Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. Thanks to my Beta reader Storyseeker and my faithful reviewers.

Waiting for H

The sky was filled with a deep scarlet ball of light crashing down against a mighty, fierce blue ocean. Anyone looking from the little Edwardian cottages on the shore may have been forgiven if they'd for a second believed the sun was rising at midnight.

Dudley sat on a dusty burning sofa, in a broken burning house, in the middle of a small island. He hadn't moved or said a word, as the flames licked around him from all sides. He wanted to run, but he also wanted to burn.

Sounds echoed from the flames in blue rippling vibrations.

The slamming of a door, as it fell off its hinges: the crack of a fire coming to life after being long dead, yelling, louder and louder, and an apologetic voice.

"I'm sorry, Nicholas, but if yer' parents don't give yer' permission, yer' can't go. That's the rules." A white flash of light raced down from the cloudless sky. "You'll just hav' to live as a Muggle."

Then nothing.

Then…

BANG!

8

BANG!

Dudley shot up, and his breath got caught in his lungs, as if he was being choked from the inside. His eyes burned, as the sunlight pierced through the gaps of the wood boards Vernon had used to fortify the house from the letters.

Bang! Again on his door, the brass handle rattling as someone tried to open it. Vernon had installed locks on both Harry's and Dudley rooms after the two of them had tried to sneak down and get their letters early one morning. It would have gone great if Harry hadn't tripped and landed on Vernon.

Dudley's breath released in a sputter.

"Dudley? You awake?" Harry's voice came from the other side of door, fearless, amused and… excited?

"Your Dad's gone mad, and wants us all to pack our things." Then he whispered through the crack beneath the door. "I think you're right about the letters. They must be magic." Dudley could hear Harry, as he moved to his own room. "They were coming down the chimney!"

Cream and black bedcovers tied Dudley up in knots, which seized him tighter as he tried to pull himself free, sweat dripping from his hair and into his eyes as he did. Dudley hit the floor with a thud, but he was free, albeit losing his nightwear in the process. He shakily pulled on some jeans and a light-yellow Ralph Lauren polo shirt fresh out of his wardrobe.

All the time, his heart hammered in his ears: permission.

"It was a dream," he huffed, getting socks out of his drawer. His hands were trembling.

It amazed and disturbed him how his hands could tremble in fear of a dream. His hands had never trembled in his old body, even when faced with a life threatening exploding boiler during his first week of work-experience, a week gone terribly wrong.

"Suck it up. It was just a dream, a nightmare." He knew it couldn't be real. The voice, who he assumed was supposed to be Hagrid, sounded exactly like how he'd imagined it would, and nothing in this world had turned out like he imagined, so it wasn't real.

Also the voice had called him Nicholas, and only he knew his real name, and it didn't even feel like his name anymore. He shook his head. It wasn't even scary, it was relaxing…almost, and that was the most terrifying thing about it.

It wasn't what happened in the dream itself, but the feeling of being controlled that pressed on him. Though not physical like the devil snare bedcovers, it was a soft pressure in his head that he hadn't felt was there for a long time. It was calming, compelling and a tempting feeling, the feeling to opt-out to do nothing.

"Dudley, what is taking you so bloody long?" Vernon unlocked the door, perhaps answering his own question, and barged through it.

His face was beetroot red and missing half of his black moustache. He grabbed the discarded purple and black rucksack out from under Dudley's bed and started throwing the contents of Dudley's draws and wardrobe into it.

Dudley slowly sat down on his bed, holding tightly onto his money tin whilst staring at the mad man in his room. It was almost hypnotic, watching him wobble as he worked. "It won't work."

"What won't work?" Vernon sneered. He didn't even slow down, as he ripped one of Dudley's old shirts off the hanger.

"Running away." Dudley shrugged; all thoughts of the dream were displaced.

Vernon stopped dead, and turned to face Dudley, his eyes looking like they were being forced out of his head. He threw the half filled rucksack down the stairs, grabbed Dudley by the back of his shirt, and pulled Harry out of his room without any warning, storming them out the house, impressively kicking the rucksack into the open boot of the car as he bellowed. "WE ARE NOT RUNNING AWAY!"

8

As they ran way, crammed into Vernon's car, speeding crazily all around the motorway, Dudley was really regretting what he said to Vernon, and by the looks of it so was Harry. He whispered a plan across to Harry, as they pasted the '15 Mile To Megastation' sign.

"Those letters seemed to appear like Magic! Didn't they, Harry-" this was twelfth time he said it.

"Yeah, really magical!" Harry winced painfully, groping at his jeans.

"THAT is enough! There is no such thing as MAGIC!" parking sharply in the parking lot of Megastation, Vernon spun around in his chair. "And I-"

Dudley and Harry had reached over, unlocked their doors, undone their seatbelts and had escaped from the car before Vernon had time to turn around to face them. Dudley was now running faster than he ever thought he could, followed closely by Harry.

"Oh my god, I'm gonna burst" he said, slamming the door open with his shoulder, undoing the belt and top buttons of his jeans.

"Me, too!" Harry ran in past him, heading straight for the urinal, jeans fallen halfway down his thighs. The boy's exited the toilets a couple minutes later, with mutual sighs of relief.

"Why'd you wind him up like that? I don't even have my clothes." Harry asked, looking around the parking lot anxiously for Vernon. They could see the car, it was empty.

"You can borrow mine," he looked up and down Harry's baggy attire. "You do anyway."

"I don't borrow anything. Your old clothes are all I've got." He said, pulling at the collar of the lime green shirt.

"Where are they?"

Harry nodded towards the car. Dudley looked over Harry's head at the white stone building.

"They're in the service station." Dudley's eyes narrowed, as he focused. He could see Vernon and Petunia sitting across from each over on the far side of the building. They were kind of hard to miss, with Vernon as red as a ripe tomato and rubbing his face in a crazy fashion, attempting to hide his half moustache. Petunia looked like she shaking and was about to come apart at any moment. "I think it might be safer for us if we wait by the car…"

The two sat down and leaned their backs against the bumper of the car. Dudley watched Vernon and Petunia from between a grey Volvo and a red Skoda. Their lips were moving, and if Dudley were any good at lip-reading then that would have been helpful.

"Who would want to talk to us this badly?" Harry signed, rubbing his glasses on his shirt. "I know you think its magic and stuff, but why now? Why would they want to talk to us now?"

Dudley gazed at Harry for a long second before answering. "Perhaps we've only just got their attention?" he spoke slowly so that Harry might come to his own conclusion; it was a lot easer to lie if you had a way of avoiding the truth.

Harry frowned and put his glasses back on, and then whispered, "You think they know it was us at the zoo?"

"Probably. That…would make sense." Dudley leaned his head back on the car, looking up at the long radio antenna. He slid his gaze back to the building; Vernon had just tipped over a chair while standing up sharply. His face was still red, and he was marching away from the table. "Battle positions, Harry, they're coming back."

8

The rest of the trip was done in a heated silence. The Dursleys didn't even look at the boys, as they all got back in the car, but a plus was that they didn't have Vernon's fanatical ranting or random turnarounds as they drove.

Just before the night fell, they stopped at a depressing looking hotel called Railview, just outside of Cokeworth, which was backed on to a railway line that had long been out of service.

Harry and Dudley shared a room on the far side of the building, far away from the Dursleys. Neither of them could sleep, so instead Harry helped Dudley to count the money out his tin.

"£2315," Harry smiled giddily, "and 20p." he added, throwing the 20p into the bed. "That's loads, Dud!"

Dudley half-smiled, biting back the prickly feeling of worry in his throat. Would that be enough? He hoped it would. Well, it would have to be. "Yeah, I know, you can have the 20p."

"Thanks." Harry said sincerely, picking the small heptagon off the bed, as Dudley filled his tin, and stuffing it into a small mound of clothes at the foot of the bed and then climbed in. "What do you thinks gonna happen tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow?" Dudley said, putting a pillow in-between Harry and himself. "Letters will arrive at breakfast, we'll drive around again, and then…" He paused. Had he said too much? No, it was okay, as anyone could guess it. "Then we'll probably end up in some obscure location."

"Then after that, what?" Harry had lifted himself up with one arm so that he could look at Dudley over the pillow fort.

"Then," Dudley reached out his right hand and flicked the light switch; everything went pitch black, before their eyes adjusted. "It will be your birthday."

"Oh…yeah, I almost forgot." Dudley could feel Harry lying down; he could also hear him smiling. "You knew though."

"That's 'cos I know everything." Dudley sighed.

Harry barked into laugher; a rare occasion for Dudley.

8

The next day ran just as Dudley described. The letters came at breakfast, all two hundred of them, and were handed over to Vernon, whom disposed of them and then marched them all into the back of the car, and drove. Dudley managed to smuggle five Yorkshire teabags, four milk pots and some jam from the restaurant before they left. Old habits die hard.

What was worst than being squished next to Petunia, as she tried to calm her husband, was that Vernon was muttering to himself again. Dudley knew he ought not to be worried, as he knew what was going to happen, but even so, truthfully, he was scared. It wasn't pleasant being in a car with a mad man driving, as the books hadn't mention the several almost car crashes!

"Is that a rifle?" Dudley found himself saying sooner than he could stop himself, as he saw Vernon strutting up to the car through the heavy rain, holding a long thin package.

"No," Petunia whispered to him, holding his shoulders with a shaky and reassuring smile. "Daddies j-just gotten us something, that's all."

"Let's hope its not bullets." Petunia and Dudley both looked befuddled at Harry, who was covering his mouth with both hands.

"I've found the perfect place!" Vernon shouted, as he pulled the car door wide open and rubbed his hands with glee. "Come on! Everyone out!"

They did, and nervously huddled together. Dudley could see the hut on the rock from the shore, and it was nothing like in his dream, which cheered him up considerably.

It was worse.

8

Dudley and Harry sat close together on the moth-eaten sofa, under the combination of two mouldy blankets the Dursleys expected them to sleep in, staring into the damp fireplace.

"We could burn the bookcase," Dudley said absently, as he looked at his hands. He had taken the bandages off after they were soaked in the boat ride to the hut. Oddly, his hands would twitch every time thunder rolled overhead, but only when close enough to shake the shack.

"Help me take out the shelves." He stood up, looked at Harry and smiled, fed up of being cold. "We'll use them for firewood"

"How you gonna start it?" Harry asked attentively, getting out from under the blanket. "Magic?"

He looked at his cracked watch and then wandered over to the collapsing moss-grown bookcase in the left corner of the room, and helped Dudley to pull free the half-rotted shelves.

"Won't we get in trouble for using magic? They're already sending us letters," Harry said with concern, as they started ripping out the dry pages from the three books left on the shelf. They pushed them through the gaps of the tepee shape that Dudley had arranged over the sizzled remains of the crisp packets that they'd had for supper, and what Vernon had tried to start a fire with. "I mean, maybe doing magic's illegal or something."

"Probably," Dudley said, not really listening, as he pulled out the rusted steel fireguard and placed it in front of the fire. "But we'll be warm-" he lit one of the matches from Vernon's discarded matchbox that he'd tea-leafed earlier, and carefully lighted the torn pages as tinder. "And that's what's important."

He threw Harry the matchbox from behind him. It went wide, but Harry still managed to catch it. "Don't need magic to start a fire, just-" Dudley turned to Harry and tapped the side of his head.

Harry looked at the matchbox in his hands, smiled, and then rolled his eyes. "You think you're so clever."

"I do." Dudley smiled, turning back to the fire, adding the kindle to the tinder and then blowing the fire to life. Social Services were good for something, especially if you knew how to get into the activity programs.

Twenty minutes later, the boys sat in front of a raging fire, not feeling quite as damp and depressed as they were. They also used the time and the heat to dry their clothes, and the mouldy blankets were feeling quite toasty, sitting on them by the fire.

"I saw you looking at it earlier," Dudley asked, staring at the cracked watch. "That thing still work?"

Harry lifted his watch. "Yeah. Been a bit funny lately, though." He looked around the room, or rather at the connecting door to where Mr and Mrs Dursley were sleeping before staring into the fire. "Thanks, you know, for getting it."

"No problem. What's family for." Dudley shrugged, rolling his eyes to the connecting door. "What time is it?"

"Eleven fifty nine…ohm twenty seconds until-

"We should put the kettle on!" Dudley interrupted, suddenly animated. He would be here soon.

"What kettle?" Harry asked, looking around the room, bemused.

Dudley ran to the window. He couldn't see anything through the storm, only thick heavy rain and sea blasting against the rocks. Wait! What was that? He saw something fall from the sky and land on the rock, and it was now moving towards the hut.

"What is it?" Harry asked, getting to his feet. "Is it them? Are they out there?"

"Oh yeah," Dudley said, as he quickly moved to the door, almost knocking Harry over as he head for the window. "Someone big." Dudley knew he must have looked more manically happy than Vernon when he said it, and was glad Harry was too busy trying to look out the window to notice.

Dudley grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. As he did, the wind caught it and knocked Dudley backwards as it blew inwards. Before it could slam against the wall, a large hand grabbed it, and a great body entered the house, shutting the door with ease.

"Yer' gotta be careful with these things durin' a storm," it said, knocking the door lightly with its large knuckles. "Mines same. Bit a' wind will take it right off. There yer' go, up yer' get!" A whimper escaped Dudley's lips, as Hagrid lifted him off the ground effortlessly and placed him back on his feet.

"Oh good, yer' got a' fire going. Lovely." Hagrid's face was mainly a thick matted brown beard, but his dark eyes shone amid it with cheery mirth, as he plonked himself on the sofa, bending its frame. "Anyone for a cup o' tea? It's been a' journey…"

"We were just going to put the kettle on," Harry said, still standing by the window, looking pointedly over his glasses at Dudley as he said it. "But we don't have one."

Dudley tried his best to look innocently back, then watched with amazement as Hagrid pulled out a bronze kettle, a poker, three chipped tea cups, a pack of sausages and a glass bottle which looked like whiskey, out his coat.

"Plates?" Dudley asked the half-giant, as he handed him the sausages.

"Yep, gotte'm here," he said, and then pulled out three plates with large daises printed around the rims, and some mismatching forks, and a large knife. Hagrid looked at the knife, his eyes broaden as he remembered something.

"Oh yea', Harry," Hagrid said, digging his hands through his many pockets, pulling out a slightly squished box and motioning to Harry to come closer. "I mighta sat on it at some point."

He handed Harry the box and watched with glittering beetle black eyes, as Harry opened it. "Happy Birthday, Harry! Gosh, you look like yer' dad, but not yer' eyes though, them a' yer mums"

8

Harry and Dudley sat down in front of Hagrid by the fire, eating sausages, sipping tea and eating chocolate cake as he explained everything, about who he was, Hogwarts, and even about Voldemort. Dudley, to his surprise, was just as captivated as Harry was.

It was so late that it was getting early; the fire was beginning to die down, as was the storm outside, before Dudley asked the one question he was dreading the answer to. He swallowed.

"Hagrid, if the Dur-mum and dad, didn't want me to go to Hogwarts-" Dudley glazed at the man's huge furry face and found his eyes. "Can they stop me from going?" his voice actually wobbled as he asked, making him feel his body's age.

There was a long pause. Hagrid's brow deepened, as he leaned back on the sofa. Dudley was also aware that Harry was staring at him from behind.

Hagrid let out a large sigh. "Well…it depends."

Dudley gritted his teeth, as he hated when people were vague. "Depends on what?"

"How determined yer are t' get there." Hagrid leaned forward and whispered, his eyebrows wobbling up and down like two oversized hairy caterpillars.

"You mean I can just… turn up? And they'll let me in." that sounded far too easy.

"Err... yer'll hav' to put yer name down first cours', and pay the-," Hagrid must have seen Dudley's face fall at the mention of money, because he waved his hand as if wafting away the words, "-but Gringotts will happily lend yer the money. Why I haven't met a wizard who hadn't had one, they even did one fer' me." He then mumbled something under his breath that sounded to Dudley like 'still paying it off'.

"What's Gringotts?" Harry asked, moving closer to Dudley and Hagrid.

"Wizardsbank." Hagrid and Dudley said together, and Hagrid looked a Dudley suspiciously. "How'd yer' know that?"

"Err, umm, who else would give me a lone? How do I apply for one?" he added quickly, trying to back peddle away from the connotation.

"Oh that's easy, ser'pose we could set you up a' vault when we go shoppin'." Hagrid looked angrily at the connecting door again. Harry and Dudley had stopped Hagrid from barging in there and waking the Dursleys several times already. "Should leave yer' Mum a' note before we go." Hagrid's eyes suddenly widened.

"Oh right, shoulda' sent this off when I got here!" Hagrid pulled an owl out of his pocket. If owls could gasp for air, this one would have and, like the cake, it looked like it had been sat on at some point.

Hagrid wrote something on a piece of paper and tied it to its leg, and then threw it out the door. "Here." Hagrid handed Dudley some parchment and a quill. "We'll leave first thing in the morning." He nudged Harry in the side and winked, nodding his head at the door. "Sav'us the trouble."

8

"Best night sleep in ages, my dear," Vernon Dursley said, stretching. His back cracked loudly as he did, but he ignored the pain of it, as it was worth it to know he had won against those, those…people.

"Yes," Petunia answered, kneading her aching shoulder through her pink and frilly nightdress. "But perhaps we should go home now, Dear.?" She asked encouragingly.

"Don't be ridiculous, sweetheart, that's exactly what they'd want us to do." Vernon smiled twistedly, turning to Petunia as he opened the connecting door. "We've got to stay one step ahead, its what separates us from them," he spat the word. "Thought they could out smar-"

Vernon stopped stone-cold dead, as he looked into the room. There was no one there, except a letter on a squished box in the middle of the floor in front of the fireplace. Vernon slowly walked into the room, bent down and picked up the letter.

Dear Mum & Dad,

Gone to Wizarding World for a couple of days with a giant. Will see you at home.

Love Dudley.

P.S. Borrowing the car.

"Where is he?" Petunia's eyes widened from the doorway. "Where's Diddykins?" She ran into the room franticly, realizing something was very wrong. Vernon pushed the note blindly into her, let out a squeak, and then fainted.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I decided not to go Hogwarts in this chapter because it would have been far too long. Hogwarts is on the horizon. P.S. if you see any spelling bloops, you know what to do ; )