Next to me was a book entitled "A Mercy" by Toni Morrison.
I rest my head against the wall of my bedroom and sigh. Locked in again. Number 4 Privet Drive is my jail from which there is no escape. I hear a knock at the door and pretend to be asleep.
"Harry, I know you hear me!" Dudley knocks again.
I walk to the door and open it. What does he want?
"What?" I ask rudely. He's been acting really strange lately. He keeps trying to talk to me. Usually he's yelling, or taunting, or ignoring me.
"Let's go out," he says quietly.
"Why should I? And what are you whispering for?" I ask.
"I don't have to answer your bloody questions. Come outside with me," Dudley says.
He grabs my arm and tries to pull me out of my room but I yank my arm away.
"Or I'll wake my father," he sneers.
Reluctantly, I go along with him. We walk until we reach the park. Dudley sits on a swing and beckons me to do the same. I sit beside him.
"Why are we here, Dudley?" I ask.
"I want to talk to you," he replies.
I almost fall off of my swing. He wants to talk to me? Dudley Dursley, the biggest Muggle I'll ever know, the one who tormented me non-stop before he started acting strangely, wants to talk to me?
"You want to talk to me? You hate me," I say.
"Look, I think my dad has gone a bit too far this time, Harry," he says.
I laugh out loud. Too far? It wasn't too far when he beat me, or when he put bars on my window, or denied me food, but today really tips the scales. I guess the old Dudders still isn't much for making sense.
"That is the largest pile of absolute rubbish that I have ever heard!" I shout.
"I'm serious, Harry. I read one of the letters from your girlfriend, and it made me feel bad," Dudley says.
"Jenny isn't my girlfriend," I say.
Dudley looks confused but then smiles with realization. I never thought any of the Dursleys would notice that I had any feelings at all. They treat me like an unattractive cat sculpture that they hate but can't give away or sell.
"There were certainly enough hearts next to her name in your notebook," he says.
"You went through my things?!" I shout.
That infuriates me. I'm already treated like I'm nothing, but at least they allow me my own things. Dudley reading my letters and going through my notebooks means that he no longer respects even that tiny thing that I've been given.
"The point is," he sighs, "I didn't even know about your birthday, and she did."
I bite my tongue to keep myself from saying, Well, I can't imagine why. It isn't like you don't hate me or like you think me and "my lot" should go somewhere far, far away. It isn't like you don't care about me at all, right? Being beaten for being different really compels me to share with you.
"I'm sorry about that," he says.
Okay, I'll bite.
"Yeah," I say.
"Look, Harry, you and me… we're going to work this out," he says.
Work this out? As if we can just erase a whole lifetime of abuse and neglect and bullying and treating me like an ugly cat sculpture because he feels bad about it.
"I'm not so sure it's that easy," I say.
"I know," he says quietly.
I kick at the ground and force my swing to fly. Maybe I'm escaping him, or maybe I'm playing the kind of childish game where he has to catch me to prove it's real.
Dudley gives a weak little push from the ground.
"This is so screwed up, what I've done to you. I know that it's not just going to go away, that it might not ever, but I want to try," Dudley says.
I know in my heart what Dumbledore would say. "Harry, you must grant mercy to those who least deserve it, lest you become like them." And I know that if he did say that, he'd be right. I have to let him try.
"Well… I guess we can try," I say.
Just as suddenly as my glorious dream began with a gentle knock, it ends. It all ends. Everything good about my dream, every little inkling that maybe Dudley might mean what he says is gone and I hold my pillow to myself and cry. I cry great big, gulping sobs because I know that it was just a dream and that it will never happen. I know that I am still locked away in my room, that they still don't love me. I muffle the sound of my anguish so that Uncle Vernon doesn't beat me for existing. I pull my knees into my chest and I cry.