A/N: Ta-dah! Okay, so it wasn't exactly a quick update, but it was speedier than the last one. I'm rather proud of this chapter, but it turned out so long I had to split it in two. So, no responses to reviews at the end of this chapter, I'll put them on the end of the next chapter, 'Mistakes Were Made', which will be posted at the same time.
Disclaimer from chapter one still applies. Offer void where prohibited.
You have to laugh at yourself, because you'd cry your eyes out otherwise.
"You're a prat, Dursley," Dudley muttered to himself, sitting heavily on the pavement. "Prat, prat, prat!"
Piers and the other boys were still running back and forth in the chaotic dance that was their pick-up soccer game, but Dudley had bowed out by necessity. At first, he had tried to play defense, but though his bulk was an effective block when it was in the right place, he simply didn't move quickly enough to suit his teammates. They tried him as a goalie next. Here he did much better, until a forceful kick from Piers sent the ball slamming into a Very Bad Place on Dudley's anatomy. When he could breathe again, ten minutes or so later, he crept off the field, humiliated. They had *laughed* at him.
"Thought it was funny, did you?" he wheezed at the oblivious soccer players. "I wish I could do magic…I'd pop more than just your football."
He paused, realizing what he'd just said. As if his mind had been split, his thoughts took two separate paths at once. The first said 'Dad would kill me if he heard me saying that!'. The second said, a bit louder, 'Harry felt like this. I made Harry feel like this. Again.'. Dudley moaned and rested his sweaty forehead on his knees. His cousin would never forgive him.
"Prat," he mumbled to himself again. He felt weak and a little lightheaded.
"Oi, you okay, kid?"
Dudley jumped and looked up. A skinny woman with brown hair in a ponytail was standing a couple feet away, straddling her bicycle, which she had obviously stopped pedaling to avoid running him down.
"Sorry…" he shifted to the side a little.
"I know you…" She bent to peer closer. Her eyes were a muddy hazel, but bright and pleasant in her oval face. She looked about twenty-five years old. "Last night, in the ambulance! You're the magic mushroom boy. You okay?"
He blinked, recognizing her dimly as the emergency technician whose opinions he had asked in regards to magic food. "They weren't mushrooms, just jellybeans."
"Right." She cracked a smile. "Look, are you sure you should be out and about in this heat? You were pretty sick last night."
"We went to the library," he said, "My cousin and me. To get cookbooks for diabetics."
She stepped away from her bicycle and let it fall, crouching next to him. "You seem a little out of it. Are you shaky? Dizzy?"
"Yeah," he admitted, "But I was just hit in the--that is, a soccer ball ran into me."
"Do you take pills? For diabetes?"
"Not yet. Dad went to get them this morning."
She relaxed. "Oh, well, you're probably okay then. Well, not okay, really, you should take your blood sugar and see if you need a snack. And get inside, for goodness' sake, before you get heatstroke."
"How am I supposed to lose weight if I get sick whenever I exercise?" He complained.
"Just don't overdo it, silly. Where do you live?"
"Two streets over."
"Think you can walk?"
"Um." He started to pull himself up, accepting her helping hand only reluctantly. "Slowly, I guess."
"I'll walk you home, then." She picked up her bicycle and put it between them. "So your cousin ditched you?"
"No, it's not like that…" he gripped a handlebar for support. "I made him angry. He was trying to help me and then those boys I was playing with came along and I sort of dumped him for them."
She shook her head. "So are you going to apologize to him?"
"It doesn't matter. He'll never forgive me."
"Never's a long time."
"You don't know him. Or me, really. The way things are at our house."
She gave him a long look. "Well. No, but I do know you don't get forgiveness if you don't ask for it. Or anything else, when it comes right down to it."
He was silent a moment, then asked, "You knew I had diabetes, didn't you? Before we got to the hospital?"
"I thought it was a good possibility," she replied. "I'm a medical student, you know, it's my job to pick up on these things. Or will be, one day."
"You'll be good at it."
She smiled, "Thanks. I hope so."
They said nothing more until they reached the Dursley residence.
"Well, bye," said Dudley, avoiding her eyes, "Thanks."
"Hang on. You're getting a new glucometer, right?"
"Er?"
"To measure your blood sugars. You ought to have someone show you how to use it properly. You want to bring it out here and I'll have a look?"
"I don't know if I've got it yet," he said slowly, "but I'll check…um…you can come in, I suppose."
She let her bike rest on the lawn and followed him into the living room. "Nice place…"
He nodded absently, glancing around. The living room was neat and bare, as was the dining room. In the kitchen, however, he found his mother seated at the table next to a bag from the local pharmacy. Her eyes were red, and she sniffled a little. She brightened as he entered, standing to wrap him in a fierce embrace, "Diddy! I was so worried! Don't you ever go off like that again without telling me! Especially when you're sick!"
Noting the ponytailed girl in the kitchen doorway, looking amused, Dudley struggled to free himself. "Mum! I'm fine. Honestly. We just went to the library, it isn't far."
Petunia caught sight of the strange woman and frowned, smoothing Dudley's clothes maternally. "Who's this, dumpling?"
"You don't recognize her? From last night?"
The younger woman extended a hand, "Linnea Proust. I sort of ran into him on the sidewalk. He may be having a mild hypoglycemic reaction, so I walked him home."
Petunia blanched, "What does that mean?"
"Just that his blood sugar's a bit low. Did you buy him a glucometer? I offered to show him how to use it."
"Oh, that awful thing!" Mrs. Dursley said savagely, "I read the directions myself. There has to be some way to do it other than sticking him with pins three times a day…" She rifled through the bag and pulled out a small patent leather case, handing it disdainfully to Linnea.
The younger woman sat at the table, unzipping the case. "Well, it requires a blood sample, unfortunately. This kind, you can take the sample from the arm or thigh. Most of them you have to take from the finger."
"My Duddy's always gotten sick at the sight of blood. He's a sensitive boy."
"I can handle it, Mum," Dudley growled, moving to sit across from Linnea. After a moment's thought, Petunia took the seat between them.
"Let me show you how to test the meter for accuracy first," the younger woman said, taking a small bottle of clear liquid out of one of the pockets in the case. "This is your control solution." She let Dudley and Petunia get a good look at the bottle as she removed a few more things from the case. "In this container are your test strips," she shook a cylindrical prescription bottle at them. "And this is the meter itself."
Dudley regarded the small gray plastic box in her hand. It had a blank display screen, three buttons, and a slot on one end. "It's so little…"
"Portable," Linnea told him. "You can carry it and your supplies in a pocket."
"What's this thing?" Dudley picked up a plastic box about the size of a large eraser.
"That'll be your lancing device."
Petunia whimpered and wrung her hands. "You're sure there's no other way?"
"Sorry, ma'am. You're just lucky he's not on insulin injections."
Subdued, Dudley's mother nodded.
Linnea took a small strip of what looked like thick card paper out of the prescription bottle. "This clear part here is where the blood, or in this case the test solution goes. You only need a drop." She opened the bottle and dropped a bit of clear liquid onto the strip, then clicked the 'on' button of the meter and slid the strip inside. After a few seconds the meter beeped and the number '85' appeared on the screen. "That's good," she said, "Using this solution, you want a number between 70 and 100 to come up. Any higher or lower than that indicates a problem with the meter. You want to test the meter every time you open a new vial of test strips, or if you get an unusual number or an error message."
Dudley nodded, turning the lancing device over in his hands. He remembered getting his finger pricked at the doctor's office when he was little, during his yearly checkups. He had always hated it, not because of the blood or even the pain, but because the pricking device made a sound like a stapler: ka-chonk! It made him feel like the flesh of his finger was being stapled to the nail. He pulled back the darker blue trigger of the lancing device, then hit the release button.
*Ka-chonk!* it said.
Dudley grimaced.
"Your turn now," Linnea told him, "Wash your hands in the sink. Use warm water, it makes the blood flow better."
"I thought you said I could test from the arm," he complained, shuffling obediently toward the sink.
"You can, and for a routine check it's probably better, but if you suspect your blood sugar's dropping quickly, it's better to test from your fingers; you get a more accurate reading…Okay, here's the lancets," the technician said, pulling out a clear bag full of tiny plastic pegs with balls on the end.
Petunia shuddered.
"They don't look that sharp to me…" Dudley said, returning to his seat.
Linnea pulled a peg out and twisted the ball off the end, revealing a short, sharp needle. "These are the good kind. The smaller and sharper the needle, the less it hurts." She took the lancing device and showed him how to fit the lancet into it without poking himself, then handed him the meter and a test trip. "Go on."
Petunia closed her eyes.
Dudley pulled back the trigger and positioned the lancet over his index finger, chewing nervously on the inside of his cheek. He thought of the stapler, glanced at his mother then sighed and pressed the trigger.
*Ka-chonk!*
He didn't feel a thing.
He put the lancing device down and peered at the tiny red droplet on his fingertip. "I guess that wasn't too bad…" He felt a little woozy, but then he had felt woozy since he'd gotten nailed with a ball. It wasn't entirely true, what his mother had said about him being sick at the sight of blood. He didn't like to see his own, and often played up this fact for extra sympathy from his mother. But the sight of other peoples' blood had never bothered him, particularly after all the movies and computer games he'd played.
"Hold the test strip just over the blood. It'll pull it in. Good…now put it in the meter…"
All three of them bent over the table, watching the small plastic box with inordinate interest. Dudley and Petunia jumped when it beeped. Linnea hummed softly. "95. That's a good number, actually. Normally you want to be between 70 and 110 before meals. You probably feel sick because your body's adapted to the high glucose levels."
Petunia relaxed. "He's all right then?"
"Yes." She smiled, "If you're hungry, you can have a snack, though. It might make you feel less shaky."
Dudley nodded eagerly. "Harry said an orange or something would be good."
His mother stared at him. "Harry said…?"
He glanced at her and flushed a little, "He was helping me. He read the booklets the doctors gave me and made lunch."
Petunia looked bewildered.
Linnea stood. "Well my work here is done. Check the web for support groups if you get a chance, there's plenty of people out there going through just what you are." She patted Dudley's head kindly and headed for the door. He followed, showing her out.
"Thanks," he said as she bounded down the front stairs.
She just nodded and pedaled off.
When he returned to the kitchen, his mother was staring into space, tapping her fingernails on the meter. "Harry made you lunch?" she asked.
"Yeah," he picked up the meter and stuffed it back into the case.
"And you ate it?"
"Mum…he was being nice. It was tomato soup, chicken salad, and an apple, it wasn't bad, really."
She frowned, then looked up at him, "Chicken…? From the leftovers?"
He nodded.
"Oh, dear," she murmured. "Perhaps I should have believed him…"
Uhoh! What's Petunia done to poor Harry?
Go read the next chapter and find out!