A/n: Sorry for the freakin heckin long update period. Been busy with school. I swear something will actually happen in the future. They won't just sit for like nine months.
Chapter 3
Dudley woke with a start. He'd forgotten where he'd fallen asleep. He looked around the unfamiliar room. He recalled the memories of the past few days. After that first night, not too much had happened. He and his family had tried to live normally, as normally as was possible in this place. There was plenty to do; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that they'd been cooped up for almost a week.
They'd been stranded on this island with almost no news of anything important to them for a whole week! Yeah, they'd heard plenty about the wizarding world, but they hadn't spoken to friend or family. It was odd. Normally they stayed mostly to themselves anyway, but now that they couldn't have any contact with their world, they suddenly very much wanted to.
Dudley looked at his watch. 7.30 A.M. The thirty-first of July. Harry's birthday.
His parents thought it was stupid for wizards to come of age a year sooner than normal people, but Dudley was slightly jealous. He'd been seventeen for a few weeks now and there was nothing special in that. And if things kept going like this, his next birthday wouldn't exactly be giving him any new privileges. He thought about school starting next month without him.
Dedalus had said he'd taken quite a few years of Muggle Studies, so he'd be happy to tutor Dudley should he want it. The term Muggle Studies disturbed the Dursleys. They were not the animals here.
So instead his mother and father would try to 'home school' him in a few subjects. Petunia was better at English and Literature, while Vernon was better at Math and Geography.
The day went by normally. He exercised for an hour or too. Played some video games. Ate breakfast and lunch with his mother and father and Dedalus and Hestia. No one mentioned any birthdays until later that night during dinner. It had been a slow day, but they still hadn't gotten around to dinner until 8.30. Petunia insisted on cooking the meals. Hestia enjoyed watching-she'd apparently had never seen Muggle cooking before now- she found it fascinating.
Again, the Dursleys were not the animals here. This was Vernon's opinion as he grumbled a silent retort to Hestia as she exclaimed yet again how marvelous it was that Muggle food could taste just as good as Wizard food.
Dinner passed mostly in silence until Hestia, fidgeting impatiently, said, "I do wish we could go to the party. We haven't been out of this house in five days!"
"What party?" Dudley asked at the same time that Dedalus said, "We can't and you know why!"
Hestia ignored Dedalus and chose to answer Dudley instead, "Your cousin's birthday party."
"Hestia," Dedalus pressed on. "It was a big enough risk for them to be throwing Harry Potter a birthday party in the middle of all of this anyway. It would make it a whole lot worse if we brought his only relatives too! What if something happened?"
"Like what?" Dudley asked, interested.
"Like You-Know-Who could come gate crashing in the middle of it," Hestia answered sullenly. "And Dedalus thinks we might not be able to get out of there quickly enough if that were to happen."
"I don't want to be doing anything risky," Vernon said. He always liked to put his two cents worth into any conversation, no matter how repulsed to the idea he was. And it wasn't like he actually wanted to go to a birthday party for Harry anyway. "If we have to be hiding out here, why would I let you put my family at risk?" Petunia nodded vehemently.
"But I'm so bored!" Hestia groaned. "If I can't go to the party, I'm at least going to find out what's happening. I'll be back in a few minutes."
Dinner became quiet again. Forks and knives clattered against the plates. Vernon couldn't get over how idiotic that witch was to think that they could go to some damn party for his nephew. Petunia kept shaking her head slightly, just to emphasize how strongly against this whole thing she was.
Dudley was the total opposite. He was tired of being cooped up here. How long would he have to stay here? He wanted to do something new. Already, he was completely bored with his surroundings. Why not go to a party?
Despite himself and his parents, Dudley was really starting to like magic. He was almost jealous of Harry and his entire world. Yeah, now he was in that world too, but it was more by default than anything. He was only here because of Harry. Life was so much easier with magic. You could disappear at will, conjure anything you wanted, and do whatever you could possibly imagine. Was Dudley jealous? Yes.
But, obviously, the magical world had its downsides. It was more terrifying when a magical person went bad than when a normal person did. They would never have needed to hide from a normal person like this. In this world, rules didn't seem to apply. Complete chaos.
Dedalus said it hadn't always been like this. Dudley had to remember to ask him more about the way things were before.
Hestia entered looking flustered but excited. "The minister was visiting them! He had to give them the contents of Dumbledore's will!"
"Wait, what?" Dedalus asked, confused. "Who?"
"Harry, Ron, and Hermione!" Hestia continued excitedly. "The minister cornered Arthur at work and then came home to the party with him. He wanted to see the kids alone. Apparently Harry lost his temper and the minister stormed off a few minutes later. But not without giving them what Dumbledore left them!"
"Dumbledore left things to all three of them?" Dedalus asked, shocked. "Harry I understand, but Ron and Hermione…"
"I know, but the things he gave them were even more peculiar." Hestia paused for dramatic effect. Vernon and Petunia were confused but tried not to show it. Dudley was interested. "He gave Ron the Illuminator he himself invented. We have no idea why. He gave Hermione a book of children's tales in Runes. Still, no idea why. As for Harry, he left him the sword of Gryffindor and a snitch."
"The sword of Gryffindor," Dedalus whistled. "Did Dumbledore think Harry could defeat You-Know-Who with it or something?"
"Well that was the minister's line of thought. Unfortunately, the ministry wouldn't let him have it. They said it was the property of the school and not Dumbledore's to give away."
"Well that's too bad, but not surprising either." Dedalus sighed.
"What was the other thing Harry got?" Dudley piped up. His parents gave him shocked looks. Both for being able to follow this kind of talk and for being interested in it.
"Oh, yes, it was a snitch," replied Hestia. "I think it was the first one he ever caught. The minister thought it might be hiding something inside."
"Well, was it?" Dedalus asked excitedly.
"Nothing that they can tell," Hestia sighed. "None of them can get it open."
"Oh," Dedalus became bored again. "Anything else happening?"
"Not really," Hestia sat down. "Molly said that Harry, Ron and Hermione were planning on leaving after the wedding."
"What? Where to? What for?" Dedalus's moods were bouncing from bored to excited a lot this evening.
"They won't tell anyone," Hestia shrugged. "They keep saying Dumbledore left them stuff to do."
"And no one in the Order knows about it?" Dedalus asked incredulously.
"Well, you know how Dumbledore was. He trusted Harry completely and he always had his reasons."
"That's true. But it is still very risky. The last thing we need is the Chosen One getting killed on some heroic mission. Don't misinterpret me, I want Harry to beat You-Know-Who, but not at age 17! Not so soon and so young!" Dedalus was shocked at the very idea, even though he didn't actually know what the mission was, it wasn't exactly hard to guess.
"Well, Harry has beaten him what," Hestia counted on her fingers, "Five times now? What's one more?"
"What's one more?! Everything! Everything is relying on Harry staying alive. I mean, he hasn't even graduated from Hogwarts yet! How could he possibly do anything against Him?"
"It's not like Hogwarts is the safest place right now. With Dumbledore gone, nothing would protect Harry from invading Death Eaters. You-Know-Who could just waltz in at any moment."
"That's true; we probably won't be able to keep Harry hidden from Him much longer. He'll find a way in our defenses eventually." Dedalus pointed out.
"Yes, but by then Harry will be off doing this mission. Hopefully he gets to You-Know-Who before it's the other way around." Hestia said hopefully.
The Dursleys had been very quiet. Vernon and Petunia had been pretending not to be curious or interested, but Dudley was confused. "Why would Harry have to do anything with Vold-"
"Don't say the name!" Dedalus cut him off. Dudley mumbled a quiet 'sorry' as he waited for an answer. "What do you mean why?" Dedalus was the confused one now.
"You mean you lot don't even know?" Hestia screeched. "You've lived with Harry Potter for 16 years and you don't even know his story? I could see that you weren't exactly close, but this I never expected!"
The Dursleys faces reddened a touch. They didn't like to get called on how negligent they had been to Harry.
"Okay, let's start from the beginning." Dedalus sighed. "This is going to take awhile."
That night, whether Vernon and Petunia liked it or not, they learned a lot about the wizarding world. Dudley was fascinated and impressed. Had Harry really done all of those things? And he had thought the dementors were a big deal! The whole story was pretty creepy. Harry had a kind of stalker who had been trying to kill him for years for no apparent reason. Of course they had found that out after the dementor, but this made it all fit together so much more clearly.
Dudley's aunt and uncle had been killed by this man but Harry had stopped him with magic as a baby?! Then at Hogwarts he had faced his ghost or something? Then he had killed a huge snake and faced a werewolf and one hundred dementors. Then he had faced the killer again and dueled for his life. Then he broke into the wizards' government to stop the killer from stealing something. He had watched many of his friends and family die. And now he had just escaped the killer again hundreds of feet above the ground.
That was a pretty impressive track record for seventeen years old.
So Harry, his cousin who had been forced to mow the lawn and do chores by his parents for years, was destined to beat the most powerful wizard of all time and save the magical world? Wow. Dudley couldn't picture it. He would just have to see what Harry did.
He didn't have to wait long before it started. The very next day, Hestia informed them that death Eaters had crashed the wedding. No one was hurt, but they were looking for Harry. Hestia said he'd been disguised so they hadn't found him. Dedalus whooped, but then his face fell.
"Hestia, how did Death Eaters get into the wedding?"
"That's just it Dedalus." Hestia had started crying. "Scrimgeour is dead. The ministry has fallen. You-Know-Who is in control now." Dedalus's face whitened. Even the Dursleys understood how very bad this was.
"So… is Harry gone?" Dedalus asked.
"Yes, the three of them have left. May god help them act quickly out there."
Dudley had numerous nightmares that night. Dedalus had described what the killer looked like. Dudley would have liked to just call him Voldemort, but Dedalus and Hestia wouldn't let him. Dudley dreamed of skulls with red eyes and bone white hands all night. He dreamed of them being captured by the Death Eaters and brought before this terrible man, if you could even call him that.
Things were definitely going downhill now. Dudley sincerely hoped Harry could win again.
