This was Dudley's best birthday ever! In truth, except for that scary time he still didn't like to think about when Harry had pushed him into the reptile cage at the zoo, all of his birthdays had been pretty good. The main reason for that being that if they started out not to be so good, he screamed and yelled at the top of his lungs until they became good. Although he'd never thought of it before, he supposed that screaming and yelling was his own version of magic, and it had never failed him yet.
But this birthday was extra-special, because he had his own wizard here to share it with him. Of course, it could be argued that he'd always had a wizard here on his birthday, but Harry didn't count. Harry was a freak and made Daddy mad and that was all there was to be said on the subject. But in truth, Dudley had always thought that wizards in general were kind of cool. He'd often wished that he had special powers that he could use in non-freakish ways so people would think he was important.
It certainly worked for Draco. From the moment they'd met, Dudley had known he was important. He had a sort of confidence about himself that Dudley wanted more than anything else in the world. He hoped that by having Draco here for a whole week, some of that might rub off on him.
And Draco was so nice! He'd come for Dudley's birthday without even having to be told, and with only a little bit of prompting he'd given him a really neat present, better than all the 47 presents his parents had given him put together. And he had really good manners and knew how to behave as a guest in someone's house, and Dudley just knew they were going to have so much fun for the next week!
After he'd paid the proper amount of attention to his presents, Dudley was so excited about Draco's presence that he couldn't help fussing over him during breakfast. He kept offering him more toast and bacon and got up several times to get him things from the kitchen: marmalade, butter, and even coffee. (Draco must be real grown-up if he drank coffee!) They were having such a good time that the coming and going of the owl passed unnoticed. So it came as quite a shock when Harry suddenly started yelling at Draco from across the room.
Fortunately, Daddy had already gone to work, as he'd never been able to tolerate Harry's yelling at all. Or as he put it, there was to be no yelling at all in the house, unless your last name was Dursley. It was also a good thing because Harry started talking about all kinds of forbidden topics like owls and the Ministry of Magic and Hogwarts and transfiguration, whatever that was. Dudley didn't understand a bit of what Harry was saying, but he did know that Draco looked frightened, and that was something Dudley couldn't tolerate. Without waiting for further provocation, he pushed back from the table, got up, and punched Harry squarely in the nose.