A/N: I had to rewrite this chapter like six times. Also finals. Also what is sleep. So please, feel free to point out any mistakes.

Mr. Dursley? Dudley? Dudley can you hear me?

Dudley groaned, trying to shove the hands away, but they kept gripping at him, trying to gain a response. His shadow slid around him, over him, squeezing him with its cold, weighty presence and making him shiver. {wake up, Dudley. Tell them what I told you. About the man. The man who's a rat,} it demanded, but he couldn't.

I can't, I can't, he tried to say. He was tired. He just wanted to sleep. Make it stop.

{Dudley you must do as I say. Listen to me, Dudley-}

But he was too tired. He tried to move but his limbs were too heavy; and then to speak but his throat was too dry.

{you're weak, Dudley. Don't be weak. You need to do this.}

But the shadow was right. He was weak. That had always been who he was - weak, sniveling, you're disgusting, how can you stand to look at yourself, your parents are weak and you're even weaker, how can you even stand to be in your own skin-

I can't, Dudley reminded himself. That's how we got ourselves here, remember?

You're disgusting, you're weak, loathsome, wretched, repulsive, spineless, soft, impotent, vile-

{we don't have time for this-}

And the shadow slithered in, and told them about the rat that wasn't really a rat, because it was really a man - a weak, despicable man, who'd done horrible things, and that he hadn't been the one to pay for them.

Just like me, Dudley told the shadow from the corner of his mind he'd been caged in, barely able to feel his own tongue sliding over his teeth as the shadow told whoever was listening about horrible things to come.

{shut up. You need to listen to me. I have to do this, Dudley.}

Dudley tried to console himself with this - that it was for the greater good, that Harry will benefit from this, that the wraith knew what it was doing and would get them to where they needed to be in order to fix things.

It was fine. It was all going to be fine.

"Where am I?"

"In the hospital wing, dearie, you've been ill," said Madame Pomfrey as she bustled towards him, fussing until he laid back down. "Here, down the hatchet - that's a good lad" she told him, handing him a flask of something fizzing and pink. It tasted the way he imagined toenails might.

"There we are. You're doing just fine, you'll be out of here by supper."

"What happened?" Dudley asked, studiously not glancing to the corner he knew the shadow was lurking in. The memory of the suffocating cold made him feel ill, but he swallowed it back and focused on the present, where he was in a warm bed in a lit room, and the shadow had gone back into hiding. Part of him wanted to feel stupid for being afraid, but the rest of him knew he should be.

"-overtired, that's all, I'm certain. Do you get headaches often, Dudley? Your cousin mentioned that you do," Madame Pomfrey was saying.

"Ah, yes," Dudley said awkwardly as he realized she would be wanting a response.

"Not - not like that, though," he amended after a moment. Maybe he should tell them about the shadow. Maybe he was insane. Or possessed. They had magic, they could do something about that, couldn't they?

"I'd hope not!" Madame Pomfrey replied, as a cart with a tray wheeled itself over to them. "Eat up."

It was breakfast, Dudley realized, but he wasn't hungry. Hadn't been hungry in a while, now.

"When you've finished, Dudley, there's someone here to see you," the witch told him as she placed the tray in his lap, straightening the bedcovers.

"Who?" Dudley asked, stabbing into the poached egg with his spoon. A sudden fear gripped him. They didn't call my parents, did they?

"Oh, nobody to worry about. It's just that you can never be too careful about these sorts of things," she replied, neatly sidestepping his question.

"What sorts of things?" He asked, abandoning his utensils, along with all pretense of eating.

"She's a specialist, Dudley. Just to make sure you're in tip-top shape. Now eat your eggs," she commanded before whisking the cart away.

He thought about not eating. Thought about letting it all just . . . slide. The shadow could have his body. It knew what to do with it. Dudley shuddered as he remembered the feeling of it sliding around inside him, the way it had shifted and nestled perfectly into the rotting hole in his chest he'd never noticed before like it belonged there. Nobody would miss him, he suspected, and the wraith would get done the things that needed to get done. He should just die. That would be for the best, for everyone, really.

Vile, foul, loathsome, weak little-

"What did I say? You need to keep up your strength, Mr. Dursley! Now eat!"

So Dudley ate. Because if there was one thing he was finally beginning to learn, it was to do as he was told.

"Do you get headaches like this very often?"

"Do you recall anything you can't quite account for around the time these headaches occur?"

"Do you know what this is?"

"Do you feel anything when looking at this?"

"Have you seen this before?"

"Do these symbols mean anything to you?"

The shadow weighed along his back, heavy and sickening. Dudley swallowed drily at every question that passed that he couldn't give any satisfactory answer to.

The woman brought out a yet another page of meaningless things that he didn't understand, and suddenly the shadow shifted. Dudley tensed.

"Mr. Dursley? Are you alright? Do you sense anything?"

The shadow slid across his skin and layered itself over his fingers. It felt like he'd dipped his hand in icy water. It might have hurt, even, if he'd been aware enough to feel it. Before he realized it, his hand was moving.

"That one," he said, brushing his finger over the symbol that looked like a crooked 'z', "and that one," he added as the shadow kept moving, pointing to the bow tie, and then the wonky cross, and then the ticket stub and the diamond and the saxophone until -

"Enough," the witch said, her voice sharp and her expression more intense than he'd seen it since she'd entered the room.

Dudley stilled, before carefully folding his hands between his knees. The shadow slid away like smoke.

"I believe that's enough, Mr. Dursley," she said calmly a moment later, smoothing an invisible crease out of her impeccable robes.

"We will be speaking shortly," she informed him as she stood and began to replace every object she'd brought out back into the too-small case they'd come out of. Before Dudley could respond, she turned on her heel and was gone from the room.

My hands are shaking, he registered dully on some level. Ever since he'd woken up, he felt like he'd been underwater. The world was still the world he'd left it, but . . . different, just slightly. Everything was smeary, and confusing, and harder than it should be. The grating exhaustion was the only thing that let him know he wasn't still asleep.

{Acceptable, Dudley,} the shadow informed him as it slid away from him. {I believe this will do nicely.}

Dudley didn't say a thing.

"Dudley! Are you alright? You were so ill! I told you you should have gone to the hospital wing!"

Dudley shrugged and gave Hermione a weak smile. He'd been released from the hospital wing after dinner late last night and hadn't had a chance to see anyone besides his dorm mates. Ron had been in a low mood and had gone straight to bed, but Neville and the others seemed happy to see him. Harry had fallen asleep in Dudley's bed again that night.

"It's alright. I'm fine," he told her. She huffed a little, but seemed too glad to see him again to really work herself up into a decent lecture. They were pruning roses in the greenhouse - at least they looked like roses; Dudley had a sneaking suspicion that they were the source of the giggling he kept hearing whenever he looked away from them, but he hadn't been paying attention during the lesson so he couldn't be certain. He still felt disconnected from everything, like his mind was lagging a few seconds behind.

He realized Hermione was watching him carefully and he scrambled to fill the silence.

"What's wrong with Weasley?" He tried. Ron had been swearing loudly from the next table over since the class had paired off and begun working.

"His rat went missing over the weekend," she told him, still clipping away. She was a little too enthusiastic with the pruning, he'd noticed.

"He claims someone stole it, but I doubt it. Have you seen that rat? It's disgusting," she continued, wrinkling her nose at the thought.

"Maybe it was one of his brothers," Dudley defended weakly. "They seem the type to do something just to get a rise out of him." Hermione frowned and turned back to their plant. Dudley suddenly realized that she was the one doing most of the work and hurried to busy himself.

"I don't think so," she said finally. "There's something strange about it. I can't quite put my finger on it."

Dudley avoided looking her in the eye for the rest of the day.

"Are you sure you're feeling alright? Do you want to go back to the infirmary? Maybe you should go rest for a little while," Hermione wheedled. She'd noticed him acting strange on Monday, and by Wednesday was convinced there was something horribly wrong with him and he was just being stoic.

Like I would ever be stoic, Dudley thought derisively. Stupid, fat, spineless worm -

"What's wrong? Are you still sick?" Harry interrupted his line of thought. "Is he still sick?" He turned to Hermione.

"He's fine, Harry," Ron grunted from where he'd been sculpting his pile of mashed potatoes with a spoon. He'd been in a foul mood since Dudley had gotten out of the hospital wing, but the loss of his rat had apparently superceded any grudge he might have been holding towards Dudley.

"Yes, he is fine," he said firmly. Hermione looked like she wanted to press the issue, but Professor McGonagall interrupted before she could say anything.

"Good evening, Miss Granger, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley. Mr. Dursley, if you'll come with me," she said succinctly.

"I'll see you later," he told them, trying to ignore how hard his heart was pounding.

"Where are we going?" he asked McGonagall as she led him out of the Great Hall.

"To see Headmaster Dumbledore," she replied. Dudley swallowed, hard.

"You're not in trouble," she added after seeing his face. "But he needs to speak to you, concerning a personal matter."

Dudley wanted to ask more questions; to get an idea of what he was about to walk into, but his thoughts were bouncing around the inside of his head so fast he couldn't catch them.

"Toffee crisp," McGonagall said suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. She had stopped before a large gargoyle hulking off to one side of the corridor.

"What?" Dudley asked, feeling stupider by the minute, but before she could reply the gargoyle had leapt out of the way and bowed them into the hidden passage that had suddenly appeared behind it.

"Up you go, Mr. Dursley," McGonagall gestured him on up the cramped, spiraling stairwell. He nodded to her in thanks and stepped in. The gargoyle moved back into position, blocking his view of her.

The second Dudley's foot hit the first step, his stomach lurched. He thought he was going to be sick before he realized that the staircase was moving. Before he could quite wrap his head around it, the stairwell slid to stop before a large, imposing door.

He knocked lightly, as though maybe if the Headmaster didn't hear him, he'd be free to go. Unfortunately the door swung open at his touch, like it had been expecting him.

"Come in, Dudley," Dumbledore called from within. Dudley took a deep breath before stepping firmly over the threshold.

"Fizzing whizbee?" The man offered a bowl of brightly colored sweets from where he stood beside the bookshelf. The room was lined with them, each holding hundreds of books that looked older than the headmaster, and strange and delicate instruments that all ticked away to their own rhythm.

"Uhm, no. Thank you," Dudley managed, squirming slightly under the man's gaze, along with the gaze of at least a dozen of the portraits hanging in the study, all of them doing unconvincing jobs of pretending to doze.

He'd been avoiding thinking about what had happened after Halloween, and the shadow had obliged him by keeping its distance. He suddenly found himself wishing he hadn't walled off those thoughts so efficiently however, because now there were going to be questions, ones that he didn't know the answers to. He remembered meeting Dumbledore, from Before. The man had seen right through to the heart of him back then. Who's to say he won't see the same thing now? Dudley hadn't changed, not really - vile little cockroach, repulsive, squirming, little maggot, you'd be better off dead, spineless, weak-

As if sensing his doubts, the specter slithered into the room and up his back, settling across his shoulders like some great, soul-sucking house cat bleeding cold and fear into him.

"Have a seat, Dudley," the headmaster gestured and the plush armchair before his desk turned towards Dudley invitingly. He perched gingerly on the very edge and it slid him around to face the headmaster. He felt boxed in.

"I hear your lessons are going well, Dudley," the man said congenially as he settled into the seat on the other side of the desk. Dudley shrugged. They weren't here to talk about his grades, of that much he was certain, and putting it off was only putting him further on edge. The Headmaster seemed to sense this.

"You were taken ill recently, isn't that correct Dudley? Do you remember anything . . . strange?" Dudley repressed a derisive snort, but only barely.

"I thought that's why that woman came," he said, avoiding the answer. "To ask all those sorts of questions." The Headmaster just smiled indulgently.

"Yes, that was her purpose in coming here. Unfortunately she was a ministry employee, and despite my age and best efforts I have yet to gain the power of omniscience." When Dudley didn't make any move to respond, the man pushed on. "Dudley, you said some things while you were ill. Do you remember this?" Dudley shrugged, because yes, he remembered, but it wasn't him saying those things. It was the shadow.

"I know that this is all very new to you, Dudley, but there are some things about the wizarding world that you might find . . .applicable to your situation, as it were." Dumbledore steepled his fingers and observed Dudley over the top of them. "There are many witches and wizards who have talents beyond their peers. For example, Professor McGonagall has the ability to turn into a cat - this makes her someone known as an 'animagus.' This is a bit of very difficult transfiguration magic, and a skill that can be learned, if the witch or wizard in question has enough drive and dedication to learn. Every animagus has their own unique form, such as a dog, a bird, a rat." Dumbledore paused slightly at this last point, watching Dudley carefully for any sign of recognition. Dudley began counting the tassels at the other end of the rug beneath his chair.

"Others, the metamorphmagi, have the talent to change their appearance at will. This is a skill that can not be learned, but only inherited," the headmaster continued. Dudley wondered what the man was getting at. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen.

"And still others, Dudley, have the power of knowledge. Their abilities vary widely, and are often unpredictable and miraculous in their range." The headmaster paused again with purpose, but Dudley refused to look up. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight. "Like the metamorphmagi, this is a skill that cannot be learned. Here, in the United Kingdom, we refer to these individuals as Seers."

Dudley flinched, but didn't dare look up. Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven.

"Dudley, I need to know if you can recall anything from that night, anything at all," Dumbledore stood and came around the desk, resting a hand on Dudley's shoulder. He wondered absently how the man didn't feel the affects of the shadow as it passed through him.

"Ron's rat didn't run away, did it," he asked dully.

"No," the man said simply, inclining his head.

"I don't want to be locked away," Dudley said abruptly, surprising even himself. He looked up finally, meeting Dumbledore's eyes for the first time since he'd entered the office. Something too quiet to be real fear was stirring in his chest, but it was close enough. "I won't be some government experiment."

Dumbledore squeezed his shoulder lightly, sending warmth into Dudley's arm. "Of course not, my boy. The ministry has its faults, as does any institution, of course, but they are not in the habit of experimenting on children." He smiled reassuringly at Dudley, but it was the words themselves that loosened the tight, panicky feeling in his chest. This was the other part of being a child, he remembered suddenly, the part where people wanted to take care of you, the part where people looked at you and saw things like innocence and fragility and potential instead of weak and spineless and good-for-nothing. The part where they felt the need to protect you. He'd missed out on that by and large, having been the one in their house in Little Whinging to take care of Harry and make excuses for his father and let his mother turn a blind eye.

"What will happen, then?" He asked, because he had to know.

"That is a very good question, dear boy. One that few men are capable of answering." The Headmaster made his way back to his seat and settled into it, suddenly looking every inch the old man that he was. He smiled at Dudley again.

"Fortunately for us, you might be one of them."

Dudley swallowed back the feeling that was rising in his chest once again.

{This is what we wanted, Dudley. This is good,} the shadow reassured him. Dudley wondered if the thought of something like this occurring had ever even crossed his mind. He was certain that if it had, he had definitely not wished for it to happen. Not that it mattered what he wanted. Not anymore.

"What if I fall off my broom? Or get hit by a bludger and fall off my broom? Or try to catch the snitch and fall off my broom?"

"Of course you won't. Tell him he's not going to fall off his broom, Dudley," Ron said lazily, tilting his chair back at an angle that tempted Dudley to kick it out from under him. He'd come to terms with the loss of his rat fairly quickly, once his brothers had reminded him how useless it had been and how quick Percy had been to hand it off to him that summer, once he'd gotten a proper pet.

"You're not going to fall off your broom, Harry," he grunted instead as he continued to check Ron's charms homework against his own. Ron had cottoned on to the fact that Dudley and Hermione had been the top of the class since term had started. Dudley considered mentioning the fact that it was only the amount of studying he did that kept him there, but he figured that Hermione lectured enough for the both of them.

"I'll make an idiot of myself," Harry moaned into his arms. His first quidditch match was coming up fast and once Dudley was back in working order he hadn't had anything to distract him from his nerves. He'd been in extra practices almost every free hour the past few days, and Wood's slightly manic motivational speeches hadn't done anything to help.

"It's highly unlikely you'll fall off your broom, Harry," Hermione reassured him from her seat beside Dudley, where she was checking Harry's homework.

"You don't know that," Harry said despairingly. Ron let his chair drop back to the floor with a thunk, looking appalled at the thought that there was anything at all that Hermione didn't know.

"Yes, I do," she snapped, before diving for her bag. "Here, read this," she commanded, sliding a book across the table a bit more forcefully than necessary.

"Ouch," Harry whined when it hit his elbow, but he sat up and flipped the book open, scanning the introduction. Dudley recognized the book as one of the many Hermione had sped through in the days leading up to their first flying lesson.

"Quidditch Through the Ages," Ron read over Harry's shoulder. "I think I've seen Charlie reading that. He was seeker, you know, before he graduated, and I don't think he ever fell off his broom. Not during a game, at least. And he got injured some, but I don't think he ever missed a game," he told Harry in a tone he probably thought was reassuring.

"Here, that's you done," Dudley cut in, pushing Ron's liberally marked paper over to him before he could say anything else, like 'he only lost one finger,' or 'he may have been knocked unconscious several times, but he turned out fine.'

"How is that wrong?" Ron demanded as he flipped it over and began examining the corrections. "I copied that one from Hermione!"

"Hey!" Hermione interjected angrily. "I knew you weren't 'admiring my handwriting'-"

"You've spelled it wrong," Dudley said over Hermione's indignant huffing.

"Spelled what wro- oh," Ron said, peering closer at Dudley's notes along the side. "What about this one, then-"

"Out!" Someone suddenly screeched in Dudley's ear. "Out of my library!"

"Christ, fine," Dudley muttered, shoving papers into his bag. Madame Pince had grown less tolerant of his and Hermione's quiet conversations since Harry and Ron had started joining them after Halloween.

Hermione began apologizing emphatically, panicked at the thought of being cut off from the library and its first-editions, but Madame Pince was firm and soon enough they were back in the stuffy, overfilled Gryffindor dorms. It had grown frigid over the past week, and most students were driven indoors by the low temperatures. It hadn't been so bad over the past few evenings, but by Friday afternoon everyone was restless and the common room was overflowing with noisy students.

"We could go outside," Ron suggested half heartedly.

"It's freezing, I was outside all morning with Wood," Harry replied. Hermione glanced around furtively before responding.

"I've got an idea for that, actually," she said in low tones. "Come on."

Interest piqued by her secretive behavior, Dudley and the others followed her, and within the half-hour they were standing quite comfortably around a little jar filled with blue flames that gave off an impressive amount of heat.

"I take back everything I've ever said about you Hermione, you're absolutely brilliant," Ron sighed appreciatively, bumping shoulders with Harry in an attempt to get closer to the heat source. Dudley noticed Hermione flush as she ducked further into the book she'd brought along.

"Thank you, Ronald," she responded stiffly, "I suppose you might not be completely useless, either."

"Oi!" Ron protested lazily, too comfortable to become truly agitated. Dudley hid a grin in his scarf as he checked another box on the scrap of parchment he and Ron were using to play noughts and crosses against Harry's back.

"What would be considered an excessive use of elbows?" Harry asked absently without looking up from his new book. "Like, is it allowed if you only use one elbow? Or, maybe if you don't aim for the face?"

"I think as long as they're not as pointy as yours," Dudley replied. Harry elbowed him right between the shoulder blades without bothering to turn away from the embrasure they'd tucked the jar into.

"You're only proving my point," Dudley complained weakly as Ron defeated him for the third time in a row. He was feeling oddly content. He'd been worried about the repercussions of his conversation with Dumbledore, but so far he hadn't heard a thing about his supposed abilities from anyone, not even the woman from the ministry. He'd tried briefly to scrounge up the effort to care about why Dumbledore was keeping it quiet, but he'd long learned the value of putting such thoughts out of his mind for as long as possible.

Dudley looked up when Ron cursed quietly under his breath, scooching even further towards Harry and jostling him into Dudley's side - to block the view of the fire, he realized. Snape was crossing the courtyard with a heavy limp, scowl firmly in place.

"Dursley!" He snapped when he spotted them. Dudley slid to the side a bit to allow Ron and Harry to hide the fire better.

"What's that you've got there, Potter?" The man said once he'd limped over.

"A book, sir," Harry replied quickly, his tone just shy of insolence. Dudley was quick to intervene.

"Was there something you wanted, sir?" He cut in. Snape narrowed his eyes but allowed the interruption.

"You need to make up the potion from the class you missed. Come to my office tomorrow morning."

"But he'll miss the quidditch match!" Harry said despondently.

"A pity, to be sure," the man sneered. "Tomorrow, Dursley, eight o'clock, or I'll see you scrubbing cauldrons for a month.

"Yes sir," Dudley told him, head down. He hadn't been excited to see the match, not exactly. But Harry had wanted him there.

The man sneered once more before turning on his heel and stalking away, as much as one can stalk with a limp.

"Slimy git," Ron said emphatically once he'd gone. "Wonder what happened to his leg?"

{Things are progressing faster than anticipated,} the shadow told Dudley, gushing out of the cracks in the stonework and into being from behind him. He shivered at the sudden loss of warmth.

"Dunno," Dudley said to Ron. "Let's head back in. I'm freezing."

{You can't ignore things forever, Dudley,} it hissed at his back.

I know, Dudley wanted to say, but then Hermione was wrapping the little jar in his scarf and pressing it into his hands, and Ron was tucking Dudley under his arm and Harry plastered himself all along one side and together they hustled him back into the relative warmth of the castle.

Maybe I can, he thought. Just for a little bit.