Chapter One

Considering all the times he'd tried to hurt her on purpose, the fact that Ingrid's cousin ended up nearly cracking a rib accidentally was almost ironic in retrospect. All the times Dudley had tried to pound her and that accident was what did it. Ingrid could remember the afternoon clearly because of the smarting rib, and because just before that her Aunt Petunia had slapped her for letting the toasted sandwiches meant for lunch burn. Aunt Petunia was busy that day, actually. She was the one who started the fight with Uncle Vernon, too.

At about twelve-thirty, when Ingrid was about six years old, on a sunny summer afternoon Aunt Petunia decided to make toasted sandwiches. "My Duddy needs good food," said Aunt Petunia, looking fondly at her pudgy son and ignoring expertly her stick-thin niece. Aunt Petunia had once said that Ingrid would never be large no matter how hard she tried; she seemed to have given up on that endeavor long ago.

Her peach organdy flower printed dress fluttered around her bony hips and white pencil legs as she bustled, business-like, around the kitchen, putting the sandwiches together and frying them. She carefully took out the mayonnaise, sliced roast beef, sliced cheese, mustard, and sourdough bread, using a different knife for each sauce, careful to wipe up every drop that landed on the counter with a paper towel even as she made the sandwiches. Aunt Petunia's brand of housewifery was a lesson in proud precision. Ingrid had wandered out into the kitchen to watch; Dudley was glued to the television set in the living room. They were the same age, but they didn't seem able to connect with any of the same things. Dudley enjoyed video games, Ingrid could sit outside for hours watching birds in a tree and imagining their chirping conversations with what Aunt Petunia called "a spaced-out look on her face"; the differences continued from there.

The reason she remembered Aunt Petunia's dress skirt and bony hips so well, her white pencil legs and knobby ankles, was because she was small enough that this was where her line of eyesight was. Aunt Petunia was not a pretty woman; she had a long face, her cheeks drawn in and her lips usually persed over crooked teeth, her neck was just that little bit too long to be considered natural and elegant. Yet she had a kind of rangy, handsome elegance to her, "Marlene Dietrich" as Uncle Vernon sometimes said fondly. Her blonde hair was always in a perfect, gleaming gold chiffon, not a stray out of place; her nails carefully filed and her hands lotioned and powder clean; her makeup as pristine as warpaint and her eyes like arctic, steely blue chips of ice.

All at once Aunt Petunia appeared to notice Ingrid watching her. She seemed, as always, irritated when Ingrid zoned out. "Watch the sandwiches for a moment," she said, throwing down her spatula unceremoniously on the kitchen counter beside the toasting pan. "Grab the stool and come here."

Hesitantly, Ingrid took up the stool almost as big as she was and hefted it over with effort before the stove.

"Stand on top of it."

Ingrid stood, ducking her head as if in some weird approximation of a Japanese bob.

"You know how to watch the stove, right?"

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." Aunt Petunia had begun teaching and assigning Ingrid chores - cooking, cleaning, and gardening - about a year ago. Ingrid had once made the mistake of asking why Dudley was not given chores. Uncle Vernon had cuffed her around the ear and told her that obviously it was because boys didn't cook and clean. Dudley would prove himself in other ways, by "working on providing things," the way Uncle Vernon did with his big business job - though what exactly Dudley was supposed to be providing at six years old, Ingrid had no idea. Also Dudley was their biological son, so - it was unspoken - he belonged here already, and had to do nothing to earn his keep.

Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia weren't being compensated for Ingrid. Whatever that meant. Uncle Vernon, who watched the news and said words like "compensated" a great deal, complained about it often.

"Very well, then," said Aunt Petunia now. "I'm going to go check on Dudley, and maybe bring him a snack. Don't burn anything." Her heels clacked across the tile and out of the kitchen.

Ingrid took up the spatula and poked in what she felt was a brisk, businesslike way at the sandwiches a great deal. That seemed to be the thing to do when one was cooking something on the stove. The stove was, like everything else in Aunt Petunia's home, shining and pristine. Aunt Petunia scrubbed windowsills with her formidable collection of toothbrushes and polished the entire kitchen every evening before bed, vacuuming and dusting every two days.

Ingrid had often wondered which came first, Aunt Petunia's obsession with perfection or her home. The Dursleys - plus their niece Ingrid Potter - lived in a private gated community, an upper class Surrey suburb called Little Whinging. Everything was perfect here. Stone ivy-climbing walls, proper English gardens, paved roads with lamp posts, long rows of spacious boxy white houses with shiny cars in the driveways filled with people with gleaming white teeth and lovely puddings and once-a-week maid service.

The Dursleys' house was "just moderate of decadent," a lovely term Aunt Petunia had once used to describe her home. Everything was white, from the high slanted ceilings and stainless walls to the kitchen and bathroom tiles, the counters, the lacy curtains, and the piled carpets. There was a massive red brick fireplace, a polished mantel piece, and very fine furniture. Aunt Petunia's collection of prized vases sat on various little end tables throughout the house, each vase filled regularly with fresh flowers from the flower beds in the front garden that Aunt Petunia tended herself. She would wear one of her big sunhats and her white gardening gloves and kneel out there in the front garden, or sometimes in the back garden to dig up weeds and keep the surrounding trees, the shed, and the flat green lawn smooth and clean. She always wore her denim dress for this, her bony white knees obvious; this was the closest she ever got to "casual."

"What on earth are you doing?!"

Ingrid was startled out of her daze and realized she'd been gazing absently out the kitchen window at the back garden. The sandwiches were burning, unnoticed, in their pan before her.

Aunt Petunia rushed right over, tugged Ingrid by the ear and pulled her down in front of her. Ingrid made a sound of pain. Aunt Petunia slapped her across the face. "What did I say?! What did I just say?! I asked of you one thing: not to burn lunch!"

Ingrid tried to make herself smaller, shoulders hunched as she stared miserably at the floor. She didn't want to cry, as Dursleys despised tears, but traitorous drops welled up despite themselves. She felt useless. "Sorry, Aunt Petunia," she said softly. Her cheek stung.

"Go into the living room while I fix this mess." It was the last thing Ingrid wanted to do, face her much larger cousin Dudley in a vulnerable state, but Aunt Petunia's orders were not to be trifled with. She shuffled reluctantly toward the living room. "And stop shuffling!" Ingrid forced herself to walk more clearly. She entered the living room and paused hesitantly just inside the doorway.

Dudley had turned around from his television induced vegetable state, watching with a startling amount of focus as Ingrid entered the room. He saw her, the upset and fear painted across her expression, and a slow grin formed across his big, gleaming, red face. "Aww, the baby's crying again," he said gleefully in a high voice.

"I am not," said Ingrid immediately, frowning, though this was technically an untruth.

Dudley lumbered to his feet, his big mother-bought sweaters and pants somehow not making his humongous size any less threatening. "Do you want me to really give you something to cry about?"

"No - Dudley - please -" Ingrid backed up half a step and then ran for the hallway.

"Toughen up already!" Dudley demanded, as though this was already a decided thing, a birthday gift he wanted that he was determined his parents would get for him. They were the same parroted words Uncle Vernon often said. Then his footsteps thundered across the living room and in a few great strides he had her pinned to the floor, sitting on top of her stomach. She could barely breath, gasping with effort.

"Your parents told you to stop hitting me," she forced out. This was true. Ingrid was small, thin, and wiry, and more than that, she was a girl. Good boys didn't hit little girls, didn't hit little sister figures - not even defective little sister figures like Ingrid.

Dudley paused, the grin fading from his face.

"You'll get in trouble," Ingrid gasped, chest heaving under the heavy weight.

This thought did not seem to have occurred to Dudley. A startled look came over his face - then it screwed up and he began wailing. He got off of Ingrid, which was some relief, but this was only to have a fit, throwing a tantrum. He fell onto the ground, flailed his fists and feet, screeched at the top of his lungs, writhed like an undulating reddish pink slug in wool on the floor.

Ingrid could not get away without being hurt, so she turned onto her side, curled up into a little ball, and stayed very still, trying to protect as much of herself as she could from Dudley's fists. Dudley loved purposeful punching and loved tantrums and Ingrid was usually the closest available child, so in this Ingrid was an expert. Dudley's fists and feet glanced off of her, and just as Aunt Petunia ran back into the living room, one limb hit Ingrid's side and she felt a hot knife of pain, letting out an involuntary screech.

"Dudley! Dudley, stop it!"

Aunt Petunia ran over, grabbing Ingrid hard by the arm and yanking her out of the way. "Move," she demanded, like a lifeguard who still had to get everyone else safely back into the boat. Ingrid backed up against the doorframe on her butt, still gasping and a bit teary eyed, but mostly just staring in blank horror at Dudley's writhing fit. During previous tantrums like these, Aunt Petunia had always just assumed that Ingrid had provoked Dudley and Ingrid had always just assumed that Dudley could stop whenever he felt like it.

But Dudley wasn't stopping. He was working himself into a right state, screaming at the top of his lungs, foaming white spit flying, and throwing his limbs all over the floor. His face and neck were the color of a tomato.

"Girl! Is it broken?" Aunt Petunia demanded for what was probably not the first time, knelt before Ingrid and glaring intently into her face.

Ingrid swallowed and felt her side. "No," she said, shaking her head. "Just hurts a bit. Bruise, probably."

Aunt Petunia nodded and turned back to Duddy, half standing as if not sure what to do. "Duddy," she said loudly over the screeches. "Duddy, would you like a treat? Duddy, you must calm down. Duddy -" She had gotten too close and Dudley socked her right in the stomach, he still screaming. Ingrid realized the gasp that followed had issued from her own lips as Aunt Petunia let out a breath and bent over, paling, pure shock on her face.

She stumbled away from her son. Dudley still hadn't stopped. Ingrid imagined him bursting a blood vessel and dying, her great and frequent tormentor, and then felt ashamed of herself.

"He won't stop," Aunt Petunia whispered. "He won't stop."

Later, after Dudley had finally calmed down and been moved to his room in the tense silence to physically recover from his horrible fit, after Uncle Vernon had come home from work, that was what Ingrid could hear Aunt Petunia saying to Uncle Vernon in the living room. "He wouldn't stop," Aunt Petunia repeated helplessly, as if unable to convey to her husband just what exactly had occurred while he was at work obliviously selling shipments of drills at Grunnings Co. "And now he's sick."

"I'm sure he was just upset, Petunia. Are you sure the girl didn't -?" Uncle Vernon had never trusted Ingrid. He seemed to always be looking in her for secret wells of "airy fairyness" and "oddness" and "flakiness." He also couldn't stand people who "didn't seem to have any spine." They were almost as bad for him as people who accepted poverty and mediocrity, and that was saying a lot.

"She was curled up on her side trying to protect herself from his blows - totally helpless. He nearly broke one of her ribs. He punched me in the stomach and he still wouldn't stop." Not even Aunt Petunia seemed capable of ignoring this, not even when it came to their precious Dudley. "It was - it was like he'd gone mad." Her tone shook slightly. "And besides, we've already told him not to hurt a little girl. She hadn't physically provoked him, so how else could she have driven him to do something like that?"

"Are you sure it's not -?"

"... Yes. Yes, I'm sure. I'd have noticed."

Ingrid was blamed for every odd thing that happened in her presence, sometimes even grounded to her cupboard over them. She was not allowed to talk about dreams, never allowed to watch cartoons; "funny ideas" were forbidden to her. It was as if her aunt and uncle thought she had some mysterious power over all things strange. Joke was on them. Teary, shy, timid, and absent-minded daydreamer or not, she'd never caused or considered a single strange thing in her life.

She lay on her camp bed inside the cupboard under the stairs, gazing up at a spider crawling along the ceiling. She was used to spiders, used to cleaning them out, used to dealing with all manner of creepy and menial items with quiet and calm matter of factness, having a cupboard as a bedroom. Spiders were itchy and ticklish when they got in her hair or moved along her neck in the cramped darkness, but that was about as bad as it got.

Dudley got an upstairs bedroom, as did her aunt and uncle, and there were two empty bedrooms besides. Ingrid supposed she hadn't earned a bedroom yet. Too much "compensation" still to make up for. This did have its disadvantages, but in this case she could hear her aunt and uncle talk in the living room across the hall the way Dudley could not.

"He was probably just being a boy, Petunia -" Uncle Vernon began.

"You didn't see him, Vernon. He's still having tantrums at six. This isn't normal."

"Well what would you like me to do?!" Ingrid imagined her uncle throwing up his arms in defeat, no small movement as he was a much larger and more pot-bellied version of his son, a dark rugby player gone to seed who wore straining black and expensive three-piece suits.

"I want him to see someone."

"You want him to see a shrink?!"

"... You don't have to put it like that. He's just… troubled by something. Maybe."

"My son is healthy and tough! He doesn't need a shrink!"

Ingrid listened in silent but growing surprise and alarm as an argument began. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, both so stern and firmly upper class but so indulgent of their son, had always seemed an entirely united front. She didn't think she'd ever heard them argue before. It was surprisingly disturbing.

She turned onto her side, squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands over her ears, tried to block the argument out. But she still heard it.

In the end, Uncle Vernon agreed to take his son to a single check up appointment with a "psychiatrist" - whatever that was. (Ingrid was pretty sure it meant "shrink.") But he didn't like it.

"Mummy, I don't want to go see some stupid doctor," said Dudley plaintively three days later, looking up into his mother's face dressed in what approximated for the unreligious Dursleys as his Sunday best.

"Smart boy," Uncle Vernon muttered.

"Oh, Duddy." Aunt Petunia was frowning in consternation, bent toward her son's level the way she never would have toward Ingrid's. Ingrid could actually see her waver and consider backing out for a moment - but then she rallied. "Don't worry. I don't like it either, but we just need to check something, okay?"

None of the Dursleys seemed particularly enthusiastic or convinced about the merits of the psychiatric visit. Ingrid was being left behind with a little old cat lady babysitter two streets over on Magnolia Crescent, Mrs Figg, and she was currently standing beside the tiny stooped woman with her bun of steely hair in the front doorway of her house.

"Be good," said Uncle Vernon to Ingrid, with an or else expression, and Ingrid watched as Dudley punched his parents childishly, complaining loudly, on the walk down the front steps and to the car. "None of that!" she heard Uncle Vernon's voice call, and this seemed to change precisely nothing.

Ingrid looked around slowly to Mrs Figg, who was staring at her with a creepy, blank look. Her dark, dim house was covered in grouchy cats and knitted afghans and it always smelled like rotting food. Ingrid shivered. "Let me guess," she tried, smiling weakly. "Dead cat pictures?"

Mrs Figg gave her a ghostly stare, then turned around slowly in her slippers and shuffled back into the house. Ingrid sighed, squared her shoulders, and followed inside behind her for the usual parade of photographs sitting on the sofa beside mad old Mrs Figg.

Time always seemed to inch by very slowly in Mrs Figg's house. It was as if the clock there suddenly went more sluggishly than normal. So Ingrid was usually relieved in spite of herself when her aunt and uncle came to pick her up again, and was usually asked a plethora of demanding questions about her stay: How had it gone? (The correct answer: horribly.) How had she behaved? (The correct answer: in perfect, humble, and mute silence.)

But today, there was a loud pounding on the door and then Uncle Vernon stormed in. Mrs Figg jumped and dropped a picture of Mr Paws on the dirty, hair-stained carpet. Ingrid took one look at her uncle's face and wondered hesitantly just what she could have done wrong from so many miles away.

But for once, Uncle Vernon did not seem to be angry with Ingrid. "Get your things," he bit out. "We're leaving."

The ride back to number four, Privet Drive was very silent. Uncle Vernon's face was stormy as he drove. Aunt Petunia was sobbing into her hands. Dudley looked confused rather than outright upset. Ingrid was too timid to ask anyone what had happened.

They entered the house and all slowly sat down in the living room, as if just having suffered a great blow or an enormous shock. Ingrid, of course, knew nothing of what had happened, but picked up the mood of the room anyway. It was always that way. This was why she tried so hard to be the peacekeeper.

Finally, though, she couldn't hold her curiosity in any longer. "What…?" she asked softly, shoulders hunched and looking up underneath her ratty chin length bob of hair and her scruffy dark bangs. This was all she could manage, afraid of a terrible reaction.

Aunt Petunia looked up, and underneath her tears there was a deep well of frigid anger that Ingrid hadn't noticed before. "Dudley has been diagnosed," she said, lifting her chin almost defiantly. "He has Impulse Control Disorder, specifically Intermittent Explosive Disorder, with comorbid Oppositional Defiant Disorder. He had a tantrum in the doctor's office and that was what sealed the deal. He… the doctor… he saw… close up."

Ingrid didn't know what any of those things were, but they sounded bad.

Her confusion must have shown in her face because Aunt Petunia looked irritated with her. That, at least, was normal. Aunt Petunia visibly forced herself to continue: "It means Dudley will always be very angry with a horrible temper and easy buttons to press and tantrums, like a toddler child, even as an adult. And he can't help it. And… and the psychiatrist said he hasn't reached certain milestones… that he has significant intellectual impairment for his age and trouble concentrating…"

Her voice trembled, her lip and chin shook, and she began to sob into her hands again. Ingrid looked down, feeling terrible, and sat in sad silence. She folded her hands in her lap. It sounded almost like Dudley had some sort of problem with his brain. Now she felt bad for all the times she'd hated him so much.

She imagined him still behaving like this as an adult, and she shivered. It was a horrible thought. He looked so normal now - his confused face, chubby pink weight, and smooth head of blond hair, his mother-bought wool sweater, looked so endearing on a child.

She tried to imagine him for the first time as a grown-up. This was a new thought for her. What if Dudley was just… always like this? What if he was just always angry and adored punching people? What if he never read books or got any smarter at all?

"Well I think it's bullshit!" Uncle Vernon had stormed to his feet, exploding at last, thick dark mustache rustling as he positively spat in massive-ruddy-faced fury. Ingrid's gleaming emerald colored eyes, her only nice feature, widened in surprise, both at the action and the word. "That damn man doesn't know a thing about my son! My son is fine! He's fine!"

"Yeah! I'm fine!" Dudley chirped up in his high voice, as usual parroting his father in more macho moments.

Aunt Petunia just sobbed harder. Perhaps she could see, now, what Ingrid did. Ingrid watched the whole scene worriedly, in a strange way an outsider.

"Petunia, that's enough!" Uncle Vernon barked.

Aunt Petunia shot to her feet in fury and hissed like a cat or a cornered snake. "A doctor just told me my son is mentally disabled!" she shrieked.

There was a heavy silence as they stared at one another.

"What's that mean? Mentally disabled?" Dudley asked insistently. Ingrid had been wondering the same thing, but knew better than to ask. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia wouldn't hit Dudley, but they might have smacked her upside the head.

Uncle Vernon finally seemed to sag in defeat. Suddenly, Ingrid had never seen her uncle so tired. "It means," he said, "that things are going to have to change around here."

He turned to look at Dudley and Ingrid.

"Dudley is to stay living with us," he mandated. "None of that hospital shit. We will take care of him here, he will be… special education home tutored," he forced out the term, "in here, while Ingrid goes to year two at school. He will… take his meds." Another forced term. "And he will live with us.

"We all must be very understanding and caring of Dudley." Uncle Vernon's small dark eyes narrowed at Ingrid. "Including you. You'll be taking care of him as well."

Ingrid felt a kind of dread. She looked around slowly at Dudley… who was smirking smugly back at her. She saw it suddenly, now.

This was just an excuse to spoil Dudley even more. And no matter how terrified she was of his blows, his threats, his demands, and his shouts, she would now have to personally wait on him hand and foot. She felt terrible for him… but she just knew he would milk this for all it was worth, knew he would treat them all terribly and demand everything and claim it was because he was sick. And that was the rest of his life, and they both knew Ingrid would just have to live with that. Her aunt and uncle would demand nothing less. Dudley also wouldn't have to do any complex schoolwork, something he'd been rebelliously dreading.

The years stretched out before her and she weighed the cost. Was it worth it, she thought, troubled, taking care of Dudley personally at home if she didn't have to deal with him when primary school started?

Ingrid would think back on this moment a lot, even years later. Only two children would have assumed that in the long term - the longest they, at least, could possibly imagine - Dudley Dursley had just won.

Her aunt and uncle must have better known the score.