Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
A/N: This was written for Lady Phoenix Fire Rose's challenge, The Character One Hour Challenge/ The Hardest Challenge. Don't forget to review and DFTBA!
It had been five years. Five years since that peculiar boy left his house and five years since they had exchanged those fumbled words as he was being rushed away. Dudley hadn't returned to 4 Privet Drive ever since he had left that one night years n the past although he had been given permission to revisit the place from the Ministry of Magic. Now, though, he had finally summoned up the courage to go back- to face those long-forgotten memories he had left behind.
The night air was cool and crisp, a gentle breeze tickling the back of Dudley Dursley's neck. He was standing in front of a very familiar door primly embossed with the number "4" in a single golden numeral. He had been standing in this exact spot countless times before, but never had he been so reluctant to enter the abandoned house that had once been his home. With a final deep breath he took out a bronze key that matched the shade of the door handle and the lock opened with a faint click. He pocketed the key and reached out one thick hand to the door. Nervously, he turned the doorknob and pushed the entrance open. The door squealed and protested at being opened but after a bit of effort was given Dudley finally managed to open it. The musty air from inside the house came at him like a wave and he coughed from the stench of dust, mold, and all-around oldness of the place.
Uncertainly, he stepped into the house and was astonished at all the memories that came flooding back to him. Countless Christmases spent in front of that fireplace, opening presents and mocking a young Harry Potter about his lack of gifts. The kitchen table through an entryway across the room, and hundreds of mornings spent complaining about the lack of chocolate chip pancakes. When Dudley glanced around the old place once again, he saw a little door he nearly forgot was there. It was small and white, the dull copper knob probably stiff from disuse. It was the cupboard under the stairs, the first room that Harry ever had lived in. Dudley remembered running up and down the stairs above it just to make dust from plaster fall on the scrawny boy's head while he was trying to sleep. In spite of himself, Dudley couldn't help but smile t the old memories. Now he realized what a horrible person he had been to his cousin and housemate, but now it wouldn't really do any good to realize it now.
You see, ever since Dudley and his parents had been forced to leave number $ Privet Drive for the final time that night, that was the last time Dudley had ever seen Harry. The Dursleys had been forced to leave their home via car and hadn't seen that peculiar Potter boy since. Dudley's mother and father were probably glad not to have any reason to speak to Harry ever again but Dudley, on the other hand, regretted it a bit. He wanted to give Harry a proper apology, instead of the meek "I don't think you're a waste of space" bit he had said last time. Dudley wanted to say how terribly sorry he was for everything: the constant teasing and tormenting Dudley and his "friends' did to Harry, the servitude Harry was forced into by Dudley's parents, just the all-around disrespect that Harry had earned from the Dursleys. But, Dudley concluded, there was no real point in regret if there was no way of fixing those wrongs committed years ago.
For Dudley was twenty-two years of age at this time and Harry was of that age as well, and a twenty-two year-old-man could hide himself well from someone he didn't want to see rather well and Dudley had a feeling that Harry wouldn't want to see him after all this time. Actually, when the Dursleys had to leave Privet Drive five years ago, Harry didn't seem upset in the slightest. In fact, he had seemed a bit happy. Happy to be rid of them and Happy that he was able to live his own life then. And Dudley couldn't exactly blame him for it, either.
Dudley Dursley spent the rest of the evening walking around the old and dusty house, remembering what had happened there years ago. Each and every object in the house contained a small memory, like a window of the past. And Dudley liked to peer into those windows, remember all that had happened and even occasionally regret what he had done, even though there was nothing he could do about it.
When Dudley had told his mother that he was planning to visit the old house, she seemed appalled at him. "Why would you do that, Dudders?" his mother had chided when he told her, "Why would you want to go back to that filthy place when you have a beautiful house here?"
"I'm not going there to stay, Mum," Dudley would reply, embarrassed at his mother's over-protectiveness.
They didn't understand why one would want to return to such a dark house, although it contained all of his childhood, all of his fond memories. It just didn't make sense to people like then. And since the Dursleys needed to leave that house, Dudley had been doing a lot of thinking about the house and ideas that he had previously been forbidden to speak of such as wizardry. He had the freedom to do what he wished at age eighteen so he decided to move far away from London and his parents and any memories that he had and had moved to Scotland for a bit, trying to forget about what happened to him and his crazy, mixed-up life. When he came back to England when he was twenty-one it had been only because of his parents. His father Vernon had grown increasingly ill, both in body and in mind, so his mother Petunia had called Dudley back to take care of his father in his final days. Vernon Dursley had passed away three months before Dudley returned to the house and everyone had long stopped grieving.
With the slanted purple twilight streaming in through the semi-open windows of the old and dusty house, Dudley decided that he had done enough remembering. He felt satisfied, like he had fulfilled what he came there to do. What that was, though, he had no idea. He left the house and locked the door behind him, the traces of a smile dancing on the corners of his lips. He had felt the happiest he had in a long time, and felt that he had done the right thing by coming back to the house. And on the off chance that he ever did meet Harry potter again, he would apologize to him and hopefully Harry would forgive him. It was a bit crazy, Dudley understood, but he thought that he would only really be put at peace if he knew that he was forgiven for all that he had done.