The Rules of the Gamer: Dudley Dursley
Stanley yawned and scratched himself as he lazed around in his blue flannel pajamas. He picked up the remote and idly paged through Netflix, looking for something interesting with a smile on his face.
"Harry Potter… and the something something," he muttered before deciding to cue it up, lacking the energy to find something better. "Let's watch as an underaged British orphan, of the type rarely seen outside of a Dickens' novel, tries to save the world while surrounded by people who have replaced their common sense with magic," he announced with a laugh.
A small brown and white Jack Russell Terrier cracked an eye open from the chair it was laying in before deciding it was too much trouble to bother getting up itself and went back to sleep.
"Run out of cocaine?" Stanley asked his normally hyper pet. "Well it is Saturday, so I guess that shows some strong self control on your part. Tell you what, order an extra key for the coming week and I'll make it worth your while. Something has to make working at the bank exciting."
"Yer a Wizard, Harry!" Hagrid said on screen.
"You are an idiot, Harry," Stanley said as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. "Pretty sure Neville could have done your job in three books. Dammit, gotta pee. Milo, pause the movie for me, I'll be right back," he told his sleeping pooch.
Getting up he lazily shuffled towards the bathroom wondering if he should make some coffee or just continue existing as a zombie for the next three hours. As he opened the door to the bathroom he was suddenly met by the front grill of a Mitsubishi Fuso and everything went black.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Dudley awoke with a start, his heart beating like a drum in his chest as he looked around himself in a panic. Two things quickly became apparent; one he was no longer Stanley Ipkiss, college student and bank intern, he was instead Dudley Dursley and two he had a floating blue screen in front of his face. Of course that was also followed by several other things, but the first two were really taking up all his attention.
"Did I just get isekai into Harry Potter?" he asked himself in disbelief. He felt his chest and examined his arms. "Fuck, I'm a twelve year old boy with tits." He examined the floating blue screen. "The Gamer…. Did someone accidentally staple the scripts for two different anime together?"
He flicked through the screens with a thought, grateful he didn't have to tap the air or anything obvious like that, finding it all read pretty standard for what he expected. "I really should be freaking out… but Gamer's Mind seems to be handling that or I'm still asleep and this is a dream… but my dreams are not this detailed and I'm usually not the one with tits in them."
He paused to consider what he should do, then considered what he could do, before realizing he was simply going to have to play the hand he was dealt. It wasn't like it was a bad hand… Well, it could have been worse anyway. Having The Gamer ability in a world you knew pretty well and weren't stuck as a main character, gave you all sorts of options, options he didn't have in his last life.
He winced when he saw his stats. "Dudley, Dudley, Dudley," he muttered, "you've really let yourself go and you haven't even arrived yet. Should I be panicking over killing him and absorbing his soul or something? No? Well, either Gamer's Mind is doing its job or I'm perfectly fine with murdering twelve year old British kids... I think I'll take option one."
He dismissed the interface and looked around his room. It looked about as he expected for an early Nineties kid who was spoiled to hell and back and he spotted his school uniform on a chair, it was a maroon tailcoat, with an orange knickerbockers, a straw boater and a gnarled cane. "I have tits and I'm going to look like one," Dudley muttered as he got up, glancing at the clock and seeing it was six AM on the dot.
"Alright, my stats suck and I'm a fat bastard, but I've got the Gamer system, so I can fix that," he told himself as he got up. He poked his enormous belly. "With a lot of work… Can a twelve year old get liposuction?"
He pushed that thought out of his head and went to take a shower. He was sure things would look much better… sorta better… about the same but with less nights sweats from being a fat bastard, after a shower.
One shower and a change of clothes later…
"And I was right," he said with a sigh, the Gamer System cheerfully displaying the time for him as he briefly wondered what it was. "It's way too early to be that cheerful," he scolded the system, to no noticeable effect, not that he'd expected one. His stomach grumbled loudly.
"Oh yeah, this body is used to eating massive amounts," he said with a sigh. "Let's go see if there is something semi-healthy that will fill me up and maybe… some coffee. This is definitely a day that needs coffee."
He walked down the stairs, flipping on the lights as he entered the kitchen and poked through the cabinets looking for caffeine and some sort of breakfast food. "Oatmeal. Yeah, that is just what the doctor ordered," he muttered to himself as he put on a kettle to boil some water.
"What are you doing?"
"Ack!" Dudley grabbed his chest. "Don't do that, you almost gave me a heart attack!"
Harry simply looked at him. "Usually when you sneak food it's something more than oatmeal and you were talking to yourself."
"Yes, and I am entering high school, which means I have to grow up some and stop being a little shit," he told the scrawny destined hero. "Or a large one," he said, rolling his eyes as he could clearly see what Harry had been thinking.
"I'll believe it when I see it," Harry said, shaking his head.
"Suit yourself," Dudley told him before going back to making himself some breakfast, ignoring the notifications about his cooking skill improving. "You want some?"
"Oatmeal?" Harry asked. "I guess so, but I'll be cooking a full English breakfast shortly."
"Oatmeal is better for you," Dudley told him. "I'm a fat bastard, I know these things."
Harry snickered and tried to cover it with a cough.
"Where is the coffee?"
"I'll get it," Harry offered.
"Two creams and a shite load of sugar," Dudley told him, getting out another bowl for Harry.
By the time the elder Dursleys got up the two had finished cooking breakfast and were discussing their schooling.
"I'm just saying since they can mess with reality with a wave of their sticks and don't seem all that bright, you may want to try and hang onto your sanity with both hands," Dudley told him.
"They did seem a little off in some ways," Harry had to admit.
"Exactly," Dudley said, "it's like that old saying about soft times making weak men which makes hard times which makes hard men which makes soft times over and over. Since they can do things without putting any real effort into it… they've probably all gone a little strange. If you don't watch yourself you could end up around the bend and never notice. Hell, I bet your common sense has already done a runner."
Harry rolled his eyes. "I doubt it's that bad."
"Okay, let's test that," Dudley said cheerfully. "Three birds are sitting on a telephone line and you shoot one, how many birds are on the line?"
"Two," Harry said confidently.
"Zero," Dudley told him. "Think about it."
Harry blinked and shook his head. "That was a trick question."
"No, that's a pretty standard logic question, you were just paying attention to the wrong bits," Dudley said. "Magic is probably going to be like that, they don't have to pay attention to logic or reason, so why would they?"
"I'm sure it won't be that bad," Harry argued, but a hint of doubt had crept into his voice, making the two elder Dursleys smile smugly as they sat down to eat.
"Well, we'll soon find out," Dudley said. "Keep notes on things that don't make sense or are just plain strange and see how long it is when you come back for hols."
Harry nodded thoughtfully, a little unnerved that Dudley was not only pleasant to be around but that he was also making sense.
"Well, I'm going to go get ready for school," Dudley said.
"Don't you want to eat something?" Petunia asked in concern.
"Already had black coffee and oatmeal, a man's breakfast," Dudley said proudly.
"With creme and sugar," Harry reminded him.
"Yes, however I added those to the basics so they still count," he told his cousin with a grin, "logic!"
"He seems in fine spirits," Vernon said with a pleased smile. "Must be looking forward to school."
"He's growing up," Petunia said, her eyes getting damp. "My little man is growing up!"
'Not so little,' Harry wisely didn't say.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"At least I'm not the only one who looks like a complete tit," Dudley said as he got off the bus and saw all the students filing into school in their garish uniforms.
"It's not that bad," Piers told him.
"It really is," Dudley told him, "but at least we're suffering as a group. I hear that builds character or squashes dissent, something like that."
"You're wordy today," Piers said curiously. The rat faced, dark haired boy, looked him over as if trying to make sure he was still him.
"New school, and we are the lowest rank in it," Dudley told him. "We fuck up and we're in for four years of crap. Try not to offend anyone; we don't know who's who. For all we know, some scrawny kid with glasses is the minister's son."
"That sucks," his friend groaned.
"Yeah, that's school for you," Dudley said with a heavy sigh, wishing he hadn't been reincarnated as a preteen toss pot going to school in England.
"Maybe it won't be so bad," Piers said, trying to cheer his friend up.
Dudley could practically hear the voice of Morgan Freeman announcing 'Unfortunately it was that bad'.
He shook his head. "Just remember, make friends not enemies for at least the first half of the year."
"I got it, I got it," Piers assured him.
Dudley listened carefully, but he didn't hear Mr. Freeman say anything different so he was cautiously optimistic.
Lunch
The air exploded out of his lungs as a fist sank into his stomach, slamming his back against the bathroom wall. He'd like to have swung back, but the pretty colors dancing in front of his eyes made it hard to see.
"That was my little brother your friend was messing with," the senior growled out.
"I kinda got that impression," Dudley gasped out, as he regained his breath.
"I'm going to make your life hell," the older teen said with a grin.
"Yeah, the next year is going to suck," Dudley agreed, straightening up, "but then I get to make your little brother suffer just as badly for the next three, so I think I'll come out ahead."
"What?" the teen asked, confused.
"You're going to make us suffer for the next year, and then for the three after that it's just us… and your little brother, making up for lost time and whatever you do to us now," Dudley explained, looking him dead in the eyes.
The teen backed off, unsure how to deal with this situation.
"Or you could just give us a heads up and let us know who we aren't supposed to fuck with and we'll consider this just payment for my friend's mistake," Dudley offered.
"I promised my little brother I was going to black your eye," he said, an uncertain frown on his face.
Dudley nodded. "That's fair," he agreed, "I wouldn't want to make you a liar to your little brother."
The brother in question, a thin, nerdy looking kid who would have fit in well with Harry, spoke up, "I'm good."
"Really?" the older teen asked.
He nodded. "Yeah, you got him a good one and he was just defending his friend, plus… I'm kinda impressed he was willing to let you hit him like that."
Dudley turned to Piers and the two larger teens who were holding him let him go. "Didn't I tell you not to get into a fight with anyone?"
"You said not to get into a fight with anyone who was scrawny and had glasses," Piers argued,
"and he don't have no glasses."
Dudley turned and started hitting his head against the wall while most of the teens burst out laughing.
"What?" Piers asked, causing them to laugh harder.
After School
"Catch you later, Dave," Dudley said as he got off the bus with Piers.
"For a scrawny kid, he's alright," Piers said, happy the school day was over and they were free to mess about.
"Yeah, plus his older brother knows the school like the back of his hand."
"He'd been held back, he should know it," Piers said. "Hope we don't get held back, neither one of us is exactly eggheads."
"I'll help you through it," Dudley said absently as his attention was drawn to a glowing green portal hanging in midair, just off the sidewalk and on somebody's lawn.
The house looked to have been abandoned, the grass ankle deep, and the paint chipped and peeling, not to mention the fact that it didn't fit the cookie cutter look of all the rest of the houses in the neighborhood.
"What are you looking at?" Piers asked, following Dudley into the grass. "Hey where did this place come from?"
Dudley shook his head and looked around, as he realized he'd just walked through the portal while Piers was talking to him.
"What is this place?" He glanced at the portal behind them before looking around in confusion.
Dudley turned and looked at Piers. "I've kinda become an RPG character and this is a secret dungeon," he said bluntly and waited to see what the response was.
"Huh," the dark haired boy said, looking around the forest they were standing in. "Am I supposed to doubt that and ask a bunch of questions?"
"I don't think you have to, it's kinda expected, but it's really just filler."
"I think I'll just skip it then," Piers decided, "cut scenes suck."
"Yeah, they do," Dudley agreed, as Piers stuck his school books in inventory and checked his stats like a veteran gamer as simply entering a dungeon apparently added him to the party.
"Glad we played all those games," he said with a grin. "My wisdom really sucks, but then so do all my stats. I don't suppose we can re-roll?"
Dudley shook his head. "These are our stats until we level up or grind them into something decent."
"Hope this is a weak dungeon then," he said with a sigh, "cause I think a cat could kill us right now." He swung his cane and frowned. "We need better weapons."
Dudley checked the dungeon stats. "Says we gotta fight communism."
"Yeah? What's the stats on communism?"
"Looks like a level one dungeon and we need to kill a hundred and one foes to clear it," Dudley said with a frown, ignoring his question.
"Maybe we should go home and change and get something better than our school canes," Piers suggested. "I mean, I've got the wisdom of a barbarian but even I'm not thick enough to take on that many goblins with a cane."
"Goblins are a first level enemy," Dudley said with a frown, "but no one is sent against a hundred of them at first level and we aren't even really first level right now, we're… zero level peasants."
"Kobolds then?" he guessed.
"Maybe," Dudley conceded, "but it wouldn't hurt to figure out what we're facing before we go get weapons so we get the right ones."
"We can run away," Piers said thoughtfully, before eyeing Dudley.
Dudley laughed. "Yeah, if something with teeth and claws is chasing us, I'll run faster than you."
"Well, let's go poke around and see if we can find em," Piers said, "cause we ain't got no mini-map."
"Tra-la la-la-la-la," came from the forest nearby and the two quickly ducked behind some bushes and watched in disbelief as a dozen small, white clad, blue skinned creatures marched down a forest path while they watched.
A few minutes after the singing faded out the two climbed out of the bushes.
"Okay, that's a lot less dangerous than I thought they would be," Dudley said. "Still… a hundred and one of them could be trouble."
"Yeah, unless we could train a half dozen cats to help," Piers agreed.
"Wait… doesn't your da have that riding mower?" Dudley asked with a grin.
"Yeah," Piers agreed in confusion before realizing why he was asking. "Fine, but you get to clean the blades."
"Deal!"
Beta by: Abyssal Angel & Mist-of-Rainbows
