At breakfast one day in early May came an announcement from Dumbledore.

"Due to the situation with Sirius Black the Ministry has seen fit to send Aurors to do the job of the Dementors inside the castle. Some of the Aurors will be trainees, while others will be very experienced and respected Aurors. Including an old friend of mine, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody." At the mention of the famed Auror those that knew of him began to chatter amongst their friends. "All I ask is that you let them do their job. You may talk to them, of course, but don't let that cause you to interfere with their work." After that announcement the old man sat down and breakfast resumed.

Now two days later the Aurors were here and Harry found himself more reassured by their presence than he believed he would. The Auror Moody was not one who anyone would want to mess with, and yet seemed to be the most likely to entertain a group of students wanting stories.

Harry was currently standing around listening to the tale of the capture of Antonin Dolohov, it was truly inspiring and exciting, when he realised that he was standing next to his cousin. He didn't say anything, or otherwise react to his presence, he merely slipped an apology letter he had been writing for six weeks into his pocket, ignoring his "regular" correspondences in favour of repairing the bridge between Dudley and himself.

Moody had finished his story, punctuating it with his usual shout.

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

Harry noticed that one of the Aurors were standing around listening to the story. The girl looked vaguely familiar, with bright magenta hair, but Harry couldn't place her. The Auror noticed him looking at her and she smiled at him and he answered with a smile and a nod, before he left to attend the day's lessons.

As he left he heard Ron describing his rat to Mad-Eye and asking him to look out for it if he could.

/*** **-** ***/

Dudley had just finished listening to one of Auror Moody's stories, Merlin that guy could tell a story, and he was quickly becoming one of Dudley's heroes. It wasn't until the story ended that Dudley realised that, upon instinct, he had stood next to Harry in a crowd. It was starting to upset Dudley just how often he thought about going to Harry about an issue, only to remember that he hated him.

He was talking to Professor Lupin later that day when the topic changed to Harry and Lupin asked Dudley a question.

"Do you really hate him? I know you may feel like you do, but it's possible that you never got to deal with the mental toll that bereavement causes, as a result of that you now have a scapegoat who you can actually hurt with your actions. You have said to me you wish to become a healer of the mind, if you were further into your studies you would read first-hand accounts of possession and read about the impact it has on a person."

"Well Professor, when I get to that part of my study I can make an informed decision on this," Dudley shot back defiantly, not wanting to hear this. "I want him to hurt for killing my dad and aunt."

"I'm sure Voldemort wouldn't find your ignoring him that painful, so you're letting your anger out at the one person, related to the event, who you can actually hurt. Have you never thought about this from Harry's perspective? He finally found a family and part of it was snatched away by Voldemort, just like his parents. Have you never considered that you've both lost parents at the hands of the same person and as a result you could rely on each other for comfort and support? Just something to think about," Professor Lupin finished and noted the look on Dudley's face, he had expected anger and yet Dudley looked thoughtful and a bit upset. He got up and left after nodding to Professor Lupin, and went into his bag to find his ring so he could talk to Harry. Even if he had stopped wearing it it didn't mean he couldn't hold onto it.

While he was rummaging in his bag he came across a letter that he knew wasn't in there before. The envelope was blank, which only furthered his curiosity.

He found a quiet spot on the grounds to sit down and open the letter.

Dear Dudley

I know you might not get more than two sentences into this letter before burning it, but please hear me out.

The day that Voldemort returned was the worst day of my life in memory, I would have rather lived another decade in the Orphanage than live that one day again. Not only did I witness the rebirth of the most evil wizard to exist for centuries, I also learned something that destroyed me inside. The very fact that I killed a member of my family, possessed or not, it kills me. I know me and Vernon didn't interact much, and the few times we did weren't the friendliest, I was holding out hope that one day Vernon would see me as family.

If there was anything I could have done differently, then I would have done it. I miss you, Dudley, even if you don't want to be family, I'll settle for being friends.

Harry

Dudley didn't know how to feel, he didn't know his father's death would have such an effect on Harry. He had also never given any thought to Harry's parents also being killed by Voldemort. He couldn't be angry at Harry anymore, after all, he could have avoided saying anything about Vernon, and for the first time in a while, Dudley felt ready to forgive Harry.

/*** **-** ***/

Harry had made a breakthrough.

It had happened while he was practicing his duelling techniques, more specifically the Echani battle dance, and something in his brain clicked. The rising part of the Echani dance was very similar to one of the sequences used in air elemental combat. Almost on instinct he began transitioning from the Echani dance to the air dance. It worked.

He was flying out of his own strength and it felt amazing. A broom had never been this freeing, nothing had. While he was riding the air, he began to focus on the palm of his hand, and after a minute a small tornado began forming. The excitement of this caused his focus to drop, as well as him, and he was no longer flying. But nothing could ruin this day.

He decided he would go to lunch, earlier than he was intending to, when his ring went off and upon answering he heard a voice that he hadn't heard in a while.

"Harry, it's Dudley. Can we talk?" The voice of his cousin sounded uncertain.

"I'm heading to lunch, if you want a more private setting to talk then maybe we can meet in the Great Hall and leave after lunch?"

"Sounds good to me." The call dropped and Harry did a little dance, much to the amusement of some of the older Slytherin's still in the common room, either yet to go to lunch or having returned, or even avoiding it entirely in the hope of studying.

Harry found himself thinking again that nothing could ruin this day.

/*** **-** ***/

Sitting in an empty classroom after lunch were two cousins, finally talking after a period of estrangement from each other.

"It's taken some time, and while I still can't help but imagine you killing my dad, I know that Voldemort has taken people from both of us. I hated you, hated you beyond belief, but now I see how much our situation parallels mine and Blaise's in first year. You, like me, realistically didn't do anything wrong, and yet I, like Blaise, hated you in spite of that." Dudley sighed before finishing. "You're my family, will you forgive me for my stupidity?"

"You don't need to ask mate, I forgive you without question. I understand blindly hating the person responsible for killing your parents, maybe now we can hate Voldemort together."

Dudley laughed before answering.

"I'd like that."

The two boys hugged and the air changed, almost as if Hogwarts approved of their repairing of their friendship.

/*** **-** ***/

Later the same day Harry was walking around the grounds, just walking and enjoying how well the day was going, he had gotten over to the area containing the pens for Care of Magical Creatures lessons when he heard a loud thud and a yell. He drew his wand and walked over to the stable, connected to the largest pen, before entering and casting a Lumos to illuminate the stable. He saw one of the Aurors, the girl who dyed her hair regularly, either that or used glamour, buried under bales of hay and bags of food. Without hesitation he began to levitate the bags up off her, before moving the bales of hay, and asking her if she was alright.

"I think my legs are broken, I should have known better than to try and manually grab food bags to help Hagrid, I should have just levitated them," she finished sheepishly.

"I have made the same mistake many times, well not the exact same mistake, but I've done things by hand that really should be done magically. To that end, I hope you don't mind me levitating you to the Hospital Wing as opposed to carrying you, or the slightly less embarrassing option of crawling." They laughed at that before the Auror replied.

"I think I'll go with the first option, I don't think I'd ever live it down if you carried me inside. My mentor Mad-Eye would tease me about it even after I finished my training. I'm Tonks, by the way, may I ask the name of my mystery saviour?" Harry laughed at her joke before answering.

"I'm Harry. Harry Potter."

"Great. The trainee Auror gets saved by the Harry Potter. I hope Rita Skeeter doesn't get wind of this," she joked again before Harry began levitating her.

As they walked, or floated in Tonks' case, they began trading tales about Hogwarts and what it's like as an Auror in training. As they arrived at the Hospital Wing, Harry was left with a strict sense that Tonks was a good person to be friends with, he couldn't wait to tell his friends about how cool she was.

/*** **-** ***/