It had begun with Harry offering to mow the garden.
With only a couple days to go until Aunt Marge's visit, Aunt Petunia had gone into full preparation mode. The house looked even more sterile than it usually did. The guest room had been prepared – which meant that a number of excess items usually stored there had found their way into Harry's room. Even Dudley had to make sure all his knick-knacks – his gaming consoles, torch, boxing gloves, jumping rope, and the like – which were usually spread all over the house, were kept in his room.
Seeing the taxing preparations around him, mowing the lawn had seemed an appropriate solution: he would be out of his aunt's hair and still be doing something that would help her stress less – she could hardly object to that.
It turned out she could.
Aunt Petunia went on and on about how Harry was insinuating that he was being overworked, that he was being given unreasonable chores. She would not listen to his claims to the contrary, and instead accused him of looking for reasons so he could later lie about how he was treated at home. Harry tried to take back his offer, but the tirade continued, as his aunt explained to him just how much work she had to do, while he was only getting in the way instead of helping her—
Then Dudley decided to interfere. "I can mow the garden."
His offer was not taken at all seriously, but Aunt Petunia spent several long minutes telling him what a wonderful boy he was for willing to make such a sacrifice, no matter how much Dudley told her that he really wanted to do it, that it would be a form of exercise, that it would be fun—
Harry managed to extricate himself finally and fled to his room. Too agitated to stay there for too long, he made himself a bit more presentable and went downstairs mere minutes later. He did not manage to leave the house unobserved.
"Are you off to bother Mrs Figg again?" snarled Aunt Petunia.
Harry hesitated, unsure how to answer. Ever since Ron's phone call a couple days ago, when he had mentioned visiting his squib neighbour while his uncle was eavesdropping on his conversation with Ron, things had been worse than usual. He supposed he should not have mentioned her name, but Ron had been worried and he had wanted to reassure his friend – he had not thought through the consequences of his words. How fitting, he thought, that after finally getting Dudley to agree to proceed with caution when talking to his parents about Harry, he himself had gone and said something unwise.
Apparently, talking to a sympathetic neighbour – even an eccentric one – was far worse than talking to his classmates and their parents. No matter how he had reassured his aunt and uncle that he had not told Mrs Figg any 'lies' about how badly he was treated at home, (no matter that they did not even suspect that she had any connection to the magical world), it had been a sore – and oft visited subject – since then.
At least Uncle Vernon was not at home, Harry thought glumly, as he tried to stem the tide of Aunt Petunia's nasty suspicions and accusations thrown his way. He almost reconsidered leaving, but as soon as he turned away from the door, his aunt shrieked.
"Out! Go! Oh, I won't have you say that I'm locking you inside the house!" she shouted after him.
Harry was still shaking in suppressed rage when he reached Wisteria Walk. It was unusual for him to visit Mrs Figg that early in the day, or to visit by himself, so he turned the corner and walked to the park instead, hoping to dispel some of his anger first. The cold and wet English summer day had soon made him uncomfortable enough outside that he walked back.
Dudley met him at Mrs Figg's house, apparently having left not too long after Harry. He was watching one of the shows he followed on the television. Harry had to acknowledge the sacrifice: the boys usually never left the house that early precisely because Dudley could not stand to miss his show.
Dudley made an aborted attempt to apologise on his mother's behalf, but Harry waved him off. Mrs Figg shot him sympathetic looks and in conversation it became clear that Dudley had already told her enough that she knew the reason for Harry's current displeasure.
"I'm sorry about mentioning your name to my aunt, Mrs Figg," said Harry. He explained to her why he had told Ron of his visits to her house on the phone. She knew enough about his aunt and uncle's attempts to keep him away from Hogwarts that she understood. He assured her that he had not made the slightest suggestion to his elder relatives that she was a squib.
"Never you mind, Harry. Petunia won't think worse of me than she already does. She never had the highest opinion of me – not that that's ever bothered me before. Whatever politeness she dredged up for me was because I looked after you when no one else wanted to – mostly because of all the horror stories she keeps telling everyone about you."
"You were right, you know," said Harry drily. "My aunt and uncle really don't like me visiting you if they don't think I hate it."
Dudley was valiantly pretending to be watching the television. Harry suppressed a sigh, and let the topic go.
Mrs Figg brought out Harry's school supplies. "Here you go. I believe you still had the history of magic homework to do."
She might have been trying to distract him from his dark mood, but Harry agreed that doing his homework was probably the best thing he could do at the moment.
The history of magic homework was to write an essay about whether or not the witch burnings in the fourteenth century were completely pointless. With a fortifying breath, he dragged the heavy history book closer, looking for something he could use for his essay.
Harry was writing about a medieval witch named Wendelin the Weird and her apparent obsession with being burned, while using the flame-freezing charm, and watching Mrs Figg take pictures of her various cats, by the time Dudley's show had ended. Normally, Dudley tended to watch a few more shows that followed, if not with the same zeal. This time, he scooched over along the sofa to take a look at what Harry was writing.
"Huh. So witches and wizards were never really burned?" asked Dudley, after reading through the section of the book Harry was referencing.
"Well, maybe not never," said Harry. "I found another section, about one witch getting another caught by muggles and burned because of a fight they had." He leafed through the book to the correct entry. "So if the flame-freezing charm failed – because someone else cast a counter, for example, then the witch or wizard would actually die. Also, muggles." Harry leafed back to the entry about Wendelin. "It says here 'on the rare occasion when they did catch a witch or a wizard' – meaning, the rest of the time they probably burned muggles…"
"Or squibs," said Mrs Figg. She glanced over the shoulder, but did not put down the camera.
She was coaxing one cat after the other to pose in what she probably considered to be a particularly cute setting, on top of a flowery armchair. There were cat toys and yarn spread all over it, and the cats kept getting in each others' way, jumping in and out of it.
(This sort of behaviour no longer seemed as eccentric as it used to, now that Harry knew she bred part-kneazle cats – and that the photographs would be sent to potential buyers – though also kept lovingly in her private photo albums.)
"Squibs knew a little bit about magic, of course, and ended up saying unwise things every now and then," she added, when the boys looked at her curiously.
Harry, once again eager to have extra information that was not directly copied from his textbook, asked her for more details. With some coaxing, she managed to remember a few names and approximate dates. Then she thought to bring some muggle history books she had at home.
"I don't keep any books from the wizarding world at home, I'm afraid. But the fourteenth century was before the Statute of Secrecy," she said. "Magic wasn't hidden the way it is now, and some of it actually made it into muggle records."
With her help, Harry added a good three or four inches of text to his essay – including the popular wizarding theory that Anne Boleyn had been a squib, even if she had lived later than the fourteenth century – and was already feeling much better about the way the day had gone.
"What about muggleborns?" asked Dudley. He was still partly watching the telly, but that was not stopping him from paying attention. "Well, before they went off to Hogwarts, anyway," he added at his cousin's surprised look.
Harry was a bit stumped that he had not thought to look that up, but when he started leafing through his book, Mrs Figg interrupted him.
"Even in the Middle Ages, children weren't normally given a death sentence," she told him. "Though, yes, not every muggleborn got to go to Hogwarts, got to learn how to control their magic. Magical children weren't traced from birth back then. But I doubt that there'd be much about that in a second year book. Muggleborns being treated badly by muggles is not an easy thing to teach about to children your age. Especially when that sort of history was used recently to justify a war." She looked significantly at Harry.
"You should still write about them," said Dudley, when Harry hesitated.
Looking at his cousin's stubborn face, it began to dawn on Harry that Dudley really had been thinking a great deal about their shared upbringing, and that he would not be willing to let go of the problems he saw there as easily as Harry had thought.
~HP~
Harry did get to mow the lawn on Friday. He would have preferred to go to the park with Dudley instead, to help his cousin practice his boxing – and also improve his evasion skills, which were coming along nicely, after a month's training with Dudley. However, he supposed even this backhanded way of keeping peace at home ought to be counted as a success.
Once he was in the back garden and the lawnmower was running, he became aware of the real reason for his aunt's concession: even over the voice of the lawnmower, he could hear the sound of conversation. There were visitors in the house. Of course. Anything was better – according to Aunt Petunia – than being in Harry's company around other people.
He saw Mrs Polkiss leave the Dursley home when he went back inside. She was saying goodbye at the door with a lot of affected feeling – Harry knew she and his aunt were not close friends. In the next instant, he noticed voices drifting down from upstairs, meaning that Dudley was not the only other person in the house. It was not a difficult guess that that person was Piers. He did not get to verify this guess right away, however. His aunt suddenly needed his help with all sorts of minor chores, preventing him from going upstairs to his room – supposedly so he would not bother Dudley and his 'friend'.
Harry did wonder how the engineered visit had gone, as he watched Piers leave the house a little while later, and would have loved to ask Dudley, but that was no easy feat. It was not easy to have a conversation out of Aunt Petunia's hearing range – she was very adept at eavesdropping, having had lots of practice with the entire neighbourhood. Soon, Uncle Vernon had also returned from work, and was sharing the happy news – for some – that he had taken a vacation for the next week, so he could spend the time with his family and his visiting sister.
Uncle Vernon was happy to hear about Piers' visit: Mr Polkiss was something akin to a friend of his, and it had been the fathers' decision to send both their sons to the same school, to encourage a friendship between them from childhood. Behind his parents' backs, Dudley managed to shrug and grimace at Harry, which his cousin took to mean that he himself was not entirely sure how to feel about reconciling with Piers. Harry did not know either, but while he tried his best not to let his dislike of Dudley's childhood friends colour his opinion, he still felt a niggling worry in the back of his head.
Such thoughts had to be shelved for the moment, however, because Uncle Vernon decided to use dinnertime to have a few words with Harry about his sister's visit. He pointed a fat finger threateningly at Harry. "We need to get a few things straight before Marge gets here tomorrow."
Snarling and growling, Uncle Vernon made it clear he expected Harry to behave civilly to Aunt Marge, not to mention anything about magic, and to generally 'behave himself'.
"I will if she does," said Harry through gritted teeth. He wondered bitterly if his uncle had invited his sister on Harry's birthday on purpose, as a kind of anti-celebration.
Aunt Petunia, meanwhile, was making inane comments about the show she was watching on the television, trying to draw Dudley's interest to it.
It was nothing Harry had not expected. Even being told he would have to pretend to be attending St Brutus' Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys did not come as a surprise. But his anger must have shown through, because before he had made himself agree to it, his uncle's expression shifted to something more shrewd.
"That ruddy form of yours we're supposed to be signing—" he began.
Harry felt his heart sinking. The Grangers had brought up the permission forms for visiting Hogsmeade during their last visit, and had essentially bullied Harry's aunt and uncle into agreeing to sign them. He had doubted it would be that easy, of course, but—
"It still hasn't arrived, has it?"
"It'll be arriving any day now."
"I'll be busy hosting Marge then. And who knows, I might forget to sign it altogether. No normal institution could expect me to wait around for some ruddy form – as if I have nothing better to do—"
"Yeah, Harry. You should be the one to remember – and remind Dad," supplied Dudley.
Harry had to suppress a smile, as he watched his uncle fight the urge to contradict his son, not liking that his argument had been disrupted. "Maybe if I remembered to, er, behave while Aunt Marge will be here, you might remember to sign it afterwards?" he suggested helpfully.
Uncle Vernon grew purple in the face, at having his ploy be made to look that obvious. "Don't you take that tone with me, boy."
Harry thought fast. If his uncle was willing to negotiate, he would oblige. "Well, it's a lot to remember. It'll be hard work to make it convincing. What if I accidentally let something slip?"
"You'll do no such thing! One toe out of line, and you can forget about your ruddy form!" bellowed Uncle Vernon, and Harry was pleased to hear a note of panic in his voice.
"That won't make Aunt Marge forget what I could tell her," said Harry.
Uncle Vernon opened his mouth, his face an ugly puce, but his outrage was such that his voice got stuck in his throat for a moment.
"But if you, er, remind Aunt Marge not to treat me like a criminal – which she might, because you told her I go to a school for criminals, after all," Harry went on quickly, "I swear I'll remember where I'm supposed to go to school, and I'll act like a mug— like I'm normal and everything." He felt Dudley kick him lightly under the table, making it suddenly quite difficult to keep a straight face.
This was enough to draw Aunt Petunia's attention. "You ungrateful whelp! Instead of taking into account the trouble we have to go through – having to keep your secrets—"
"Exactly, Petunia!" roared Uncle Vernon. "Isn't it bad enough that I have to lie to my sister, make up believable stories to hide your abnormality—"
Harry sat there, white-faced and furious, staring at Uncle Vernon. "Well, I doubt my ability to act like a believable criminal," he ground out. "You might need to take my acting ability into account when making up these tales about me—"
"Why St Brutus, though?" Dudley cut across. "Wouldn't a more ordinary story have been better?"
His parents needed a moment to recover from the shock of hearing such an outlandish thought. Harry himself was no less surprised, though it had more to do with Dudley speaking up, rather than the idea he suggested.
"It just wouldn't do, Popkin," Aunt Petunia said finally. "I know it's a lot to remember, and you shouldn't have to—"
"It's as I said, son," said Uncle Vernon. "We need to make it sound believable. No one could possibly believe that that boy goes to an ordinary school, and manages to act like a normal human being—"
"But Aunt Marge isn't just anyone," said Dudley, looking strangely sincere. "Shouldn't she be told something as close to the truth as possible?"
It was Harry's turn to kick his cousin – and not quite as gently. He was not sure if Dudley was actually sincerely arguing to be honest to Aunt Marge, or just defending Harry, but either seemed an unwise course of action.
"It's close enough, isn't it?" said Uncle Vernon, unable to fully dismiss his son's words. "That abnormal boy is as close to a criminal as you like. Worse, I say. What else could we possibly tell Marge – knowing, as she does, who his parents were?"
This was meant to be a rhetoric question. When Dudley nevertheless opened his mouth, Harry tried to kick him again, but Dudley had thought to pull his foot away.
"But wouldn't it have been easier to tell her Harry's parents were normal as well?" he said obstinately.
"Normal?" Uncle Vernon's voice rose precariously. "Make those abnormal people out to be normal to my sister? Really, Dudley, that would've been the biggest lie of all!"
Harry's kick landed this time, and Dudley finally stopped this line of enquiry before things really got out of hand.
~HP~
Harry was so rattled by his cousin's little scene at dinner that he had no trouble staying awake until his mirror call with Sirius. It was nearly midnight, and sitting at the foot of his bed, as far away and as hidden from the door as possible, his torch in one hand, he spoke his godfather's name into the mirror.
After the greetings, Harry, as usual, wanted to know where Sirius was.
"Inside a muggle building that is soon to be demolished," was the reply.
Through the mirror, Harry could see broken windows and lots of concrete and rubble. The glimpse he got of the space outside the building told him that Sirius was a fair bit above the ground.
"It doesn't look like London…" was Harry's best guess.
"You're right, it's not," agreed Sirius, but did not tell him any more about his location.
"Doesn't look very safe," muttered Harry. He could see iron rods sticking out from the walls. It would not surprise him if that building did not wait for the demolition crew and just collapsed.
"I'll cast some protective spells," smiled Sirius, looking unconcerned as usual.
Harry, giving up on the topic, began to recount to Sirius the events of his day. Dudley, of course, figured prominently.
"I thought he agreed not to defend you to his parents," said Sirius.
"He did…" Harry sighed. "Sort of. He agreed they'd get mad if he did. But I also told him they'd take away everything magical I've ever given him, and never let him receive another letter from me if they found out how much he's involved himself with magic, and I'm not sure he believed me."
Sirius' lip twitched. "We'd find a way around that if they did, wouldn't we?"
This drew a wan smile from his godson.
Sirius switched topics, asking about the history of magic essay, but Harry waved him off.
"Not tonight," he said. "I'll finish it after Aunt Marge has left. I'd rather chat with you while I can. I won't risk it while she's here. Ugh. No visits to Mrs Figg's, no going to the park with Dudley, no chats with you – it's going to be a long week—"
Harry jumped as he heard a shuffling noise outside of his door. With a hasty "Finite" he ended the mirror call, and tried to extinguish his torch with fumbling fingers. Before he had succeeded, Dudley's head poked into his room.
"I saw the light on," he near-whispered, and shuffled in. "Were you talking to Sirius?"
"Yeah. Here, let me call him again."
The boys had agreed that meeting up at night might cause too much noise and was not worth the risk of getting caught. So Dudley had only talked to Sirius a couple of times over the summer. He waved enthusiastically as Harry renewed the mirror call.
"Oh, by the way, Harry, it's well past midnight now. So, happy birthday!" said Sirius. "You might receive a little visitor tonight. You might want to watch out for him – he can get a little overexcited—"
"A visitor? What?"
Sirius smiled. "A little owl. I'm not sure how reliable he is, but he seemed eager enough for the job—"
"But – but we said we wouldn't use owl post!"
"How else was I going to send you your present?" said Sirius reasonably. "And anyway, it's unlikely he'll get intercepted. He's not an owl either one of us has ever used before—"
"Oh, yeah. That's what I came here for as well," said Dudley, before an argument could develop. "Happy birthday! – I wanted to give you this before Aunt Marge gets here tomorrow." With that, he held out a rectangular package, inexpertly wrapped in paper and held together with adhesive tape.
Harry thanked him, before ripping apart the packaging to reveal the cover of what had obviously been a book. It was a self-defence manual, focusing on weapons defence.
"Most of it won't be that useful for you, I guess," said Dudley. "But I think you can adapt some of it. There's some stuff about balance, dodging, protecting vital organs—"
"This is awesome!" said Harry, still leafing through it, much to his cousin's satisfaction.
Reluctantly, unwilling to spoil the good mood, but still seeing the necessity for it, Harry brought up Piers' visit that day.
Dudley grimaced, agreed that the visit had been sprung on him, but also said that he was not unhappy about the development. "Piers has changed as well in the last year. He's stopped trying to bully the other boys in our year. He's joined the football club – made some friends, even."
"It could be that he's changed for the better," agreed Sirius. "The somewhat rowdy behaviour that you shared when you were friends was in many ways what connected you two back then. Then your friendship ended because of it. So, it's entirely possible that he abandoned that sort of behaviour, just as you did…"
Dudley was reassured by this, looking visibly happier. Again, Harry felt a jolt of unease, knowing his words might change that, but he steered the conversation to Dudley's discussion with his father at dinner. He wanted his cousin to hear Sirius' warning on the subject, hoping it would have more of an effect.
Dudley's face darkened, becoming obstinate. He argued back, insisting that if his parents understood magic, they would be less bothered by it, and that if Aunt Marge had not been told such awful things about Harry, she would not be treating him so badly. He was apparently unaware of the contradiction in what he was saying.
Much to Harry's surprise and worry, Sirius did not rush to make Dudley abandon this dangerous direction he was headed in. Instead, he looked thoughtful and a little sad.
"I'm not the right person to tell you not to speak your mind to your parents, Dudley," he finally said. "There are times when we feel we have to speak, when we think others are wrong and need to be told so. I just want to make sure you're not unprepared for the consequences of your actions.
"Now, my parents were far worse parents than yours – they were strict and overbearing, long before I went against their teachings, and if they held any affection for me, I never knew. So in that regard, you may be right. Your parents do love you, they do want what's best for you, and that might be enough to protect you from their anger.
"However, when it comes to their ideas about magic, your parents' and mine are the flip sides of a coin – the exact opposite, but so very similar. In my case, the more I tried to make them see how wrong they were, the more they pushed back – until I ended up running away at sixteen."
While Dudley was still asking questions, Harry heard fluttering outside of his window. Turning his head, he saw something very small and grey fly inside the open window, tumbling over itself in its haste to get to him. He caught the ball of fluff before it smashed into something, being oddly reminded of a snitch with feathers.
Sirius stopped what he had been saying and laughed quietly when Harry came back into view of the mirror. "I see he's found you."
Harry detached the tiny package the owl had been carrying, letting him loose once again. The owl immediately began zooming around his room, apparently very pleased with himself for accomplishing his task. Frowning, Harry snatched him out of the air once again, and put him on Hedwig's temporarily empty cage – for his safety, as well as to make sure he would not wake the elder Dursleys.
Harry opened the package, and out fell a miniature glass bottle with what looked like ink inside.
"I had to shrink it, or the owl wouldn't have been able to carry it," said Sirius. "So you'll have to wait until you get to Hogwarts to use it. It's charmed ink, black in colour, but any text written with it will change to red if it has been read by any unwanted third parties."
"That's great!" said Harry. "Maybe it'll let me write real letters to Dudley again."
"That's the hope," said Sirius. "It's not unfailingly reliable – nothing is. But it's pretty good, if I say so myself. If the ink of your letters stays black for some time, then you might be able to share some useful information again in your letters."
Before Harry was done thanking him, Dudley pointed to the window, and then the boys watched the bizarre display of Hedwig and a Hogwarts owl dragging Errol through Harry's window, carrying more presents from his friends and Hagrid, as well as the first birthday cards he had ever received.
It was past one o'clock in the morning by the time Harry said goodnight to Dudley and Sirius, and packed up their presents, together with the pocket sneakoscope from Ron, the broomstick servicing kit from Hermione, The Monster Book of Monsters from Hagrid, their accompanying letters, his new Hogwarts letter and the birthday cards from Hermione and Ron, and hid them all away with all his other items from the magical world under the loose floorboard in his room. For the following week, the only magical item he would be keeping around would be his wand.
Despite the impending visit from Aunt Marge in the morning, Harry let himself be happy for the night that it was his birthday.
~HP~
Harry waited until after breakfast before he sent the owls in his room away. The Hogwarts owl had not stayed the night, but the other three were sleeping too comfortably to wake any earlier. Hedwig looked rather unimpressed at the hyperactive little owl Sirius had found, and soon her eyes turned reproachful as Harry asked her to go along with Errol for the week.
Harry did not have long to brood after that. Aunt Petunia was shrieking up the stairs for him to go downstairs to greet their guest. He was made to open the door for Aunt Marge, as she followed Dudley inside, carrying an enormous suitcase and an old, ill-tempered bulldog.
Dudley, who had opted to go along with his father to the train station, was sporting a bow-tie, courtesy of his mother, and looked like he had just overcome a big hurdle – Aunt Marge's hugs could certainly classified as such, well-paid though they usually were.
It was with great foreboding that Harry dragged Aunt Marge's heavy suitcase up the stairs, after she had thrust it into his stomach, trying to take as much time as he could.
The days that followed were as difficult as Harry had known they would be. Aunt Marge loved to criticise him, and also wanted to constantly keep an eye on him, to boom out suggestions for his improvement – as opposed to Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, who preferred to have him stay out of their way. She also enjoyed comparing Harry with Dudley and pointing out his perceived shortcomings.
Uncle Vernon had taken his deal with Harry somewhat seriously, it seemed, because whenever he could, he tried to redirect his sister's attention away from Harry when her comments began to sound awful enough that even he noticed.
Dudley did his best to help as well. Instead of disappearing to his room and playing computer games, as Harry knew he was itching to do, he made an effort to stay downstairs – often with the pretext of doing his summer homework, so he would not actually have to spend too much time talking to his aunt. He mostly made sure to draw his aunt's attention away from Harry when it became necessary.
It was mostly working.
There was a little hiccup during lunch a couple days after Aunt Marge's arrival. She was indulging in one of her favourite ways of baiting Harry – throwing out dark hints about what made him such a supposedly unsatisfactory person.
"You mustn't blame yourself for the way the boy's turned out, Vernon," she said. "If there's something rotten on the inside, there's nothing anyone can do about it."
Harry let this pass over him, willing himself not to rise to the bait.
She reached for her wineglass. "It's one of the basic rules of breeding," she went on. "You see it all the time with dogs. If there's something wrong with the bitch, there'll be something wrong with the pup—"
This time, Harry did lose control and made the glass explode in her hand. Aunt Marge blamed her brutish grip, but Harry was rattled by his use of accidental magic. He escaped from the dinner table soon after, foregoing dessert. His aunt and uncle's suspicious eyes followed him out, as well as Dudley's sympathetic ones.
This incident was the exception, however. He got through the next few days with Dudley's help, who valiantly kept up with his studying in the living room. Harry suspected he had done more school work in that week than he ever did even during school times. Dudley even ignored his aunt's comments about overworking himself, spending too much time indoors, or being underfed (his double chin – an improvement over the triple chin he used to have the year before – apparently qualified him for that).
At last, the final evening of Aunt Marge's stay arrived. They managed to get through the fancy dinner Aunt Petunia had prepared – and several bottles of wine – without any negative comments about Harry. Uncle Vernon was keeping the conversation going, which meant that everyone else got to listen to his boring talk about Grunnings. Then Aunt Petunia made coffee and Uncle Vernon brought out the brandy.
Aunt Marge was already very flushed from all the wine she had drunk, but still went for a generous portion of brandy.
Harry knew it would be wise for him to leave at that point, but his uncle seemed to have forgotten his deal, and caught Harry's eye, making it clear that he expected his nephew to stick around.
Aunt Marge began urging Dudley to have a third slice of pie, so he would grow up into a "proper-sized man," like his father. Then her eyes settled on Harry.
"Now this one here – this one's got a mean, runty look about him. You get that with dogs. I had Colonel Fubster drown one last year. Ratty little thing it was. Weak. Underbred."
She said this while petting Ripper, her old bulldog, sat in a chair next to her, and slobbering from a bowl placed on the table – much to Aunt Petunia's displeasure.
Harry's thoughts immediately went to Padfoot, and how Ripper would look like a runt next to him. "Depends on the dog breed, doesn't it? What might be considered a runt," he answered back.
Only once the words had left his mouth, and he saw his uncle's face darken, did he realise the other interpretation of his words: Dudley was only 'proper-sized' compared to his overweight father. Shooting an apologetic look at his cousin, he was met with a barely suppressed smirk on Dudley's face, his eyes drawn to Ripper as well. Clearly, the blond boy had understood the comment the way Harry had meant it.
Aunt Marge's face had impossibly reddened even more. This was the moment Uncle Vernon should have insisted Harry go back to his room, should have remembered his agreement to keep his sister in check—
"You insolent boy!" he snarled at Harry instead. "Here, have more brandy, Marge."
Aunt Marge's tiny bloodshot eyes fixed on Harry's. "You want to defend your breeding, boy? That bad blood of yours – that's what it all comes down to, as I was saying the other day. Now, I'm saying nothing against your family, Petunia—" She patted Aunt Petunia's bony hand with her shovel-like one. "But your sister was a bad egg. They turn up in the best families. Then she ran off with a wastrel and here's the result right in front of us."
This was too much for Harry. It was too soon after finding out that his mother had died to save him, knowing well in advance that Voldemort would come after him. Her death – her blood – still protected him. Had he not told so to Riddle's memory a mere few weeks ago?
"Yes, Aunt Petunia, what did you think of my mum's blood?" he ground out, and had the satisfaction of watching her flinch. He held her gaze, until she could no longer bear it and looked away. His aunt, he thought. His mother's sister, who had told him his mother had died in a car crash, knowing full well that she had been killed—
This time, Uncle Vernon had noticed that things were getting out of hand. "You, boy," he snarled at Harry. "Go to bed, go on—"
"No, Vernon," hiccuped Aunt Marge, holding up a hand. "Let the boy go on. Proud of his parents, is he? What was there to be proud of, I wonder? You never told me what that Potter did."
"He – didn't work," said Uncle Vernon, with half a glance at Harry. "Unemployed."
"As I expected!" said Aunt Marge, taking a huge swig of brandy and wiping her chin on her sleeve. "A no-account, good-for-nothing, lazy scrounger who—"
"He was not," said Dudley suddenly. The table went very quiet, as all eyes turned to him.
Harry felt instantly alarmed. Him defending his parents was one thing. His uncle might get mad at him, might not sign his permission form, might try to lock him up again. But Dudley speaking up—
"He was working – in secret – for the government," Dudley spoke again before Harry could think of something to say. "Both of Harry's parents were—"
"Dudders, what a tale you're spinning," Aunt Marge tried to laugh it off.
"It's the truth," he went on. This was well-known territory for him – he had had lots of practice explaining Harry's situation to Artie, after all. He needed no time to think of what to say. "Two years ago, we met some of the people they worked with. They still think of them as heroes for their sacrifice—"
"Dudley!" Uncle Vernon finally roared, his voice so panic-stricken that it had the exact opposite effect from the one intended.
Aunt Marge suddenly looked a lot more sober than she had a moment ago, taking in the ashen faces of her brother and his wife, and the quietly determined, stubborn expression on Dudley's face.
An awful, tense silence fell after that, until Uncle Vernon finally found his voice again, and directed Harry to go to his room. Dudley got up as well, and followed after him. No one stopped him. The boys did not dare to speak to each other, only exchanged worried, apologetic looks, before disappearing into their respective rooms.
In the solitude of his room, Harry spent many hours awake, worried about what would happen. He blamed himself – for not discouraging Dudley, on the one hand. On the other hand, he wondered if his cousin would have felt compelled to speak, had Harry not told him about the prophecy.
He had not said much, had downplayed it as much as he could, insisting that things like prophecies were commonplace in the magical world, that most people did not much care about them. But he had felt the need to say enough to explain his parents' sacrifice – who had known that Voldemort wanted him dead, but had still wanted him, had chosen to keep him, to protect him – ultimately with their lives.
And Dudley, knowing this, had understood that Harry could not let Aunt Marge's words go unchallenged.
~HP~
The next morning, the adults acted as if the conversation at dinner had not happened. The boys followed their lead, surprised, but feeling relieved at the reprieve. Uncle Vernon took Aunt Marge to the train station after breakfast, and Aunt Petunia decided she had some errands to run and wanted to go along. She told Dudley she would be back soon, without much explanation, and the boys were left alone at home.
Harry had a bad feeling about the situation, and told Dudley so, as soon as the adults were gone.
"They didn't seem so mad this morning," said Dudley, sounding quite nervous. His bravery of the night before was nowhere in sight. "Maybe it won't be such a big deal. Aunt Marge has left—"
"Dudley," sighed Harry. He considered how to tell his cousin to be realistic. "I'm sorry you got involved in this," was all he could say.
"I had to say something. Your parents don't deserve to be thought of as useless drunks."
"Thank you. I just wish you had let me defend them, instead of speaking yourself—"
This time, it was Dudley's turn to know better. "Aunt Marge would never have believed you," he snorted. "But I do think he believed me – somewhat. Mum and Dad will have to modify some of their stories about you now." He looked incredibly nervous at the thought – at the fallout that might follow, but also very proud of himself.
Swallowing a lump, Harry did his best to tell Dudley how grateful he was.
After his talk with his cousin, Harry did not waste any time. He packed his trunk, to make sure all his items were in one place, glad to have many of his school supplies safely at Mrs Figg's house. He just knew that his aunt and uncle would find a way to blame the whole episode on him – in fact, he hoped so, for Dudley's sake. He was trying to prepare for whatever punishment they might devise – glad that they were not aware that neither of his friends were currently in the country. But that still left Mrs Figg—
Harry was still fussing around in his room when he heard the door slam, followed by Aunt Petunia calling for Dudley to come down the stairs.
"Boy! Get down here," Uncle Vernon bellowed a moment later.
Harry made sure to follow a little distance behind Dudley, so as not to create the impression that they were somehow conspiring together. He need not have bothered.
There was no trace of the supposed calm of that morning left. Aunt Petunia looked like she had been told some dreadful news, and Uncle Vernon was positively vibrating from anger.
"We should've known – letting one in the house…" he was muttering.
Aunt Petunia went to hug her son, tears in her eyes, much to Dudley's bewilderment. "I know, Popkin. None of this is your fault," she said.
"Was to be expected, wasn't it," said Uncle Vernon, his fists flexing.
"Oh, I'd noticed that you weren't well, Dudders. For some time now, you've been losing weight, losing friends – Oh!" She gave a little sob. "But I kept hoping it was just growing pains."
"Mum, what—" Dudley, looking bewildered, tried to extricate himself.
Harry pressed himself against the wall, trying to blend in with it. He had a horrible feeling he knew where this was going.
"Oh, Dudley!" sobbed Aunt Petunia again. "I went to see the Polkisses this morning. I asked Piers if he knew what had happened to you, and oh – oh—"
"He told us," growled Uncle Vernon. "Told us how you first drifted apart last summer because you suddenly became that boy's personal bodyguard! Told us how you've been inseparable since then!" His eyes slowly drifted over to Harry. "You! What have you done to Dudley!"