Chapter 52: Wherein an extrovert goes into quarantine.

Summary: A drunkard's bane quarantine retreat is a good idea. In theory.
Author's Note: A bit of an outtake, in some respects, but I did want a bit of closure to this particular character arc. But don't worry. I already have more written for Dee that comes up later.

3 Jan 200_
Little Whinging

Dear Harry,

I know you're still in Wales right now and not due back to Scotland for a while yet, but I'm sending this to the Royal Mail address I have for you there, because Luke is little and I plan on just sending you doubles of my roll of photos, barring the blurry ones, of course. And that I have to send by Royal Mail.

Anyway, I spent the afternoon running errands and suchlike and now I'm following the instructions on a dinner that Mum made for me and left in the freezer. And I forgot to preheat the oven (is it really that important? I bet it's not.) Mum and Dad are still in Majorca, and while I'd love to fill Mum in on everything, Dad being gone is just… yeah. It's just easier, you know?

Thank you so much for making sure I was invited this weekend. I really don't have words, you know? It was amazing. Brilliant, really. I mean, the people I met were just awesome and some of the parents, like the Berhes and Jacksons just… they were so different than Mum and Dad. Like, they weren't magic, and they didn't want to be magic, they had some kids that were magic and some that weren't, and it was just… okay. Not a big deal. I don't know what my future will really be like but I want to look more like a Berhe or a Jackson than a Dursley. Even if I am one. Maybe that's just crazy talk, but life has been crazy, so whatever.

But thank you also for including me on something that was just… it's so much bigger than one person, even if that person was Queen Hermione, or the Prince Consort (I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WON A QUIDDITCH MATCH AGAINST HIM, YOU ARE SO AMAZING!). Anyway. I'm totally wearing my new Pendragon jersey tomorrow when I finish my errands in the morning and then go to meet Draco in London.

Anyway, thank you. I'll pop down to the post office with this tomorrow.

D

PS - um, wow. So, strangely, not many blurry photos. But I did take a few out for no particular reason, except that you probably don't want to see me midsnog with a mermaid. But who knew centaurs would pick up photography so easily? Does explain the look I got at the express photo place.

3 Jan 200_

Dear Fleur and Bill,

It was great to meet you and I hope you'll be super careful and stay on your toes when you're in Peru. It sounds horrifically dangerous, but I suppose you knew that going into the job and probably just see it as an adventure or a challenge or something.

I'm writing because I can't quite remember when you said you were coming back into the country, but I figure my new owl can just leave notes at your cottage for you when you return. My address until 20 Jan is Malfoy Chateau, Champagne, France, and until Easter, and then again until June, Leicester University, College Dorm, Knighton Road, Leicester.

Be well, stay safe, and have fun!

D Dursley

4 Jan 200_
Home

Dear Mum,

I've got a bit of time after all before I'm due to leave for the train station. I've gone through all my pictures I've left for you (and my own copies as well), and done the thing you always do, written on the back the date, the place, and who's in the picture. So, a lot of people are related to a lot of other people, but that's life. I'll see what I have time to explain right now.

The Berhe's and Jackson's have first years (in the quidditch picture) who befriended Harry and the Queen. Dr. Berhe is a tenured professor at Oxford and Mr. Jackson owns some sort of manufacturing plant. Draco is the Queen's sort-of brother; his mother named the Queen her heir (Draco is his father's heir - he's dead already). Luna is engaged to Draco. Fleur is married to Bill, who is Ginny Potter's oldest brother, but Fleur is also good friends with Viktor; they both studied abroad in Scotland in the same year. Fleur is French. Charlie and George are brothers of Bill and Ginny. There are other brothers, but nobody talks about them so I think they must have died in the war, and one of them was friends with Harry and the Queen, so that's extra sad, I guess. Gregor is the Prince Consort's father. I never did catch the name of Prince Viktor's three friends from Bulgaria, but they were on his pick-up game team as well - team Pendragon. Harry captained team Black and crushed him, Mum, utterly annihilated him by using the kids against him. (One of them had a sweet arm, and the other I think was dumb as rocks but super adorable and very distracting.) The two centaurs are siblings, Dorentio and Calpurnia, and the merwoman is Carys. Very nice people. Adult children of the leaders of their kinds who have sort of peace treaties with the Queen of Avalon.

Okay, still have time. If you look in the commemorative programme I left in my desk, you'll see some interesting articles and pictures and things, but also a schedule of events. I saw the circus on all three days, I saw the Shakespeare play which was pretty great, I saw the Hopping Frog play which was just odd, I saw the Ely vs. Dunblane game, and of course I was at the VIP party after the coronation with all the big wigs, but also some really great people, too.

The picture of the bedroom and ones near it was the suite I was assigned. All ancient furnishings and things. There was a spa thing that was pretty amazing as well, just outside the castle tower, but inside the enclosure wall. Steam room, hot pool, cold pool, the whole thing.

There was some good reading in the library on the ground floor, but hardly any time to read, really. Harry and I ate carnival food and he crushed me in a game of chess. It was ugly. I had no idea he was so good. But most of all I think I enjoyed seeing everything, meeting so many new friends, and having a front row seat into this world which is so strange but very interesting, you know?

Queen Hermione sends her regards, by the way, and thanked us for the beautiful present, and immediately put it to use holding magical flowers, and put candles in the holders - good call on the candles, as there's no electricity! Anyway, the flowers are great. I have one of them myself - it was a thank you gift for witnessing the wedding. A white rose in bud that I have to take very special care of, but it smells absolutely divine. I'll show you at Easter. It's simple, but it's so gorgeous. Got a very snazzy buttonhole vase thing that pins onto my lapel, too. What do you call those things? Anyway.

The Queen got some crazy coronation gifts. Russia gave her a three-headed dog, which the Prince is going to raise and I guess it's supposed to get huge, like ten-feet-high at the shoulders, huge. Harry says he's seen a full-sized one and it tried to eat him. Cute puppy, though. Its heads seem to confuse it, and it falls over its own feet. America gave the Queen a pair of six-legged lion or tiger kittens, I'm not sure which. One is black and one is yellow and they've got that same look in their eye that all cats do. I'm not sure how to describe it, but you know the look I mean. A crazy man gave her a Chimera egg, Mongolia gave her a herd of horses, she has so many dragon eggs I've lost count, and some countries just gave her boxes of gold and diamonds. Argentina, I was reminded yesterday, gave her expensive cows and I guess she has a bunch of other animals, both farm and zoo, now, too. Crops and fields, too, I guess, though I'm not sure how one actually goes about gifting an orchard or a vineyard. Very carefully, I guess. Personally I stopped paying attention when she was holding little koalas, probably from Australia, but some of the other presents have been mentioned, and of course I was eating breakfast while she opened some. She got some normal things too, like clothes and jewels, and the Windsors gave her china, silver, and crystal, all of which I used at the formal dinner on the last night of the festival. I think Draco gave her a wine cellar, which makes sense, but I think other people gave her vineyards. France, maybe? Harry and Ginny gave her and Viktor dragonhide trench coats, which I guess are both swank and pricey.

I played some other games, but really just spent a lot of time talking with people, walking around, and then lounging in the spa area, which was really quite awesome. Really, the time flew by, and I even stayed an extra evening and morning, but it still flew by.

I stayed pretty close to my diet, even in the face of fried potatoes and croissants, and I ran this morning and last, and I'll try to do that every day while I'm doing the language immersion, too, to get back into the swing of things.

I had a really great time, Mum. Thank you so much for helping me with things and for giving me the extra pocket money. I like to think I spent it well, and I spent the rest of it on French language books.

Just about time for the taxi to come. I'm all packed for Uni, and I promise I haven't forgotten anything this time. I'll call you on the night of the 20th, say eight? Just to let you know I got back in time and safe and everything. And I promise to go to my advisor on the 21st and declare my major. Finally.

Hope Majorca was nice and that you and Dad could relax and ring in the new year in style.

Love,
Dudley

Dudley had been quite restrained at the bookstore. If he was going to memorize a book utterly and completely, would he really need to continue to own it afterwards? In the end he only decided to purchase foreign language dictionaries, with the idea that he might not actually wade through them all and need to reference them in the future.

At the library he was less restrained.

First, he'd talked with a librarian to discover that yes, he could send the books back through the mail to the library if he wasn't going to be in the area when they came due in five weeks. Then he discovered that his borrowing limit was thirty books.

On a whim in the bookstore Dudley had bought more than just an English-French dictionary. He'd also bought an English-Arabic dictionary, an English-Spanish dictionary, an English-German dictionary, an English-Bulgarian dictionary, and an English-Mandarin dictionary. While he was at it, he also got himself a desk-copy of an English dictionary - Oxford, of course, but not the unabridged one.

At the library he took out one basic and advanced grammar on each of the six languages. Then he took out one comprehensive looking history book on the countries or cultures behind each language. Then he took out four books on wine-making: a basic text, an advanced guide, a memoir of a vinter, and a rather thick encyclopedia on the subject.

He had six books left to his limit and Dudley took a bit of time at the library to think about what else he wanted to learn during his quarantine.

He wondered about a full, multi-volume encyclopedia itself, but decided against it as it was a non-borrowable reference set, and instead selected a huge book from the home reference section that proclaimed itself to be a basic guide on cooking, housekeeping, and home maintenance.

He spent a bit more time just walking through the aisles, glancing at the titles in the different subject areas. Some of his picks seemed a little random to him, but he decided to go for it.

He got a book on rugby strategy.

He got a book on psychology.

He got a book on organic farming.

He got a book on spirituality.

He got a book on yoga.

At the library they were kind enough to give him a box, which gave him an idea, really. And once he was home, rather than trying to put heavy books into an extra suitcase, he just found the extra foldable hand trolley in the garage and a few bungees and put all of his books for school and quarantine in two sealed boxes with his name and address on.

Much easier to manage that through train stations and on and off busses.

As he was heading to the train station in Little Whinging in a taxi with Luke in his cage on his lap, Dee gave some thought as to how it would go.

He'd have to be super disciplined and keep to skimming and speed reading alone. It didn't matter if he didn't immediately remember the content, because that wasn't the purpose. He absolutely could not afford to get caught up and start reading things in English slowly because that was a huge time waster.

Absorbing the French language was definitely a priority, and he remembered Draco mentioning the vineyard journals, and they were a second priority. Third priority, his borrowed books on wine making, and maybe the organic farming book, and any vineyard-instructional books Draco would be able to provide. Fourth priority, the other language grammars, because that was the tricky business of learning a new language. Fifth priority, any decent looking books Draco had on magical culture and history. Sixth priority, the Oxford English Dictionary. Seventh priority, the other books he borrowed on rugby and what not. Eighth priority, the other language dictionaries he bought. Ninth priority, any other written material Draco had provided.

He'd make piles as soon as he arrived and got settled, Dee decided. And the records on the gramophone could be playing in the background. One run in the morning, one walk in the evening. Pacing while he skimmed books, resting his eyes while he ate. Sleeping eight hours but no more every night. If he could have discipline and skim, just skim, four books a day, with fifteen full days, that would be sixty books. For practice, he'd brought the basic French grammar with him on the train, not that it was a long ride.

Even with his thinking and planning, by the time the train pulled into the station in London - not King's Cross, he'd have to take the Tube - he'd successfully skimmed half the book. Half. Half!

Granted, it was no hefty bi-lingual dictionary, but there was the significant possibility he'd be able to maybe get through more than sixty volumes, if they weren't all hefty bi-lingual dictionaries.

As he was waiting for his train in the Underground, his large suitcase and small hand trolley of book boxes at his feet, backpack still on his shoulders and Luke's bijou cage set on top the boxes and in between the bungees, Dee kept skimming.

He skimmed on the Tube, keeping one eye on the stops so he didn't miss his own.

Once he arrived at King's Cross and came up from the Underground and into the actual rail station, he sought out platforms nine and ten and looked at the brick support barrier. There was one in particular that had the signs for nine with an arrow going one way, and ten with an arrow going the other way.

"Nah, all you've got to do is hold on to your luggage like you're just taking a rest or waiting or something, and just lean against the barrier. But be ready to keep sort of walking backwards while holding on to all your gear, you know?" Harry had explained it and it sounded much better than walking face first into a brick wall.

Still. Doing something magical in public was nerve-wracking.

He checked his watch. He was a half hour early. He'd already stopped at the loo, but in his nervous state he was also craving a packet of crisps. Dudley took a deep breath. He did not need to eat fried potatoes to make himself feel better. He was just nervous, and who wouldn't be? He was about to do a magic trick and walk through a wall. Maybe it was supposed to be nerve-wracking.

Taking the utmost care and several deep breaths, Dee arranged himself so the back of the backpack was almost but not quite touching the brick barrier. He had a firm grip on the handles to his suitcase and the hand trolley, one finger around one of the top bits of wire on Luke's cage to keep it from going anywhere.

Several more deep breaths, an idle look around to make sure no one was staring, and Dee just started casually walking backwards. Several steps in his vision shifted and the noise around him faded away like it didn't exist at all and instead he was now walking backwards away from a large mist-filled brick archway in a brick wall with a large sign over it reading 'MUGGLE LONDON'.

So there was a TARDIS train station in the middle of London, then.

It was quiet. It was clean. There was a fresh smell to the air. There was only one rail track, and on it stood a quiet and probably empty train. For a moment Dudley wondered why, but then thought that it was still Christmas break for the Hogwarts kids, too, and the train was clearly labeled 'Hogwarts Express' and so it obviously just went between London and the school station.

There were empty kiosks along the platform, and unlit lamps, though plenty of light came in through the glass ceiling that was open at the very top. There were also benches dotted liberally along and Dudley went to the first of them and sat down.

He took a moment to just imagine what it would be like, bustling with people. Magical people, and maybe, too, non-magical parents and siblings and things.

Dee shrugged it off and went back to skimming. He got caught up a few times and switched over to actual reading, but caught himself each time and was thrilled to have finished skimming the book before Draco arrived. He was already onto the advanced grammar when the Duke did arrive (on time, of course), and Dee was tentatively ready to increase the estimate on just how many volumes he might be able to make it through by the morning of the twentieth of January.

It was hard to sleep, the first night. Of course, the chateau was gorgeous for all he hadn't seen much of it. He had a ground floor suite that had a study with french doors that opened out into the garden and really, he wasn't there for the house. But after dinner he did take a walk out in the fresh air and in walking around the whole place got his first glimpse of the thing - gorgeous, really quite lovely, Mum would have loved it - before another two hours of skimming, a bath, and then to bed.

But it was hard to sleep.

He'd skimmed both French grammars, and a third of the English-French dictionary before dinner. In the two hours after dinner he'd finished the dictionary. It was, he estimated, about five hours.

If it was a pace he could keep up, and that would be key, he could skim a slim to normal sized book in an hour, and a bilingual dictionary in three. If he only skimmed for eight hours, which was fewer hours than he'd originally intended, but he was in this for the next fifteen days and so it wouldn't do to burn out on day four, he could get through the other six dictionaries he'd brought in a little over two days, leaving him nearly thirteen full days in which he could skim approximately one hundred and twenty other slim to normal sized volumes. There were (Dee had counted when he was sorting things into piles after Draco had said farewell) one hundred and twenty-five books. Given a little extra time on the last day, and with a little leeway for the handful of other books that were larger than normal, and provided he could stay on task and on schedule each day, he'd actually have time left over to relax.

Dee cranked up the gramophone and put on a record, remembering to skim the back cover at the last minute. While it played, he considered this idea of free time and then went to hunt up the book on yoga from the stacks, and moved it to his reading stack to tackle the next day. Maybe in some of his free time he'd read it slowly and actually try to do some yoga. Not that he'd necessarily be good at it from just reading a book, but he did have time.

He had all the time he needed.

The morning of day eight dawned bright and Dee almost didn't get out of bed. The eyestrain headache from the night before wasn't much better and he hadn't seen another sentient being in a week. The elf was under orders to listen, but not to set foot in the suite - food, water, and caffeine magically appeared and empty plates and things magically disappeared.

He had already skimmed all the books he'd borrowed from the public library, all the bilingual dictionaries, the English dictionary, the vineyard journals, and half the books on magical history and culture. If he stopped now, really, he'd be fine. He'd listened to every record in the collection and now just had French language radio on from eight in the morning until eight in the evening.

Paracetamol! He thought with a brainwave. Water. Tea. Protein bar. Paracetamol, and then he'd go for a run and see if he couldn't run himself out of the silly notion to just chuck it all in and send for Draco to give him Alchy's Bane so he could go home.

Ugh. Because then he'd have to deal with his father.

Dee groaned as he rolled out of bed.

Nope.

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

This was a minor headache. That would be a more major one.

Food. Drugs. Run. Proper breakfast. And then back to the history of the Goblin Nation. And maybe he'd try to move his eyes less as he took in the words on the page. Easier, when there were thinner columns rather than full page lines, but he could still give it a go.

Day twelve found Dee in a distinctive groove. Morning and evening yoga was very nice, and he'd started to try the meditation that the book recommended. He sucked at it, of course, but he did it, and the book was very clear that just doing it was half the success in the bag, right there. The morning run kept him sane, however, and he was definitely pushing himself there. The evening walk devolved into sitting on the lawn outside his suite because really, he spent the day pacing while he skimmed, and while his legs had got used to it, when he did get a chance to sit down, he was grateful.

It had dawned on him, somewhere around lunchtime on day eight, that maybe for the first time in his life he was building good study habits. He'd learned in this past semester how to study and that was very helpful, but he'd only really mastered the essence by the time Christmas break had rolled around. Hadn't really gotten around to building any sort of useful habits. And while he was really only working for eight hours here, (well, nine really, just to be on the safe side, and he was on track to finish early and have time to skim all his textbooks for the upcoming exams he was facing for the end of the semester) and he'd likely have to put in more time than that between classes, reading, and essays, still, the only pastimes he had here were disgustingly healthy ones. Reading about yoga. Doing yoga. Running. Meditation. Some calisthenics.

No TV.

No video games.

No pubs.

No nightclubs.

No movie theaters.

And since there was so much skimming, Dee didn't miss actually reading at all, like he might otherwise.

There wasn't a whole lot of choice in his down time, and yet, he was never bored. It was like, for the first time, he had space. Mental space. He missed interacting with people but he didn't really miss things.

Still, Dee didn't dwell on it.

Day fifteen dawned bright and Dee had nothing to skim. He'd finished early and Draco was due to arrive at noon tomorrow to give him the potion, make sure there were no strange side effects, and then get him back to London for his 1:15 PM train back to Uni.

He'd skimmed, sped-read, or in the case of the yoga book, slow read every written thing in the suite. As he went for his morning run he wondered if maybe he should spend the day taking notes about his experience, because surely that would be helpful for Draco as he maybe tested and designed the process as a retreat experience.

And then Dudley remembered that there would be no part of this experience he'd forget about.

No point in writing it down, then.

A thought had been nagging at him, in down moments, though. Would it work? So what if he had pages and pages of things photographed in his mind. And would the quick skim really be effective? Would it be as effective in languages he knew as languages he didn't? He would find out soon enough - tomorrow, noon - but he had an opportunity now to do something different with the next twelve hours of work time.

By the end of his run, Dee had decided to take the two Arabic grammars and the two Mandarin grammars and speed read them rather than skim, and try to take in some understanding while he was at it. If he had time, he'd do it with the French grammars, too. He'd wanted to try it on the two most difficult languages that didn't use Latin letters to see if that made a difference in absorption and retention, but rather than going there with Bulgarian if he had time, really the whole point was that he was here (ostensibly) to learn French so that had a higher priority.

Of course, it could all be a gigantic failure and waste of time.

Except of course that he'd taught himself yoga and meditation out of a book, and had a rather lovely retreat sort of thing where he'd sort of taught himself good study habits, and so maybe if this was all he got out of it, this and remembering his first kiss, and a beautiful stay at a chateau in France, and avoiding his dad's weirdness for another break… Even if he had to hire a French tutor after all and just buckle down and study like mad until June…

Maybe that was okay, too.

"Huh," Dee said.

"Are you in pain?" Draco asked, looking concerned. "Feeling suicidal? Overwhelmed?"

"Er, no." He spent a moment thinking about it. Nope. No pain. No angst. He tapped the empty vial against his leg. A little nervous, but he didn't suddenly feel like a language prodigy, either. "Maybe it didn't work?" he asked, looking over at the blond man who had his hands hanging loosely at his sides.

"What do you remember about the night of the coronation, in the Roman Bath?"

"Huh," Dee said, eyes growing wide and jaw gaping slightly.

He had kissed Carys. And Calpurnia. And Dorentio. And really, he did a whole lot more than kissing.

How many… no, that can't be right… he'd been drunk and they'd only started the orgy around two in the morning… was that even humanly possible to cum that many times?

"It was the ritual on the ley lines," Draco said quietly. "We all felt it, that night. And everyone on the human line is still feeling it, on and off. Will do for the next few weeks."

"Holy shit," Dee quietly breathed.

Everyone… everyone? Not just him? Everyone?

"Are you… alright? No desire to go off yourself because of this?"

"Holy shit," Dee quietly breathed.

He'd been elbow deep in a centaur. He'd put his tongue into what amounted to a shark's mouth - but you know, a really sexy shark's mouth with a sinfully sweet singing voice. He hadn't used condoms, not once, and he was clean, but were they? Could he have gotten Carys pregnant? He'd certainly cum inside of her enough. Way past enough. Sooo many times.

"Dee?" Draco asked, taking a step closer.

Was he going to be some sort of deadbeat dad to some adorable little brood of fish children all because he didn't know? Would they grow up hating and resenting him, and Carys too? The sex was, you know, stellar, but it really wasn't worth being a father before graduating from Uni. But… that was a drunken orgy for you. One was definitely enough. No more drunken orgys, Dee! And bring some condoms next time! A twelve pack will do for a drunken ley line orgy!

"Dee Dursley!" Draco shouted in a commanding voice six inches from his face and Dudley finally snapped out of it with a gasp.

"I need you to get a confidential note to Calpurnia, daughter of Firenze of the Pendragon herd of centaurs, and I need you to send her message back to me. Can you do this for me?" Dee asked, his gaze and his voice filled with the intensity of his need.

Draco took a single deep breath and stood back. He took a moment to think about it, maybe.

"I can," he said slowly, "but I have to give Hermione a reason, and Firenze, too, and... I'm not sure centaurs read. Can you write the note in such a way that I can read it out to her?"

Dee made a small panicking noise.

"Right. Time is getting on, you're clearly not suicidal, and you have a train to catch. I promise you that I will get a private audience with Calpurnia and you can write to me at my home and tell me exactly how you want me to phrase it. How's your French?"

"Je ne sais pas," Dee murmured absentmindedly.

Dear Calpurnia,

I have finally remembered wholly and completely the evening I spent in your company and the memories are very valuable to me. I hope that you and Dorentio and Carys are well, and I hope that in particular Carys is suffering from no aftereffects of the evening. I beg you to tell me if I have any lingering responsibility to either of you, but particularly Carys.

There is more I could say if I had the privacy to say it, but as I don't, I'll end here.

Your friend,
D Dursley

January 31, 200_
Malfoy Manor

Dee,

I was able to have a private audience with Calpurnia, though I would like to stress that it was not easy and there may be fascinating consequences for both of us at some point in the future.

I gave your message word for word, but as she did not understand some of your subtlety, I hope you'll forgive me for taking liberties and translating. Of course, had you mentioned your fears to me, I could have told you as well - humans can't impregnate centaurs nor merfolk. Oh, they could perhaps a millennia ago or more, but there's permanent magic they use on themselves now to prevent such things. Regardless. Here is the return message:

"Tell Dee that the waves are with Carys and the stars with the foals of Firenze and even so within our hearts shall always be room for Dee Dursley, the Human."

In other words, they're fine, their parents still don't know and so they have not lost their standing or their lives, and they think of you fondly, though it can go no further than that.

Hope the transfer into agro went smoothly and that there aren't any other complications from your quarantine. Let me know if there are a few memories you need to get rid of.

Signed,
DM