Summary: Dudley's attempting to find some routine in his life post-divorce when he keeps seeing the same jogger on his morning run, and he looks oddly familiar. (Not betaed or checked, but I will come back to look at it, got me a deadline!)
Dudley's Second Attempt at Life
Dudley took up jogging when he quit boxing – at his wife's (now ex-wife) request – as a hobby. After he'd stopped, his sweet tooth got the better of him and the weight started to creep back on, and so … jogging.
Every morning, the alarm would go off at six and he would be up and dressed in fifteen minutes. He would jog around the nearby park; five minutes to get there, a full circle was three kilometres, which he would do three of, and then five minutes to get home. By eight he was showered, dressed in a suit for work, and eating his morning porridge with a coffee.
It was still jarring, after three months of living by himself, to not have the children (two of them) racing around the place, laughing and screaming, while Dudley skipped around them to get his breakfast and his wife (now ex-wife) tried to get a missing piece of uniform on them. They came to him at weekends, but it wasn't the same. They looked like children lost in a home they didn't know.
And so he started jogging for a bit longer. Another circle around the park rather than be at home longer than was necessary without his children.
On the second morning of adding this extra circle that Dudley spotted a new face amongst the joggers at the park. A man about his height of five ten, with broad shoulders and a lean body. A body that did a lot of running. There were a few of those around here. As he approached, Dudley did the small nod and a breathy, 'Morning.'
'Morning,' he replied, jogging past, barely out of breath. Definitely a runner.
There was something familiar about his face, the way his top teeth were ever so slightly more prominent. And the scruffy brown hair. Maybe Dudley had seen him before and hadn't realised.
After his final circle of the park, Dudley had seen the same man twice more, each time another nod of greeting happened. He went home and continued about his morning routine.
The next morning, Dudley saw him again, stretching under the small wisteria tree by the park entrance. The blue fitted top made him look even broader than Dudley remembered.
'Morning,' he called, continuing his jog.
'Morning,' the man replied.
Dudley peered over his shoulder; the voice, the way he went up at the end of the word … it was so familiar. With a slight shake of his head, he continued on his jog, seeing the man another three times that morning before leaving for home.
Wondering why he felt like he knew the jogger in the park would plague his thoughts while he dressed, but Dudley would get to work and all was forgotten.
Until the next morning when Dudley would see him at the park.
This time, while trying his best not to bump into any of the other early morning joggers, Dudley kept looking around at him; sometimes he was in the distance, sometimes he was nearby. They were jogging in the same direction, so it was harder for Dudley to get his surreptitious looks at him, trying to place his face.
Before he knew it, Dudley had to get home to get ready for work and was still none-the-wiser over who this person was.
Dudley didn't usually go for a jog at the weekend as the children were usually dropped off early on Saturday and not picked up until the following evening. But it was starting to plague him – this man – and how he knew him. He did know him? Much like his father, in that sense, Dudley didn't like not understanding something beyond his grasp.
Which was why Dudley found himself going for a jog, just a quick lap, and he'd be back in time to have a shower and ready to greet the children. And yes, the man was there, in a vibrant orange top that was hard to miss.
Running in the opposite direction of him, to be sure Dudley would pass him, as he wasn't as faster runner as him, Dudley almost decided to ask the man if he knew him somehow. He made sure to not run too fast, to keep his breathing even, and as he approached him, Dudley opened his mouth…
'Morning,' the man said with a slight smile lifting the corners of his mouth.
'Morning,' Dudley replied automatically, his question long gone. He swore under his breath, Dudley was always the one to say morning first.
It never occurred to Dudley to actually stop running when they neared each other, to give the signal he wanted to ask a question. And looking at his watch, he really didn't have time for another lap with how slow he'd already been jogging.
He'd barely gotten dressed, his blond hair still wet, when the doorbell went.
'Did you get up late?' Jane, his ex-wife, asked seeing his wet hair.
'Dad!' Maggie and David exclaimed, dashing past him without even a hug, heavy backpacks on their shoulders. With a high-pitched bark, their spaniel, Marley, chased after them. They never came without their beloved pet.
'I went for a jog, over-estimated my time,' Dudley explained, kissing Jane on the cheek as she came in. 'How've you been? They been good for you?'
An odd frown flitted across Jane's delicate features.
Jane had been the perfect wife – loving, kind, patient … everything Dudley hadn't been as a child. And more importantly, she was perfectly … normal. Much to his parents' delight. The problem was, she was the wrong sex.
And when he realised how miserable he was making Jane over the years, struggling to be the husband she needed, Dudley finally admitted to her, and himself, that he was gay. This hadn't gone down well with his parents, but once again, Jane had been loving, kind, and patient. She even looked relieved, like she knew, even saying to him, 'I never wanted to push you away. I do love you.'
'We need to talk about Maggie,' Jane said, going into the kitchen with a brief look down the hallway, the television now blaring morning cartoons.
Dudley put the kettle on, watching Jane close the door, listening for a moment, and turned to him. 'We need to speak to your cousin.'
'Harry?' Dudley asked stupidly. He only had one cousin, unless you counted his Aunt Marge's dogs.
Jane clasped her hands together, bringing them to her lips, which were firmly pinched together. Dudley frowned, he'd never told Jane about Harry's … specialness. 'Look,' she started, 'there's been a lot we've kept from each other over the years.'
'You know about Harry?' Dudley folded his arms, leaning back against the counter.
'I was guessing. You always made sure I wasn't there for most of his visits, and when I was, he never brought his children … it's what my parents did with family when my brother got his Hogwarts letter.' She took a seat at the small kitchen table.
'You said your brother died…' Dudley trailed off, thinking about the timeline. 'Voldemort?' It took a long time for Dudley to remember that name, never understanding the threat of it, not even when they'd made him go into hiding with his parents.
Jane nodded. 'He was the only magical person I knew.' She looked to the door again. 'Maggie made her dolls have a tea party with her last night.'
'Doesn't she do that every night?' Dudley moved to switch the whistling kettle off.
'Dudley, don't be obtuse – the dolls were moving without her physical help,' Jane explained like he was a child.
'Oh.'
'Yes, oh.'
Dudley started laughing. 'My parents are going to love this.'
'You don't even talk to them anymore,' Jane pointed out, standing up. 'Anyway, you need to get some advice off Harry. Can you do that?'
'What about David?'
'Not that I've seen.' She was already moving to the door.
'Jane.' She stopped as she opened the door. 'I am sorry. For never being honest with you.'
'It's done now. All we can do is move on and try our best to be happy in our lives.' She gave him a small smile. 'Make sure they do their reading,' she instructed before leaving.
The image of the jogger's face from the park flashed across Dudley's thoughts at her words.
XXXXXX
Harry, much Dudley's surprise, was on his doorstep with his youngest, Lily, by the afternoon. When Dudley had come out and his parents had effectively disowned him at the grand age of thirty-five, Harry had made sure to have a telephone put in his home so that Dudley could call him. Even now, Harry's kindness would never stop surprising, after everything he'd done to him as a child.
And then those Dementor things had happened … Dudley still couldn't put into words what he felt and saw.
Lily shyly stepped around Dudley, giving him a nervous smile, before skipping off to find Maggie and David.
'So you have a magical child?' Harry asked with a smirk once they were in the kitchen.
'Apparently.' Dudley put a cup of coffee in front of Harry, taking a seat opposite her. 'Jane said she was making her dolls play by themselves last night.'
'All you can do is act like you don't know how it happened and try not to encourage her. Muggles don't always see it anyway, but you don't want to acknowledge to her what's happening, she might start trying to do it in front of her Muggle friends,' Harry said nonchalantly.
'What about your children?'
'Everyone around them is magical, they don't know any different. And they're schooled at home.'
'But they never talk about it when they've been here,' Dudley pointed out. 'How have you got them to … behave, I suppose?'
Harry shrugged, pushing his glasses up his nose. 'A temporary spell. Every time a thought pops into their head about magic, it redirects it to something else, like playing a game.'
'That explains James playing football every time he's here,' Dudley said with a laugh.
'Dad!' Maggie came racing into the kitchen with Lily. 'Can we go for a picnic? Please? Please? Please?'
'I think a picnic sounds like a great idea,' Dudley said. He wasn't thinking about the off chance he might see the jogger there. Not at all. 'Fancy joining us?' he asked of Harry.
An hour later, Dudley and Harry sat on the woollen picnic blanket, food spread out in front of them, other families filling up the park with the same idea, watching their children make Marley chase after them, using a twig to keep his attention.
'She'll be okay, Dudley,' Harry said after a while. 'She probably won't even do that much, and when she gets her letter, I'll take you to Diagon Alley, yeah?'
Dudley sniggered. 'Mum and Dad are going to kill us when they eventually find out.'
'That would require them talking to us first, so I think we're safe,' Harry replied, laughing.
Lily came racing over picking up a sandwich and took a step away. 'No, you eat at the blanket,' Harry said firmly.
'I wanted to feed the ducks.' She pointed to the small pond a few metres away.
Harry frowned, taking the sandwich back off her. 'Not bread. Let's give them some grapes.'
Dudley watched him leave with the grapes cut in half. He blinked. They were whole grapes a moment ago. Would that be his life now, thinking you've seen one thing when another is happening? Maggie and David trailed after Harry and Lily, the dog trailing after them. He didn't care if it was his life, he wasn't sure he'd been this content before.
He smiled as the ducks starting racing towards his family, desperately trying to get to the food source being handed to them.
'Afternoon,' a familiar male voice said behind him.
Dudley shuffled, putting a hand over his eyes to look up at the figure, the sun making him a silhouette. He knew, though, that it was the jogger, and he felt an odd flutter of excitement in his stomach that his hope of being here had worked out.
'Hi,' he said, the surprise at him approaching Dudley clear in his voice.
He knelt down so that Dudley was no longer struggling to see him properly. It was the eyes that pulled at his memories. He remembered now. 'Piers?'
'I knew it was you!' Piers said with a loud laugh. 'I've been trying to place you're face all week!'
'Me too!' Dudley got up to give his old friend a tight hug. 'How've you been?'
'Good – just got out of a relationship, but yeah, I've been good. You?'
Dudley pointed to the blanket, both of them sitting down. 'Divorced a few months ago.'
'We never made it that far. He hated the idea of marriage,' Piers said with a grimace. 'Should've been a red flag right there.'
'He?' Dudley asked. He wasn't sure what tone he's used, but he saw a wall go up in Piers' eyes. 'No, you mistake me, Piers. I'm divorced because I'm gay. Not exactly what a woman wants in her marriage, is it?' The wall immediately crumbled from Piers' eyes. 'I never knew!' He pointed at Piers.
'Well, we weren't exactly nice people as children, were we? Not something I felt I could talk to any of the gang about. Never knew about you either,' he said pointedly.
They watched each other, still gauging how this could go, how different they were as adults. 'I have children, too,' Dudley said, turning to point in their direction. 'Over there with my cousin – you remember Harry?'
Piers gave a tight smile. 'I do remember,' he said, the statement loaded with memories.
'He's all right, Piers,' Dudley reassured, clapping a hand to his shoulder. 'It really is good to see you,' Dudley added, genuinely meaning it. They held each other's gaze, neither one of them ready to break it first, their surrounds disappearing in that moment as they reconnected silently.
'I don't have Maggie and David through the week, would you want to go for a drink sometime?' Dudley asked, taking the leap.
'I'd like that,' Piers said with a nod. 'I really would.'
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (challenges & assignments) Prompts
Spring Funfair
- Leap Frog - (action) Feeding the ducks at the park
- Cherry Blossoms - 3. Ichigo - (location) City/Public park
- Urban Safari - 10. (creature/pet) Dog
- Paint a Rainbow - Green 6. Twig
- Teddy Bears Picnic - Chocolate Fudge Cake - (Setting) Park
- Egg Hunt - Glittery Egg - Dudley/Piers
- Spring Parade - Scooby Doo - Fred - (colour) Blue
Spring Seasonal
- Days of the Year & Religious Events - 2nd June - Write about someone running or going for a jog
- Date Your Mate Month - 24. Piers & Dudley
- Crayon Day - 22. Wisteria
- Locations - 4. Park
April Writing Club
- Scamander's Case - 23. (action) Running
Spring Quarterly
- 60. Prague - (setting) A park
Yearly
- Scavenger Hunt - 42. Write about a character you hate (Dudley Dursley)
- 365 - 201. (character) Piers Polkiss
Piñata
Medium - Seeing a stranger in the street a few times in a row (same stranger) - 2,379 words