Happily Hallucinating Harry
Dudley Dursley scuffed the gavel beneath his feet with one brand new trainer as he waited. Piers' parents were both high powered business types, always jet setting from one meeting to another in their executive cars. Which made them not only the perfect schmooze targets for Dudley's parents, but also the perfect parents of a teenager such as Piers. Their house was mostly left in the latter's care, and consequentially spent most of its days as a party venue.
"Dud! Good to see you, good to see you. Come in!" Piers had recently taken up with mafia films, and had been trying to emulate their style and mannerisms. It failed, for the most part. "We've got a few good people, several more bottles of good booze, and Malcolm's called in a favour from his contact, got twice as much grass as normal. Take Mr Dursley's coat Kevin." Piers swept through the hallway, waving and gesturing to various people and new technological acquisitions as he went, as though Dudley have never been there or met their friends before. "Like my new shirt? Nice eh?" He did a little twirl mid stride and pushed the door to the living room open grandly at the end.
"Very sharp." Dudley muttered. Piers was a useful friend alright, but he wasn't half annoying sometimes. He handed his jacket to a ferrety looking boy, Piers' little brother Kevin, and presented Piers with the bottle of whiskey he'd swiped from the shop earlier. "Happy birthday, mate."
Piers clapped him on the back and grinned. "Knew there was a reason we were friends!" He cried. "Dennis! When did you arrive? Slipped past me he did. Shifty bugger." Piers said jovially, nudging Dudley in the ribs.
There were choruses of 'Big D' 'hi Dud' 'hey Dursley' and various other greeting from around the room. Moving into the room as flopping down on the Polkiss' wide leather sofa, Dudley counted around seven of their gang, all in various stages of drunk or high. He flipped a cigarette out of the packet proffered by Gordon, and lit up when Piers held out his lighter without even glancing sideways. He was trying to be the suave host again.
"When's Veronica getting here then, ey Piers?" Dudley asked, reclining back and closing his eyes as he exhaled. Keeping his parents happy and safe in the little bubble of delusion about their son was a stressful and time consuming job. He couldn't let it all go to waste by being found smoking. As such, he had to take his fags where he could find them, which wasn't frequent enough for him.
Veronica was the girl Piers had been trying to persuade into putting out for some time, and had half promised to attend his birthday. Dudley had high hopes that she'd bring some of her friends with her. Girls that hung round with their gang in Little Whinging where shrill and mean, but Veronica attended a boarding school some miles away, and those friends could prove promising. Piers mumbled something to the plush carpet on which he reclined and took a swig from the bottle instead of replying.
"Flaked, didn't she?" Malcolm said slyly, looking up from rolling his spliff. "Said she had a dinner party to go to. Oo la la!" The boys sniggered and shot jibes at Piers, who blushed and didn't look up.
"What?" Dudley objected stupidly, "So there's going to be no girls at all here then?"
"Nah, you're alright, mate." Dennis said. "Texted Charlie and Emma, they were gonna have a party with their friends, but Emma's parents didn't go out did they? The girls were stuck in watching TV pretending all they had wanted to do was watch a film and gossip. They're heading over now." This was met with cheers from the lads.
Several hours later, the doorbell rang.
As the youngest and Piers' little brother, it was Kevin's job to answer it. From the living room, the boys could hear low voices, then footsteps, and knocking as Kevin nervously pushed the living room door open. "Um, Mr D? Sir? There's someone here to see you." When an empty packet of cigarettes bounced off the wall next to his head, Kevin gulped and ran away upstairs, leaving their guest in full view.
Piers laughed. "What do you want, Potter? Why aren't you at home causing trouble?"
"Yeah, you ain't got no invite, Potty." Anthony sneered.
"Come looking for a beating have we? Pathetic little freak missing his teacher's cane?"
Harry marvelled at how unimaginative bullies were nationwide. If he had closed his eyes he could have kidded himself he was talking to a few Slytherins. Scanning the room, his eyes stinging from the smoke, he made out his cousin taking up half a huge sofa. Everyone looked at least partially drunk and or baked, and, most disturbingly, there was an emaciated looking girl in trackies and a tight top sharing Dudley's bottle with far too little objection to his pawing hands. His cousin stood up sharply upon seeing Harry, and lumbered over to tower over him threateningly.
"What do you think you're doing here?" He hissed. "Go back home! I don't want you corrupting my friends with your," he lowered his voice, "freakiness."
"My my, wouldn't Petunia and Vernon be interested to hear about this, ey Dudders?" Harry grinned, looking round the room again. It was dark, smoky, and the heady alcoholic atmosphere was almost shaking with the base from the stereo.
"You say one word-!"
"Oh shut up." Harry really didn't want to try his luck in a room full of his cousin's lackeys. "Your mum sent me actually. Your aunt Marge's ill, in hospital. Vernon's gone to see her, Petunia wants you back as soon as possible so you can go meet them there." Harry didn't think Dudley's feeling for his aunt went deeper than a twenty pound note, but obviously he was mistaken, for his cousin's face actually paled a few shades.
"What did you do, Potter? If you've done something to her- I'll prove it. I-"
"I didn't do anything!" Harry protested. "Marge lives miles away! How could I-"
"No smoke without fire, Potter." Gordon piped up, to cheers and agreement from his friends.
"So I can see." Harry replied archly, eyeing the cigarettes and joints scattered about the room.
"Ah you're just jealous." Dennis said carelessly.
"Though..." Malcolm eyed Harry thoughtfully, "bet you get all sorts of stuff at St Brutus', don't you, Potter?"
Briefly, Harry wasn't sure how to reply to that, but he was still stinging from Dudley's assumption that he, yet again, was to blame for something he was innocent of (personally, he blamed the large amounts of brandy and bacon Marge consumed daily), so he grinned maliciously, and looked at his cousin as he spoke. "Oh yeah. All sorts. Convince you that you were fighting a huge dragon singlehandedly, all to steal a golden egg, which you would hatch, call Norbert, only then sell to some foreign adrenaline junkies."
There was a short silence, and then Anthony whistled. "Whoa man, that's some serious high you've got there. Did you really imagine that?"
"That was nothing." Harry was starting to enjoy this, even more so when Dudley's face began cycling through the Vernon-scale of enraged colours. "Once I even battled a man in a turban who had two faces and a fifty foot snake before helping a mass-murderer run from the law and won the school sports cup."
One of the girls let out a peel of shrill laughter and Dennis snorted. "In your dreams mate."
"I have got to get my hands on some of that." Malcolm said reverentially. "Hey Potter, reckon you'd be up for a little-"
"Come on, we're going." Dudley said abruptly, grabbing Harry's collar and yanking him out of the door. Cheers and farewells and insults followed the pair down the hall and through to the street.
Even though his neck hurt, and his cousin was hissing all too real threats about what would happen if Harry spoke like that again, he couldn't help but smile as he was frog marched back to Number Four. Perhaps this was the way to deal with innocent muggles who inquired about your year at school; tell everyone you spent it off your face. Really, Harry mused as he was nearly jostled to the ground, it made quite a good hallucination, Hogwarts did.