While one could say there was a kindness to moving from the Hospital Wing, away from everything that entailed, Dudley did not feel it. He sat perfectly still, head ducked down as he stared at his lap, worrying. The change of place was welcome, he and his cousin were familiar enough with the office. And it made sense. They'd been injured. Of course Albus was going to send an owl to make James and Lily aware of what happened. Dudley's chest hitched, reminding himself of how Aunt Lily got when she was fretting and worried, how he hated being the one to cause that.

His hands wrung, tight, both pale and purple all at once. Realizing, he tugged them apart. Then turned his head away and looked to the side instead, easily ignoring the quick shuffle of footsteps. It wasn't like Harry was trying to be quiet in what he was doing.

Albus had sent for them. Asked, told them to come in his message. Dudley didn't know if this would be the same thing Neville would go through with his gran, with Augusta. Or Hermione. How would a visit by her parents work, considering castle enchantments? He frowned, momentarily distracted. There was sure to be some method to manage that. Then the distraction faded. When Albus had led them to his office and informed them of what he'd owled… There'd been the same look aimed at him and his cousin as after the thing they did over the summer.

Dudley swallowed and peered carefully over to Albus. Who was smiling in his direction, a twinkle in his eye. Sighing, Dudley turned his head the other way, not surprised to see green eyes far too close going wide. Fawkes trilled at him, snagged the lemon drop out from Harry's fingertips, flew off Harry's shoulder to drop the lemon drop directly onto Dudley's lap, before swooshing over to his usual perch, and then trilled again.

"Best take that Dudley," Albus said, his mouth twitching in amusement. "It appears that Fawkes insists."

A knock sounded on the office door, Aunt Lily entering first before anyone bade her entrance, worried green eyes spotting both him and Harry quickly. It was Uncle James who paused at the doorway, face breaking out into a grin as he let out a laugh. Harry perked up and grinned back at his dad. Then reached over to pluck one of the whoever knew how many lemon drops off of Dudley's hat to toss it over to James. Who tried to catch it in his mouth.

Gaze sliding off of Harry, Dudley hunched a bit as Lily's eyes focused solely on him. Snaking her hand in easily before Harry could grab another lemon drop to toss, she removed Dudley's witches hat and plunked it down onto Albus's desk, the pile of lemon drops on it weighing a roll of parchment down like some odd paperweight that Albus would probably find joy in owning. "Remove your hand." Scowling, Harry pulled his hand back from grabbing another lemon drop behind his mum's back and pouted back into his seat with a huff.

James chuckled loudly. "Both look normal to me. Good day Albus. Apologies about the entrance."

"I'm sorry James, are you referring to my worry or your insinuation of taking over the position of professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts after insulting and berating and threatening the man?" Blue eyes wide, Dudley wasn't alone in spinning his head around to stare at James. Harry's jaw opened up in awe at his dad. The man's smile didn't change, but there was a tightness behind his glasses that wasn't there a second ago at the corners of his eyes. "In front of the entire Hogwarts body?"

Uncle James reached around and picked up one of the lemon drops, one shoulder shrugging. "I didn't say anything to their head of house, did I?"

"James!" Frustrated, Aunt Lily made a noise and thumped his chest with the back of her hand.

He covered her hand with his, eyebrow raised knowingly. "Lily."

Dudley recognized this. This was familiar. The whenever his aunt and uncle were both worried about something and frustrated and didn't really mean any anger. Well, more with Aunt Lily. And times Uncle James he knew he wasn't really in any trouble with her. He'd seen it often enough over him when younger at the hospital or when he went back to primary or when Harry insisted on joining him or Harry pulled some stunt that could or did put him or others into danger. Then there were the times when his uncle insisted on doing something or became stressed from work.

Slowly, Dudley lowered his eyes back to the floor, knowing he was part of the reason they were here and worried, James apparently going off in the Great Hall when seeing the professor that should have a handle on handling these sorts of things.

"I listened to him and Mi—"

"Would you really become our DADA professor Dad?" The words burst out of Harry. His cousin perched on the edge of his seat, green eyes alight in excitement, hands and feet energized. "That'd be the best and it'd make it way more fun—"

Both his parents snorted and cracked up into laughing at the question. Dudley turned, blinking as he heard and noticed Albus laughing with them.

"Harry," James chortled out. "I'm afraid I don't have...quite the disposition or real desire to teach. Particularly Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"But, you're an auror. Isn't it the same thing?"

The humor left Uncle James's face. "No. No, it's not."

"Training adults is one thing," Albus spoke up. Dudley and Harry both turned to look. While there was a twinkle in his blue eyes, Albus had a solemn sort of thing going on with his hands clasped together on his desk. Straightening, Dudley snuck glances back to James and then to Lily, catching the same feeling from all of them. "Teaching children is another and takes a different sort of tactic. One, that your father knows would not be a good fit. As much as I daresay it would be...interesting, and while I do enjoy having him around, I would reject a teaching application."

Harry frowned, but it was starting to dawn on Dudley what might be the issue. Uncle James would seem like a fun professor, to let them goof off, but there was also the point of the war and how his uncle got around that topic. He was very set on keeping that sort of thing away from them and letting them be kids. So Uncle James really wouldn't want to teach kids, especially them, about things of this sort. James truly would be a terrible professor. Any declaration his uncle made, Dudley thought, was more than likely a need to say something on a lack of job done because he was worried on their safety rather than an actual declaration of stealing someone's job. Plus, his uncle did tend to do things for sheer reactions from others.

"I believe I called you both here for another matter, the Hogwarts rumor mill speaking of Auror James Potter taking over Professor Quirrell's job aside." Wincing, Dudley directed his gaze back down to his hands, wringing them together again. The troll incident was weighing on him enough without thinking of why Albus might have specifically told Lily and James to come here after Harry and he were done with the Hospital Wing.

"We were informed of the events when we passed through the Great Hall," James said as he sat in the seat next to Harry. Dudley peered over, frowning at how his uncle was more nonchalant, popping a lemon drop in his mouth. With how he'd been sold out on his behavior in the Great Hall, Dudley would have expected more worry than this. Maybe it was more for the sheer reaction.

He paled with a sudden thought. If he was right like he thought he was, that it was their head of house and professor of Potions who had been the one his aunt and uncle had been referring to at King's Cross Station, then his uncle might have said what he did to get the reaction out of Professor Snape without actually saying anything to him. Dudley's head hung, blue eyes wide. Just like having Peter break that vase from the Malfoy family. The next Potions class didn't seem as exciting as it normally did all of a sudden. He glanced over to his cousin. It was doubtful Harry realized.

Not with how Harry twisted in his seat toward his dad. "We had to go in," Harry declared. "Dudley's friends with Hermione. She didn't know about the troll and all we planned was to get and tell her. The troll was there. We had to go in."

"We heard," Lily said simply. Glancing up, Dudley caught the look she directed to James and the two both shook their heads at Harry. His cousin frowned, twisting about in his seat more, head snapping back and forth between his parents. "It was very...chivalrous of you."

"Ah no," Albus spoke up and interrupting. "The issue at hand is not about Harry's sorting."

Harry's jaw suddenly jerked out, him sucking in a breath and straightening at the realization of that mention. Green eyes beamed up at all the adults. Like his cousin was daring any of them to fight him over the matter. "I'm Slytherin. With Dudley." Harry scowled at them. "I was very sneaky. And pretty ambitious doing it too. Sneaking around a full grown troll. I'm still alive and barely injured. Ask Madam Pomfrey, the Medwitch here. Got Hermione out without a scratch. Sneaky, ambitious, and I succeeded. Slytherin."

"Ah. Now on that note, we have reached the issue at hand. Harry, remind me and tell your parents, what were those injuries?"

This, Dudley knew well, for he felt he was a good part at fault for shouting and warning his cousin that got the troll's attention. When he'd woken up in the Hospital Wing, most of his attention had been on Harry and asking Madam Pomfrey questions. Harry shrugged. "Just a bit of a scrape on my arm and knocked out for a bit. Barely anything. Madam Pomfrey thought it'd be worse, but it really was just a scrape." Lifting up his arm, Harry showed off the torn hole on his sleeve, widening it so that everyone could see the unmarked skin beneath it. Healed. Easily healed.

"How did you receive them?"

Puzzled, Harry looked to Albus and Dudley looked as well, curious.

"From the troll's club. The troll dropped it onto the broken stalls when I was making my way back out over them."

He and his cousin shared a look. Harry just shrugged it off. Dudley turned back to Albus and spoke up. Cautious, curious, suspicious, concerned and a bit unnerved. "You already knew how Harry got hurt." He winced at saying that, head ducked down enough to not really look at the not twinkling eyes, swallowing. The last time Dudley saw that was over the summer. But that had been over something they'd done to get him magic. So what was this about? "Why are you asking?"

"Yeah Albus," Harry said, his legs swinging as he leaned forward in his curiosity. "You were there when Madam Pomfrey snapped at Dud's joke about my luck and winding up under enough coverage to protect me."

Albus took a breath, fingers steepled under his chin as his blue gaze moved off of Harry. "Dudley, what were your injuries?"

"What is this about?" Aunt Lily was fretting. Sounding suspicious and worried. "I thought both were taken care of in the Hospital Wing."

A finger went up. Silently asking for her to wait. She did so, but Dudley could feel his aunt's hands on the back of his chair, feel her presence close behind him.

Dudley frowned. "I was knocked out for a bit too. Something from when the troll's club fell must have flown up and hit the back of my head, because I don't remember seeing anything hitting me."

Blue eyes stayed steady on his own frowning blue eyes coming up from the ground to look properly at Albus.

"And your arm?"

Startled, Dudley blinked. "My arm? Nothing hit my arm."

He'd woken up to Madam Pomfrey fussing over him in the Hospital Wing. At seeing he was sitting up fine, insisting he stay put, she turned about and directed her attention onto Harry. He had gone to hurry over to see Harry for himself and gotten the full force of her glare, telling him off for disobeying her orders when he could see his cousin just fine from where he sat and him and his injuries could stay put for a few minutes.

Wait. Injuries? Plural? But, there'd only been that cut he'd felt on his head, the reason he'd gotten knocked out.

Terrified, he timidly lifted his arm up to look at it, Harry scurrying out from his chair to lean across over Dudley to look himself, barely tugged back by his dad as James and Lily both peered over to look at Dudley's arm as well. Sure enough, there was no mark on Dudley's sleeve. No hole or any scuffed up fabric. But as he pulled at the sleeve and twisted his arm to get a better overall look, there was this slight itch.

There had been that sharp pain going up his arm, he remembered suddenly.

Dudley sucked in a breath, gasping.

"Dudley?" Aunt Lily's panicked voice sounded from up and beside him. "What is it? Is it your arm? Let me take a look."

He hadn't realized it until it'd been pointed out. While his school cloak was black, much of the sleeve color appeared darker than the rest. Yanking the sleeve up, Dudley stared at the thin long mark going along the back of his forearm. It definitely had not been there before the troll.

"I guess I got hit there by something as well," he finally said. And then he looked up, drawing back into his chair at seeing the give in the set of Albus's shoulders. Petrified, alarmed…he stared wide eyed across the desk hoping for anything other than bad and worse than him just not noticing an injury he got in all the excitement.

"No, no I'm afraid you were not. Not according to both Mister Longbottom and Miss Granger, as well as Professor Snape who made it there in time due to the rest of the Slytherin first years stampeding to inform him of what you all had come across." Albus drew in a heavy breath and then his lips quirked up half-heartedly. "It appears and would be my educated guess, that your desire, your other desire from this past summer...has made itself known as well."

"What?" Uncle James stepped forward, leaning over the desk, partially blocking Albus as he hovered over him, hand opening and closing at his side, tense. "Explain. Made itself known? Say it straight. What do you mean? Albus."

Leaning, Dudley saw Albus direct his gaze up to James, not looking perturbed by the threatening posture.

"I mean, when Dudley pressed his cut against Harry, it was in a desire to make sure his cousin did not lose too much blood. Thus, it seems, when Harry is significantly injured...it is Dudley taking on a portion of those injuries," Albus said simply. His lips quirked up.

"Intriguing and powerful to think about in its own right. That it has been managed and done, that the pair of you caring so much for each other to make such a thing happen. I am putting the two events together, of course. But considering the other desire spoken of in what Harry and Dudley did this summer, and that it did manage to make one of the desires already occur, well, I do not believe I am entirely incorrect on my understanding of injuries with the troll and putting the two events together. It may not have been the intended outcome, more of an...unexpected effect to the main desire wished upon, and yet."

His blue eyes and mouth wide, Dudley slowly turned his head to look at Harry. With green eyes behind his glasses under messy black hair, his cousin mirrored him. The pair gaped at each other. Silent, both their heads turned back to stare at Albus. Matching green eyes to her son and the hazel eyes of Harry's dad stared as well. The whole office was silent.

None of them, none of them, had quite been expecting this.

Author's Note: So, it's been a year and thus...surprise? There have been an awful lot of Sundays gone by since the last update on my 'What If' story, hasn't there? Feels a bit odd writing about Dudley after all this time. This would be what I briefly mentioned in the last one about reminding Dudley of what brought him to Hogwarts. I suppose that answers one reviewer on who got hurt. Both. I wonder if any of you thought about that part mentioned when Dudley and Harry told Albus what they had done and it making a reappearance. Thank you to the favorites and follows and to the reviewers Lady Mage, Abhinav Chhetri, and DR5996.