Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter, or anything else mentioned in this fan fiction.
Summary- Dudley has learned a valuable lesson, and his whole life is changed because of it, but is it changed enough that when he falls for a girl who says she's a witch, who will he choose? His parents or his love? No OCs, post DH.
Author's note- This idea just presented itself to me shortly after finishing DH, and it wouldn't leave me alone. In this story Dudley is nice! If you don't like him being nice, I'm sure there are plenty of other stories out there were he's a stupid bullying prat, and you can go read one of them.
Um… sorry, this chapter is going to end up being very short. So are the other chapters, probably. Anyway… here you go.
The eighteen year old boy glanced out the window over his bed, and sighed. A year ago, he had been living with his parents in blissful ignorance of the world around him. He had been a fat, stupid boy, convinced that he was the center of the universe.
But all that had changed the day the wizards had taken them away. On that day, the day he had first heard the name of Lord Voldemort, his life had been changed forever.
Well, it had really started two years earlier, with the dementors. His cousin had saved him. His 'freak' of a cousin, the cousin who had suffered years of taunts and pain at Dudley's hands, that same cousin, had saved him.
But his parents said that all wizards were freaks. But freaks didn't do that, did they?
It had taken two more years, but Dudley Dursley had changed. When he and his parents arrived at the safe-house where they would be staying until it was 'safe' again, he had started picking up small facts from some of the wizards who would stop by to occasionally to make sure the wards were still strong, and that the family was still alive.
Around Christmas, he asked if he could help. He didn't know who was more shocked, His parents, the wizards, or himself. Probably he was.
Dudley had learned a lot in the past few months. He had learned that he was a fast learner, when he applied himself, he learned that books were sometimes very interesting, he discovered that he was hugely allergic to macadamia nuts, and he learned that fruit was good (This last revelation led to the loss of a couple… dozen… pounds, so he was now an almost normal weight) And he learned that he couldn't sit by and watch his cousin be killed, not when Harry had saved his life. He had discovered honor. So Dudley would do everything he could to return the favor, or at least make his task easier.
Of course, Dudley wasn't a wizard, so he couldn't do much. Mainly, he was supposed to watch the news, read the papers, and tell the members of the order of any strange occurrences that had happened in muggle towns. Kingsley Shacklebolt, who later became minister of magic, would later say that it was at least fifty percent due to Dudley's efforts that the muggle world never found out about magic. He told them about people who might have survived Death Eater attacks, and might need mind wipes. He became good at spotting patterns in the attacks, and could occasionally even predict where the next one would be. At least ten Death Eaters were in Azkaban thanks to him.
He'd moved out of the hiding place not long after the war ended, and now had a small flat in downtown London, not far from where he worked part time at (of all things) a bookshop. He was a part time student at a small college studying medicine, and hadn't spoken to anyone magical in several months. He was sure that they simply didn't need him anymore, so had forgotten him.
His parents had eventually forgiven him, and he was glad. They might be intolerant of anyone different from them, but they were still his parents, and he had missed not talking to them.
Yes, things had changed, drastically in the past year.
He didn't know that things were about to change even more.
Like I said, short, hopefully the next chapters will be slightly longer.
