A/N
The Houses Competition
Round four
House: Hufflepuff
Student: Year 7
Category: Theme (2000-5000 Words)
Prompt(s): Happy Family - 1. [Speech] "Why are there letters? You told me math was all about numbers."
Word count: 2067 (Per Google Docs)
Beta(s): Pixileanin, Aya

Trials in Homework

Harry pulled his bag over his shoulder after tucking his phone into his back pocket. He checked that his wand was secured under his sleeve in the dragonhide holster and nodded to himself. "Time to get to class."

He walked out of his apartment and locked the door behind him, sliding his keys into the pocket of his jumper. "Art History, Biology, and a four-hour shift at the bookstore."

He walked leisurely to campus and made his way to his first class. It was one of two that he didn't actually have with his cousin. They had decided that it would be easiest on them both to have their core classes, the ones required for all career paths, at the same time. Dudley wanted to be a Child Protective Service Agent, while Harry was on the track to be a Substance Abuse Counselor to try and figure out a way to help witches and wizards that became addicted to potions or spells.

Once his class ended, he had only fifteen minutes to get from one side of campus to the other for his next class. He ducked into an unused classroom and apparated to a set of coordinates on the other side of campus one building over from where he needed to get. Even though he was proud to be a wizard, this was not the place to show it. Muggles just wouldn't understand. Doubly, and understandably so, it was against the rules to let a Muggle see magic in the first place. Harry made sure that no one saw him leave the building, and then double checked his bag to make sure he had the homework for his class.

Harry sat next to his cousin in their shared Biology class. He saw a familiar head of chocolate brown curls and glanced over at Hermione wistfully. He only allowed himself to stare for a moment before focussing on the whiteboard to see what the agenda was for the day.

"That your girlfriend, Harry?" Dudley teased, bumping his shoulder lightly.

Bumping Dudley's shoulder in return, Harry retorted, "No, Dudley. It's nothing. Now pay attention. Professor Laurie just walked in and he's a stickler for the rules." Harry pulled out a couple of pens and a couple of spiral notebooks to take notes. He handed one set to Dudley, who took it gratefully.

The class was only an hour and a half long that day, so when Professor Laurie released them, the cousins went their separate ways. Harry waved goodbye to Dudley and headed back to their apartment to get ready for work, while Dudley gathered his belongings to go to another class.

Harry thought about how Dudley had brought up the subject of Hermione. He wished that Dudley hadn't seen any of that. It wasn't something he wanted to get into with his cousin. It wasn't something he liked to think about. Not in the greatest of moods, Harry entered his apartment and threw his backpack on the floor, next to the pile of shoes by the door.

"Oh well," he said. "Maybe a four-hour shift will take my mind off of things."

Harry groaned as he dropped his bag on the dining table. "Uuuugh. That was a brutal shift." He noticed that Dudley had been home earlier because the pile of shoes had been neatly stacked up on the shoe rack. Harry kicked his shoes off on top of them and collapsed onto the couch.

The bookstore had been particularly slow that day. Harry had been assigned to reshelve the books from the front of the store. It didn't seem like a difficult thing to do, but then he hadn't counted on every single book in his cart to be located in almost opposite ends of the shop. By the time his four hours were up, Harry's toes felt like they were about to fall off.

He had only been home for about thirty minutes when Dudley slammed into their shared apartment.

"Harry?" Dudley asked in a depressed tone.

"Yeah, Big D?" Harry responded, only half paying attention to his cousin as he tried to stretch some of the kinks out of his back from being on his feet for several hours at work.

Dudley was staring at the shoes. He took Harry's shoes without saying anything and set them neatly in a row with the other shoes on the rack. "Why did we decide to live together?" Dudley grunted as he flopped ungracefully onto the sofa next to Harry.

"Because your mum and dad wouldn't pay for you to live on campus or to get your own place?" Harry queried back, finally lowering his arms from his stretches.

Dudley laughed softly, "Yeah, they weren't too happy when they found out I got accepted here at York St. John University. I owe that to you and your study guides, by the way. You were a lifesaver back then." He glowered and continued, "Mum and Dad wanted to send me to the University of Surrey and stay at home while giving them my paychecks for rent."

"They really wanted you to pay to live at home and go to Uni?" Harry grimaced at the thought of living even longer with his heinous relatives and sent up a silent thanks for his cousin becoming a decent human being after the Dementor attack when they were just fifteen.

The following three years just made him that much better of a person without having his parents influencing him to be a bully and a thug. Of course, the fact that they had to hide their newfound good relationship with each other from everyone they knew was difficult, but not impossible at the time. Dudley would send copies of his school assignments to Harry so he could keep up with Muggle school, and Harry would send back his notes after working the assignments through.

"Yeah, and they just invited Aunt Marge to live-in full time because she lost the farm where she was breeding her hideous beasts."

Dudley paused as he and Harry both gave full body shudders at that horrible thought.

"At least Ripper is dead now, so I don't have to worry about the brute trying to bite me when I come home for mandatory holiday visits with my parents. You're lucky they don't want you to come ho-" Dudley cut off abruptly and turned pained eyes on his cousin.

"I didn't mean anything bad by that," he whispered hoarsely. "You know I feel bad about how rotten I was as a kid."

"It's fine, Dudley. I don't want to see them, either. Besides, I do know that you are a better person now," Harry whispered.

"Anyways," Dudley cleared his throat, "Why did we take the same classes as each other again? You haven't been to normal school in eight years! How are you getting things faster than I am?" Dudley slumped onto the sofa with a groan.

"I went to school with Hermione Granger. She's one of my best mates," Harry snorted.

'Was', whispered his brain. 'She was one of your best mates.' Harry shook his head at himself and then saw Dudley's blank expression. "She's the brainiac in our Biology and Calculus classes."

Dudley's eyes widened in understanding. "You went to wizard school with that pretty girl you were staring at in class today?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

"Yeah, Dudley, I just said that. She wasn't always that pretty, either," Harry retorted as he started getting his cooking implements together in the kitchen to cook dinner for the both of them. He hunted through the pantry and crisper to see what they had to make a meal out of. "She used the chance given by Malfoy and his goons hitting her with a jinx to shrink her teeth down to be even."

"But she's, like, normal! She doesn't dress funny like that Ron bloke who came to visit you a few weeks ago!"

"That would be because Hermione was raised 'normal' as you put it. Her parents own the Granger and Granger Orthodontics and Dentistry practice in Kensington." As Harry talked, he found himself getting more comfortable telling Dudley about his former best friend.

"Really? My dentist is her mum?"

"I guess. I never went to your appointments or had any of my own, if you'll recall."

"Oh… I forgot. Anyway, she's a what you call it...muddle-born then? Like your mum?"

"Muggleborn, yes," Harry corrected. "Just like my mum. Hermione is the first witch in her family."

"You said she's your friend, but you've never invited her over… did you have a falling out?" Dudley asked with concern coloring his voice.

Harry sighed, "She doesn't want to talk to me anymore."

"Why?"

"I don't know, Dud. I just know that she told me she wants space away from me."

"Should I talk to her?"

"No! Just- don't- leave it alone, Dudley."

Harry didn't understand Hermione's decision, but, as her friend, he found that he wanted… no, he needed to respect it. There were many times at Hogwarts that Hermione had accepted inexplicable things from him. It was only fair to return the favor. Whatever she had going on inside her, he knew that she would eventually work it out. He just hoped they could still be friends whenever that happened.

He finished his perusal of the available ingredients and called out to Dudley to change the subject. "Spaghetti, salad, and garlic bread or meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans for dinner, Dud?"

"Do the spaghetti tonight, Harry. I can never get the pasta right even with all your training me in the kitchen. I can do the meatloaf tomorrow since I'll get home before you. According to our calendar, you have a six-hour shift at the bookstore and I only have our shared Calculus class." Dudley frowned, "Just so you know, I am not dropping the Hermione thing, Harry. I'm just giving you a pass for now."

Harry just grunted a non-response back and turned to get his ingredients in order so he could just dump and go on each portion of the meal. That's almost exactly what he was giving Hermione. Time. Time to decide if their eight years of friendship was worth continuing in her eyes.

Dudley went to his room while Harry worked his own special brand of magic in the kitchen to get his homework for Biology. He worked on that while Harry cooked, only setting it aside when he called out that dinner was ready.

Harry grinned at Dudley's moan of delight as he ate. "You got dishes tonight since I cooked?" he teased.

"Yeah," Dudley grinned back.

After dinner, Dudley went into the kitchen to wash up the dishes while Harry finished up an English assignment. Harry hadn't had a proper family when he and Dudley had lived with the Dursleys growing up. But now, he and Dudley made quite a good family. It was a little dysfunctional at times, but they truly supported each other. They were now, finally, like the brothers they should have been. He finished writing his short essay as Dudley walked back to the dining table.

"Ah, just in time, cousin mine," Harry chimed, setting his books out on the dining table to do his homework for Calculus. Harry opened up his Calculus textbook and pulled the worksheets out that the Professor assigned three days earlier. "We only have to do the first two sheets for Calculus this week, right?"

"Yeah." Dudley pulled out his own unfinished Calculus homework to sit down and work on it with Harry.

Dudley glanced at the homework, looked up at Harry, then immediately did a double take at the homework again. "Harry?"

"Yeah, Dud?" Harry didn't even bother to look up from the equation he was working on. "What is it?"

"Why are there letters? You told me math was all about numbers," Dudley pouted. "I don't remember Professor Mallone saying anything about letters last class!"

"That's because you slept for the last half hour!"

"I did not!" Dudley exclaimed. "I was just resting my eyes." He stuck his nose up in the air snootily. 'He looks just like one of his relatives like that,' Harry thought. Dudley must have thought the same thing because he immediately dropped the act and looked shamefully at Harry. "Sorry, mate."

Harry just grinned and laughed as he went about completing the assignment.