A.N. I've had this chappie sitting around full of grammatical, spelling and even font size snafus, but finally got around to correcting as much as reasonably possible thanks to a wonderful review from DianatheHuntress. So.. Here ya go, Chapter 2. Enjoy!

Putting aside his mild frustrations, disappointment, confusion, and letter from Ron, he picked up the Weasleys' package, their gifts to him, which enlarged after, again, checking his identity.

Ron and Ginny seemed determined to surprise him. The rest of the Weasleys' gifts were atypical of years past; the twins' sample box from their store and Mrs. Weasley's cake and food care package. Percy, of course, was still on the outs with his family and, of course, that included Harry. Neither of the older Weasley brothers knew him enough to send him a gift, usually, but from the looks of Ron and Ginny's gift, they had helped out a bit this year.

Besides the typical gifts, "Greatest Seekers in Wizarding History" and a Honeyduke's Sampler box, were three reasonably thick books, not Hermione-thick, but still pretty hefty. The top book was entitled "Sink or Swim: Everything you ever need to know about the House of Lords (Fourth Edition) by Sir Charles Nicholas Rupert Exaviar Westwood the Third". He'd have to give them something fantastic for their birthdays' for that book alone. He had been wondering about that and now they hand him the answer to one of his bigger questions. It actually made him smile.

The second book was pretty straight forward, and, again, another gods' send: "Occlumency, Legilimency, and you: The Art of the Mind by Cranellius Fog". Though he now well accepted that he would need to return to lessons with Snape, he hadn't figured out a way to accomplish it without a lengthy ordeal, and that was just to get them back where they started. He wanted Snape to help him understand, not just expect him to know before hand what needed to be done. If that had been the case, then what had he needed Snape for? So having study material and the rest of the summer to practice before ever having to face Snape again seemed a wonderful idea.

Nearly grinning, he picked up the third tome. Reading the title, he felt his smile slide away like butter off a hot skillet, a frown of confusion once more in it's place. The title of the book was "Flying to Live: A lesson in Aerial Combat-Auror Division by Eurial Husk". He had spent an unseemly amount of time contemplating the coming war and his place in it. He had mentally gone over all the things he thought he should know. Even knowing that his experiences with combat had been severly limited, flying and battle had never occurred to him as a possible field of study, and it should have. Between his love of flying and the attack on him during first year and the one that had been staged by Malfoy, bloody hell, even watching the Slytherin's play all these years should've taught him how possible it was to be attacked while astride. He had to hand it to them, they had really outdone themselves this time. Trust them to combine the two things he and Ron both seemed to do a great deal, flying and fighting. 'Prats', he thought fondly. He couldn't have been happier to call them friends… no, family.

Again Harry shuffled through his missives until he came across the tiny, precise handwriting of his second best friend, Hermione Granger. Her careful concern and stalwart support had always made him smile, even when her nit-picking and mother-henning made him want to scream.

Harry stopped in the process of opening her letter, blinking in confusion. Where had that thought come from? Feeling almost uneasy, he tried to tell himself that his female friend just worried, that she was always questioning him because she cared. But even though the thought had come out of nowhere, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was more than simple concern behind her constant digging.

Again, deciding that that was an issue to put on hold for the time being, after all, it was his birthday, he continued opening Hermione's letter, pushing aside the worrying feeling at the absence of any kind of identification spell.

Dear Harry,
Happy Birthday. Dumbledore says that this birthday is very special. He told me that some wizards come into their magickal inheritances and bloodline gifts soon after their 16 birthday. He said that's why the restrictions weren't lifted until one was 17, to give them a chance to get their magick under control and stable.
Let me know if you come into some magic, okay. I've tried doing some research on it, but not much is known outside wizarding families themselves, Dumbledore says. I even went to the Magical Library of London and found almost nothing. Dumbledore said families jealously guard their lineages because of habits taught during past wars. We both think it's silly to keep such things secret, but no matter. If you come into an inheritance, you can tell me!
Dumbledore said that if it's quiet, he might be able to come get you a few days before school starts. Then you can come to the Burrow and visit with Ron and myself. Won't that be wonderful!
Oh, and I don't want to worry you, but Ron's been acting a bit funny. I'm worried that those brains from before have done something to him. He keeps avoiding everyone but the twins, Ginny, and his Dad. He even avoids me! None of them will tell me what's going on! I asked for Dumbledore's advice and he said I should just give him time. I just thought you should know, in case he hasn't gotten better by the time we got together again.

Sincerely,
Hermione

P.S.- Dumbledore says you should write down anything that happens with your scar and to try and practice Occlumency.

Before he could fully absorb the shock of Hermione's slightly rambling letter, there was a knock on his bedroom door. The knock was soft and seemed almost apologetic. He had no idea who it could be. Surely none of the Dursley's would be so polite, at least not to him.

Frowning in mild confusion, a burgeoning habit for him, it seemed, Harry climbed out of his bed and slowly went to open the door. What he saw on the other side almost convinced him that the entire morning was a dream and he was still sleeping.

Dudley, previously of dangerously pendulous size, now just heavily muscled, stood outside his door, looking chagrin and holding a tray laden with delicious smelling food. For a moment, they just stood there, looking at each other. Then Dudley spoke.

"It's not your fault I don't like magic." The words left him in a rush and he flushed a bit, obviously embarrassed. Then, he closed his eyes, completely missing Harry's not inconsiderate shock, took a deep breath, and continued, looking at Harry very solemnly.

"Look, my parents left for Marge's. Can I please come in so we can talk?" Harry was still far to stunned at the seeming u-turn from a boy he hadn't seen since the dementors incident the previous summer. So he simply opened the door so Dudley could slip through. Dudley passed through with surprising grace and quiet, handing Harry the tray as he thanked him and continued inside.

Dudley's eyes passed over the room of his discarded belongings with a kind of nostalgic contempt that, again, shocked Harry. He had a moment to wonder sedately if this was some clever plan by Voldemort to shock him into a heart attack before Dudley spoke again.

"I was such a snotty little fuck, wasn't I?" The comment itself was almost enough to make Harry smirk, until he remembered from whence it came. Again, Dudley was speaking before he could reply.

"When I started Smeltings, I thought it would make me just like my dad. I still can't decide whether I wanted that or not, not even after these years. I was used to how things were here, used to getting my way, being the biggest kid on the block, the most feared. Then I started Smeltings. My first term there taught me a valuable lesson. No matter how tough you think you are, there is always someone tougher, just waiting.

I can't even remember how many times my old habits got my arse kicked!" The last was said with a kind of cheerful chagrin that made Harry, even as mesmerized by this story, and the boy telling it, as he was, grin faintly. But then the somber voice was back, and Dudley was talking again.

"The counselors at school started asking questions when I became chronically depressed. I knew something was wrong, I just couldn't figure out what, couldn't allow myself to contemplate that it may be me.

When I started the boxing team in an effort to keep from getting pounded, I didn't realize that the coach was also one of the school counselors, and the father of a girl I fancied." At the thought of the girl, Dudley smiled, soft and sweet, and Harry thought he felt that heart attack coming at the sight of it. Dudley in love.

"I had spent the summer with you and my gang, doing the things that we always did, but by the end of the first term of second year, I realized it wasn't the fun it used to be. It was that, that finally made me agree to see Mr, Jacobson. He had been trying for some months, and considering I wanted in with his daughter, I felt he was the best choice. At first, it was just casual boxing sessions before dinner, nothing heavy, but the more I got to know him, the more I realized what a great guy he was, and what a complete shmuck Vernon and I are. It hit me like a ton of bricks during the third week. I had always thought that I should be just like him." Here Dudley paused, his eyes out the window and searching the horizon, seeing only the memories of a night that had changed him, one of the most defining of his life, like he knew this day would be.

"It was the first time I had cried, really cried, since infancy. I pretended but, never real tears. Never real. I thought I should be ashamed," he smiled," but Mr. Jacobson told me I was courageous." Now he was grinning. "Now you know I've been called lots of things, but never that. He told me it took more courage to see ourselves and try to improve than almost anything else. It was then I knew I could trust him, with almost all of it. I sat down with him that Saturday and told him everything, about our lives, how I was raise, how you were raised, all the horrible things I'd done. I even told the man I had the hots for his daughter." They both grinned at that one, neither realizing that this was the first such moment they had ever shared in all the years they had lived under the same roof.

"Everything with the counseling was going okay. I was finally starting to learn who I was, you know? Trying to understand that I didn't have to be a carbon-copy of my father, that I had a responsibility to myself. But that didn't mean I wasn't still afraid. It took weeks to figure out what of. I was afraid of my own father. I spent every summer pretending everything was the same so he wouldn't notice anything, suspect anything. I was so terrified of him. As far as I knew, he'd never even yelled at me in my life, so why was I afraid of him more than anything else? Why was I still pretending for him?

Then," a hesitation, almost a pause," I cornered you in that alley. There were those creatures." This time, it was a pause. Dudley, again, appeared to be seeing something in his mind's eye, only this time, Harry, too, remembered. He remembered the sick knot of fear and the icy cold as the Dementors crept closer. He could almost hear the sharp rattle of their breathing, and so, he was very gratefully when Dudley began to speak again.

"I remember things, Harry. Things I should've been far to young to remember. It was like a flood, of so many things. It took me months of nightmares and late-night sessions to put it all together. So many things, Harry. Floating bottles and flickering t.v. channels and toys dancing in mid-air. Rattles changing to lollies and stuffed animals roaring like real ones." Dudley was clearly rambling now and Harry was flabbergasted at the things he was saying, so let him keep going, watching as he huddled into himself more with each passing word, hoping at the end, he could make sense of it all.

"There was a man, a man like you and a light stick and a light and it hurt. It hurt so much. And it stopped. The rattles stayed rattles and the toys didn't dance and the channels wouldn't change and you were sad, so sad Haiwy." Harry hadn't blinked as a huddled Dudley's knees hit the floor, but hearing the child-like nickname sent a now familiar jolt through him.

"I just wanted you at play, Haiwy. Just wanted you not to be sad, to be happy, like before with the dancing toys. Just for a lil bit, Haiwy. He won't be mad.

"But he was mad." Suddenly, it was the adult Dudley's voice again, eyes still glazed, as were Harry's now, both trapped in a memory of two four-year-old boys playing in the garden as the sunset blazed a bloody trail across the lower sky. Neither one of them had seen the furious visage of Vernon Dursley staring at Harry, who was supposed to have been weeding.

Both boys started as a dark shadow settled heavily over them. With a pure horror only the very young could feel, they both looked up, spotting for the first time, the looming disaster in the form of the man standing above them. Though Harry was used to being on the receiving end of his uncle's rage and the punishment that promptly insued, Dudley, to this point, had been the prodigal son, though supposedly very ill, and could be forgiven his confusion, as they both stood, he, slightly in front of his cousin.

"Hi daddy." At the lack of reply, or even acknowledgement, Dudley's confusion increased.

"We was jus playin, daddy." His father had never denied him the right to do as he pleased, so, surely, with this explanation, his father would be pacified.

"Go inside, Dudley." Dudley started to protest. He wanted Harry to play with him some more, but Harry touched his arm, hushing him as he watched Vernon's face turn from a furious red, to apoplectic purple. At the gesture, Vernon exploded.

"KEEP YOUR FILTHY FREAK HANDS OFF MY SON!"

"But da-" Before he could finish, he was on the ground, the left side of his face on fire, staring up into the angry eyes of who he thought was his father. But his daddy never hit him

"And you better not go near this freak every again. You're MY SON and I won't have you infected by his FREAKISNESS ANYMORE, UNDERSTAND?!" Dudley was terrified now. His father had never got mad at him, ever. In his confused pain, all he could do was nod as his father grabbed his cousin, his playmate, his friend, by the arm and dragged him inside, screaming about his lazy, freakishness, and how his parent's had been no better, a blight on normal, decent folk. He didn't know what a freak was, or why his father would say that about Harry. He didn't know why his father was mad, why he'd been hit. He always played with whoever he wanted to. His father said he could. Later, when he noticed Harry wasn't at dinner, he realized he was being punished again, going without food again, and all because Dudley had wanted to be his friend.

Harry remembered the beating he'd gotten, remembered being shoved in his room, remembered lying, in pain, on the little cot and listening to the lock click into place. When he heard his family at the dinner table, he tried to crawl out of his cot and lean against the door, hoping to at least be able to smell the food he'd, again, be denied. But the pain of jolting his already fragile and tired body was too much. With fiery pain, his body protested and promptly, he passed out, still futiley leaning half against the door.

He woke several hours later to quiet sobbing outside his door and a whispery phrase repeating itself over and over again, like a prayer, the repetition of which, after all these years, pulled him out of his revery.

"I'm sowwy, Haiwy, so sowwy. I'm sowwy, Haiwy, so sowwy." Harry remembered that Dudley's bullying had started soon after, getting progressively worse the happier about it Vernon got. Dudley was the prodigal son again and Harry had never felt more alone. Haltingly, Harry moved off his bed and over to the huddled form of his cousin, who had grown as much this past summer, it seemed, as he himself had. He knelt across from Dudley, watching him rock back and forth, murmuring and weeping in that child-like voice. Slowly, he wrapped his arms around the much larger boy, holding him as he cried. The crying changed from a child's to the weeping of an adult who's heart had been broken.

They knelt there for some time as Dudley slowed his tears. If Harry hadn't been holding him so tightly, he might have missed what he said next.

"I am so sorry, Harry, more than I can ever say."

"I know. So am I." Bloody Hell, he thought forcefully. What the hell was he supposed to do now?