from them."
"So you own a drill company?" Dedalus asks, just for conversation. They are all kind of going nuts.
Vernon grunts his yes.
"What are drills?" Dedalus asks.
"They're loony," Vernon says in an undertone while Hestia and Dedalus are teaching Dudley to play Gobstones. "I don't like the likes of them around Dudders."
"They've been good hosts," Petunia whispers back.
"That- that Diggle bloke doesn't even know what a drill is!"
"By all means," hisses Petunia, "we can go back to our lives and wait to be kidnapped and killed!"
Vernon sputters quietly.
"Do you mind?" Hestia says. "Your mum seems like the type to hate smoking."
"She is," says Dudley.
Hestia sits in the chair next to him and lights up a cigarette.
"Can I have one?" says Dudley, maybe on impulse.
She passes him one and lights it. He takes a drag and exhales.
"I've got a daughter, you know," says Hestia. "About your age. She's at Hogwarts."
"The school?"
"Yeah."
They smoke in quiet for a moment.
"Why don't you keep your daughter with you here?" asks Dudley.
"I wanted to," says Hestia. "She insisted she'd be fine."
Dudley can't imagine his mum ever letting him at a dangerous school, even if he insisted he'd be fine. "I hope she's alright," he says.
"Me too," says Hestia.
"How do you turn up the heat?" Vernon asks, at dinner. "The house is freezing."
"Turn up the heat?" repeats Hestia.
"There's a fireplace," says Dedalus. "Do you want me to duplicate blankets?"
"Duplicate blankets?!"
"It's a simple spell," says Hestia.
The total otherness of the wizards is too much for Vernon. "Don't you ruddy magicians have heaters?" he snaps.
"Ruddy magicians?" says Hestia, affronted.
"Heaters?" says Dedalus.
It's a miserable Christmas. Dedalus couldn't Apparate with a properly sized tree, so he buys a tiny tabletop one. Dudley misses his old life bitterly, and Vernon and Petunia nitpick everything about the house and the meal, either out of spite or frustration.
"Don't tell your mum," says Hestia, handing Dudley a glass of something dark orange.
"What is it?" he says. He wouldn't have told his mother even if Hestia hadn't said so.
"Firewhiskey," says Hestia. "I'll only give you one, mind. But you aren't underage for wizards."
Dudley won't argue with that.
Once, Dudley had been a respected kid. You knew not to mess with him.
Since he was fifteen he has started to realise that he wasn't necessarily respected, but feared. That he had been cruel. And he regrets it, but not enough to want to apologise. No, he'd much rather move on, forget about it, and hope that everyone in Little Whinging forgot him too.
"I don't know Harry very well," he tells Dedalus. "I wasn't ever very nice to him."
"That's a shame," says Dedalus. "He's a fantastic wizard. He's done a lot of incredible things, Harry has."
"Has he?"
"He outflew a dragon once," says Dedalus.
"You're shitting me," says Dudley. "Dragons are real?"
"You don't know much about magic, do you?" says Dedalus.
Dudley almost says that Harry never talked about it, but then Dudley had never asked. "No," he says.
"Well, he also killed a basilisk- thats a giant snake that can kill you if you look it in the eye- and he fought off a load of dementors once. A hundred or so." Dedalus pauses. "Dementors are-"
"I know what a dementor is," says Dudley.
There's a moment, where Dudley tries to wrap his head around skinny, speccy Harry fighting a giant snake or a dragon or a hundred dementors. "Wow," he says.
Dedalus nods, not seeming to look at Dudley. "Wow," he agrees.
"Dudley said you had a daughter," says Petunia.
"I have a daughter," says Hestia. "Megan. She's Dudley's age."
"Do you get to see her?" Petunia says.
"I haven't seen her since July," says Hestia.
Petunia nods. "I'm sorry," she says.
Hestia nods too. "Scone?" she says, mostly to change the subject.
Petunia takes a scone.
"What are dementors?" Dudley asks.
"They're prison guards," says Dedalus. "Right nasty creatures, too. Suck the joy out of anyone."
"Seems harsh," says Dudley.
Dedalus shrugs uncomfortably. "The people in Azkaban are usually the worst of the worst. Murderers and torturers."
Dudley himself used to be a sort of torturer and he knows it, so he keeps his mouth shut.
"Loads of the prisoners go mad, I'm told," says Dedalus mournfully. He hates to think about the cruelty of Azkaban as much as he hates to think about what would happen if the prisoners were loose.
"What shop do you own?" Vernon asks Dedalus.
"I own a watch shop," says Dedalus. "They can talk, they can spin, they can remind you of things, and they're always on time!"
"Hmph," says Vernon.
Dedalus digs a pocket watch out of his trousers. "You're late!" it proclaims cheerily.
"Are you late?" says Vernon, trying not to be amused.
"In my experience, I'm always late for something," says Dedalus.
Dudley comes in on Hestia listening to the radio one night, and she turns the volume down immediately.
"It's fine," he says.
She turns it back up, and he catches Harry's name. "What is this?"
"It's called Potterwatch," says Hestia. "Keeps us updated on the Order- that's-"
"Right," says Dudley.
"Sometimes it will have news on Harry Potter," she says. "It's just saying he's confirmed to be with Hermione Granger."
"Her-what?" says Dudley.
Hestia is surprised sometimes how little Dudley knows about Harry. "She's one of his best friends," she says. "Most of us knew she was with him anyway. It's nice to know they're alive."
"Right," says Dudley. "The- the prophecy and such."
"Mm-hm," says Hestia. She focuses on the radio again- it's getting to the end.
She only recognises two names out of the fifteen dead in the last two weeks, which is a good day. She turns off the radio.
"Are lots of people dying?" asks Dudley.
"Yeah," says Hestia, thinking of Emmeline Vance. "Lots."
Dudley can tell his mother doesn't like their visitors- it's a scruffy, worried man in ratty clothes and a younger man with dreadlocks who are meeting with Hestia and Dedalus in the kitchen.
"The twins and Kingsley are with Andromeda," says Lee Jordan, when Dedalus asks.
"Merlin," says Hestia. "Can I get you a drink?"
Lee rubs his face with his hand and Hestia notices Dudley hovering in the kitchen door, worried. "Yeah " he says. "Please. Actually, Hestia, you should have a seat."
She brings them water and sits across from them. Dudley slouches into the doorframe and inspects his nails.
They speak quietly, even once Hestia starts to sob. Dudley watches her shoulders shake and feels like he's seeing something private, secret. He retreats to the living room.
"Sloppy, disheveled men," his mother comments, but he ignores it.
"Remember what I told you about the dementors?" says Dedalus.
Dudley does, but he remembers better that he'd met a dementor once.
"Hestia's daughter is missing," says Dedalus. "As near as anyone can guess, she's in Azkaban."
Dudley is immensely sorry for Megan Jones.
Hestia tells him a few days later that Harry is alive. "He's at another Order safe house," she says. "With- oh, you wouldn't know him. With Ollivander. He's a wandmaker."
"Cool," says Dudley.
He considers telling his parents that Harry is still alive, but he doesn't think they'd appreciate the news. He sulks in his room instead.
"It's been months since I've been out of here," Vernon is ranting. "Ruddy months! And not a word about any- any wars or anything to do with their lot- a fine state of things, that is-"
Dudley and Hestia are smoking on the porch. She has started smoking more often, and he has kept her company silently.
"I'm sorry about how I was to Harry," says Dudley. He exhales his smoke and adds, "He's probably dead and I can't tell him so."
"He's still at the safe house, last I heard," says Hestia.
She's being helpful in a very unhelpful way. "Probably it won't make up for it," he says. "But, I dunno. I think I made a lot of mistakes."
Hestia shrugs. "I'm sure he would appreciate the gesture, if you ever see each other again."
Dudley nods.
Petunia comes downstairs one day and there's another visitor, a young man with an earring and long red hair. She distrusts him on looks alone.
"Tonks had the baby," he's saying. "Remus brought by a photo, earlier."
"Reckon that's good," says Dedalus. "Poor girl."
"She looks happy," says Hestia, taking the photograph. "Oh, such a pretty baby-"
"Ted," says the redheaded man. "His name is Ted."
Hestia and Dedalus exchange a glance and Petunia knows there is a sad story behind the entire thing. She turns around and goes back up the stairs.
"We have to go," Hestia tells them. "If nobody returns for you by three days' time, then you ought to start making plans to leave the country."
"What's happening?" says Dudley. "What is it?"
Hestia's face, when she turns to him, is pale but determined. "A battle," she says.
"What the ruddy hell does that-"
"Your nephew," says Dedalus. "Harry. He's back at Hogwarts and they need every wand they can get."
Dudley tries to think about a wizards' battle. He imagines it's pretty epic. Lots of fire and explosions.
"Good luck," says Petunia.
"Thank you," say Dedalus and Hestia in unison. Hestia ties her robes shut and then they both spin away with a loud crack.
Dudley wonders what's happening but it drives him nuts to think of it, so he tries again to read one of the comic books Hestia had brought him. It's full of weird words- he can recognise some of them, like "Muggle" or "Stupefy" but the rest- Hippogriff, Obliviate, Ravenclaw, Divination, Legilimens- escape him.
But it's not like he has anything else to do.
The next day they are visited by a redheaded young man with a long nose.
"You-Know-Who is dead," he tells them, when Petunia has given him tea. "The Order is trying to sort out the Ministry- that's where Hestia is. Dedalus is in Hospital but he's expected to recover."
"What happened?" says Dudley.
"There was a battle," says the man. "At the end, Harry killed You-Know-Who. There are a number of- there were a number of casualties. But the war is over and the majority of the Death Eaters are dead or waiting for trials."
Dudley glances at his father.
"Death Eaters are You-Know-Who's followers," says the man. "Blimey." He scratches his head.
"Sorry," he says. "I'm not properly an Order member. They just can't spare any Order right now so I'm going to the safe houses and updating them."
"So are we free to go?" says Vernon.
"Yeah," says the man. "Get your belongings and whatever. I still have like five houses to get to."
They stand outside the house and stare at it for a moment, then Vernon turns around first. "Let's go, Petunia."
They get into Uncle Vernon's car and drive away; Dudley looks over his shoulder once and the house looks bigger than it'd felt. He looks ahead again, at his parents in the front seats, and wonders what they are going to do. How they're going to restart their lives.
For the first time he can't wait to move out.