We've reached my OCs. There will be two of them. Callie is Dudley's daughter.
Callie Dursley's full name was Calliope Clare Dursley, and that, she would one day inform her parents in no uncertain terms, was precisely where they had gone wrong. If she'd been Mary or Sally or Elizabeth, she'd never have batted an eye or had any curiosity about her name in the slightest. But Calliope, regardless of what her parents actually called her, was a different kettle of fish entirely. Calliope was a name that invited questions.
"Where did my name come from?" she asked when she was nine years old and old enough to recognize the blink of surprise from each new teacher who saw her full name on a roster.
"You were named after my great-grandmother," her mother said. "I always thought the name Calliope was beautiful." And after supper, her mother showed her the family Bible with the wedding date listed for William Aston and Calliope Clare and the names and birthdates of their five children.
It was a good answer. And it was an answer that would have satisfied her curiosity entirely, had she missed the momentary glance that had passed between her parents before the answer was given. But she was old enough to know that such a glance meant that there was more to the story. There was, in fact, a secret. A secret that she was not being told, and that would simply not serve.
Though, in all honesty, she may have lost interest in the possible secret of Calliope Clare if it wasn't for the other person in her life who she was convinced was hiding something.
Her Uncle Harry.
Uncle Harry wasn't technically her uncle. He was her dad's cousin, but since First Cousin Once Removed Harry was a bit of a mouthful, she'd always called him uncle. He visited with his wife and kids about once a year, but he stopped by on his own every couple of months.
And she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something was just a little . . . off about the Potter family, and always had been. At first, she thought her cousins were stand-off-ish because they were so much older than she was. There were eleven years between her and James, and seven between her and Lily. But as she grew up and became more observant, she started to notice other things. Like the way they would stop talking abruptly if she came up to where they were. Or how she'd once heard Al say Merlin the way other people she knew said Jesus. Or the fact that none of them, none of them had cell phones or tablets or computers. Lily had once given her a completely blank stare when she'd mentioned Instagram.
By the time she was nine, her cousins and Aunt Ginny had mostly stopped visiting, but Uncle Harry was there as often as ever, and just as much of a puzzle. So she liked to try and figure him out, much to her father's dismay.
"Callie, Uncle Harry doesn't come here to be interrogated," he said one night when Callie was asking a bunch of questions about his job. Her dad looked nervous, interestingly enough. But Uncle Harry just chuckled.
"It's fine, Dud," he said. "I interrogate people for a living; it's nice to have the tables turned. I think I can stand up to a nine-year-old." Then he leaned across the table with a secret smile on his face. "So what else do you want to know, Callie?"
It became a game. She would prepare questions for him in the months he was gone, trying to trick him into revealing something, but she had to hand it to her uncle. He was good. But she knew she just had to find the right questions to ask.
Sometimes she would lie in bed at night thinking about her parents and their secret, and Uncle Harry and his secret, and Great-Great-Grandmother Calliope and her secret, and she would also think about how sure she was that all three secrets were the same even though she had no reason to think that. But she was sure. It was just that in the darkness of her room sometimes, she started to feel less sure. And whenever she started to feel less sure, she would close her eyes and do The Thing.
The Thing didn't always work, but usually it did. To do The Thing, she would lie down perfectly flat, with her feet together and her hands at her side and her eyes closed, and she would think really hard about her parents. And when she did that, sometimes but not always, she could hear them. Down in the kitchen or tucked away in their room, she could hear what they were saying. She wasn't sure why it worked sometimes and not other times, but she did know that whenever it did work, they were always talking about the secret.
But the frustrating thing was, even when she was supposedly out of earshot, her parents were careful. They never said what the secret was. They just talked around it. They said things like, We can't tell her because it's illegal. You aren't even supposed to know about it, Susanne. I love my cousin, and I trust him with my life, but I lived with these people for a year. I know what they're capable of, and If I'd known the trouble it was going to cause, I'd have said we should name her Winifred after Mum, and She's going to figure it out one of these days. She gets closer every time Harry visits. What are we going to do then?
She knew eavesdropping was wrong and she'd get in a lot of trouble if her parents found out, but it was necessary. Every overheard phrase reassured her that there was a secret, and that it and Uncle Harry and Grandmother Calliope were all connected somehow. She just had to figure out how.
And then, the year she was ten, a miracle. Callie sat in her classroom the first day after winter holidays and heard her teacher say things like living history and first-hand sources and interview a family member and she could barely keep the grin off her face. She could have kissed Mrs. Kettering. Mum refused to answer any questions about Calliope Clare, but Granny Winifred, in an interview that was a school assignment? It was a dream come true.
She went after school one day, on a day she knew both her parents were working late so that she could talk without their pesky interference.
She'd had trouble finding the right question to ask with Uncle Harry, but with Granny Winifred, it only took one. "Granny, what was the most unusual thing about your family?"
"Well," Granny Winifred said, her eyes lighting up. "Your mother doesn't like this story, and she asked me not to tell you, but my great-grandmother, Asteria Clare, was a witch."
Callie felt a thrill of excitement all the way down to her toes. "How do you know?" she asked.
"My grandmother, your namesake, told me so! She was born without the gift, so they made her come and live with us ordinary folk when she was seventeen, and that's why she doesn't have a birth certificate. The witches have it, but the ordinary folk don't."
A slow grin grew across Callie's face. "Fantastic," she said, scooting closer. "Tell me more. Tell me everything. And most importantly, tell me why my mother doesn't want me to know."
She was well armed for Uncle Harry's next visit.
That visit was heralded, as it so often was, by the presence of an owl in the tree outside her window.
She'd first noticed the owl when she was about five, and had exclaimed about it with great excitement to her father, who had smiled and knelt down beside her and told her it was a barn owl and that she might see it a lot. "Barn owls will keep coming back to the same places to roost."
True to her father's word, the owl showed up fairly often. Around the age of eight, she noticed that almost every time the owl showed up, the words "I've had a letter from Harry," weren't far behind. And while Uncle Harry didn't show up every time the owl did, he rarely showed up when the owl hadn't.
"You have a frightening smile on your face, Callie," Uncle Harry said with his usual easy grin when she slid into a seat across the kitchen table from him while her parents washed up. "I'm almost afraid to hear your questions."
"I actually need your help with one of my school assignments," she told him, and she could have sworn his eyes started twinkling with amusement.
"One of your school assignments," he repeated. "I hope it's not maths."
"No," she said simply. "It's about my great-great-grandmother Calliope. Did you know her mother was a witch?"
There was a clatter of silverware at the sink, but Callie kept her eyes on Uncle Harry, and he kept his eyes on her even as he asked, "You all right there, Dud?"
"Just dropping things," her father said in a voice that was almost normal. Callie did her best to raise one eyebrow at her uncle in a silent challenge. He raised one eyebrow back at her and leaned in.
"So who told you that your great-great-great grandmother was a witch?"
"My gran. Apparently, it's an old family story, but it's one my mum didn't want me to know for some reason."
"Fascinating," her uncle said, his piercing green eyes still shining with amusement. "But I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be helping you with."
"Well, I thought it would really impress my teacher if I could get birth certificates and things as part of my family history project. But if my great-great-great grandmother was a witch, then great-great-grandmother Calliope's birth records are going to be with the witches, and not with the General Register's Office where I can get the others."
"I think I follow your logic," Uncle Harry said, "but I'm still not sure how I can help."
"Oh, just tell me who I'd talk to if I wanted to get your birth records, that's all."
There was a beat of silence, and then Uncle Harry burst out laughing. "Oh, Callie Dursley," he said a moment later, sounding delighted. "You are something else. But I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. I'd get my records from the General Register's Office like everyone else."
"I knew you'd say that," Callie told him. "It's fine, I mostly just wanted your reaction. I have another plan." And she skipped away to her room, so she could lay on the floor and do The Thing because she was certain that her parents and Uncle Harry would be talking about the secret after that display.
. . . don't know how you keep so calm, Harry.
Training, Su. Lots of training. Blending in is a pretty huge part of the job.
She's just so smart. And I love that about her, but I always feel like I'm struggling to keep up. And hiding this . . .
Don't worry about it so much. She's a good kid, Dud. I'll keep keeping an eye on her, don't worry.
So Uncle Harry was keeping an eye on her, and he was good about blending it, was he? Well, she hadn't been lying. She had a plan.
In her very best handwriting, she wrote a letter. To whom it may concern, it started, a fancy official phrase she'd learned from her mother. To whom it may concern, Please send any and all magical records for Calliope Clare to Callie Dursley, and then she wrote her address. And she folded that letter up and waited for the owl to reappear because she was almost eleven years old, and she was going to get to the bottom of this no matter what.
But the owl didn't reappear. And neither did Uncle Harry. At first, it didn't worry her too much, but after winter turned to spring and then started to feel quite like summer, and they still hadn't heard anything, Callie was getting worried. The letter sat on the edge of her desk, gathering dust, the unanswered question it contained suddenly less important with Uncle Harry maybe missing.
Finally, when her dad came to tuck her in one night, she broke down and asked. "Dad? Have you heard from Uncle Harry lately?" What she didn't say was He's supposed to be keeping an eye on me, so where is he?
Her dad sat on the edge of her bed and gently smoothed her hair in a comforting gesture. "I haven't," he said softly. "Are you worried about him?"
Callie nodded. "He's never been gone this long before."
Her dad sighed and looked troubled. "He has," he said, "but you were young enough you probably don't remember. I imagine he's on assignment."
"Are you worried about him?" she asked, echoing his question. Her dad glanced toward the tree outside her window.
"I'm always a little worried about him," he admitted. "His job is quite dangerous, though he likes to pretend it isn't, compared to . . ." He trailed off, then shook his head. "I'll tell you as soon as I hear something, Callie. I promise."
"If Uncle Harry would join the 21st century and get a cell phone, we might not have this problem." Her dad chuckled a bit, which made Callie feel a little more normal. He patted her leg.
"I'll let him know that even when worried, you didn't miss the chance to heckle him about his eccentricities." That made Callie smile.
"I love you, Dad."
"I love you, too, sweetheart."
Two weeks later, her dad woke her up with the news that he'd heard from Uncle Harry. "He's been undercover, but he's safe and sound and home. He says he has a mountain of paperwork, so he can't come visit right away, but he promised he'd be here for your birthday at the end of the month."
As soon as her dad was gone, Callie was up out of bed and at the window, and sure enough, right there in the tree as usual, was the owl.
It looked at her the way it had always looked at her - like it was waiting for something, and no, she wasn't just imagining things. It had been unsettling her for almost two years, the way it would perch outside her window and watch her. Once, she had sat and watched it back, and after a minute or so, it had started opening its wings halfway and stepping back and forth on the branch, like it couldn't decide whether or not to fly somewhere. It had looked so much like it was waiting for her to decide that she'd gone ahead and beckoned it over just to see what would happen, and it had flown to her windowsill. Not only that, it wouldn't move after, not even when she frantically shooed it away. It had refused to go anywhere, and had pecked at her glass almost impatiently until she finally said "I don't have anything to give you!" and then it puffed itself up and tilted its head and she had practically heard it saying Then what did you call me over for?
Ever since then, when she looked at it for too long, it would do the half-perch thing until she shook her head, and then and only then would it settle down.
She wasn't making things up. She was sure of it, and this was her chance to prove it, to test two theories at once about maybe figure out the secret once and for all, now that she wasn't worrying about her Uncle Harry anymore. So, heart pounding in anticipation, she opened her window and beckoned the owl, and it came. She almost squealed in excitement, but she managed to keep it together.
"So here's the thing," she whispered to the owl in a low voice, instinctively glancing left and right even though there was no chance of anyone seeing her. "I don't know if you're some kind of magical messenger bird. But if you aren't, I lose nothing by checking. And if you are, well, then I should take advantage, right? So." She held up the envelope that she had retrieved on her way to the window. "I need you to take this to whoever is in charge of magical records. Understand? Someone who can help me find Calliope Clare."
The owl blinked once, which could have been a yes or a no or nothing at all. Callie huffed. "Are you taking my letter or what?" She'd known going into this that there was a good chance this owl wasn't anything other than a regular owl, but man, would that be disappointing. So she held her breath and waited.
The owl looked at her a little longer, then shook itself all over and raised one leg. "Um," Callie said, chewing her lip. "Okay." Thinking fast, she grabbed a pencil and rubber band from her desk. She poked a hole in the corner of the envelope with the pencil and carefully attached the envelope to the owl's leg with a couple of slipknots in the rubber band that she hoped would hold. "How's that?" she asked uncertainly. "That's . . . what you want, right?" The owl's only response was to launch itself from the window frame and take off.
Three days later, Uncle Harry showed up.
It was midweek, which was unusual. Uncle Harry usually visited on the weekend. And he must have come straight from work, because he was dressed up much fancier than usual, in a dress shirt and tie instead of his usual jeans and t-shirt.
"Hi," she said, opening the door. "What are you doing here?"
"Not excited to see me?" Uncle Harry said, with something like his usual smile, but he looked tired.
"Who's at the door, Callie?" her dad called from the kitchen.
"It's Uncle Harry," she called back. Her dad appeared almost at once. Uncle Harry was greeted and embraced and welcomed inside like it was any other visit, but Callie knew something was off.
Finally her dad asked the important question. "To what do we owe the visit, Harry? We weren't expecting you until Callie's birthday next weekend."
"I'm afraid this isn't a social visit," Uncle Harry said with a glance toward Callie. "I'm here in an official capacity. Can we sit somewhere and talk? All four of us?"
Callie's stomach twisted. She could feel the energy in the entryway change. Her parents didn't reply for a moment, and seemed to be having some sort of silent conversation with Uncle Harry that Callie couldn't follow, which was really unfair. Finally, her dad said, "Of course," and the three adults headed for the kitchen, but Callie stood her ground.
When Uncle Harry realized she wasn't following, he stopped. "Callie?" he said softly. "Will you join us?"
But Callie held back. "Am I in trouble?" she asked. Uncle Harry gave her a very strange look, part surprise and part concern.
"Why would you think that?" he asked.
Callie shrugged. "Because you're a policeman. And you've never come in an official capacity before. And it feels like someone's in trouble."
Uncle Harry crossed to her and stooped down to look her in the eye. "No one's in trouble," he said softly. "I promise. But something has happened at my job, and it affects you, and your parents. That's all. Will you come sit?"
She was positive that wasn't the whole truth. Something had happened to Uncle Harry's twinkle. It was gone, and he looked more serious than she could ever remember him looking. But he was still smiling and his smile was kind, and she trusted him. So she followed.
They sat at the kitchen table, Callie across from Uncle Harry, her dad across from her mum. "What's this about, Harry?" her dad asked, and Uncle Harry considered for a moment before answering. When he did, he directed most of the answer, strangely, to Callie.
"My boss came to me this morning," he said, "with an unusual assignment. The building I work in, it's designed for security. So, among other things, it's difficult to deliver anything. There are very specific procedures that have to be followed, and very few people not connected with my job know them. So when a letter or package or what have you arrives by . . . unorthodox means, it raises red flags. It's investigated and dealt with on a case-by-case basis. There are two types of these incidents. The first is delivery by unexpected means. The second is delivery by an unauthorized person."
"And . . . that's the job your boss gave you?" Callie asked, trying to follow the thread of his story and figure out why he was telling it in the first place.
Uncle Harry nodded. "Yes. A letter was delivered to the building through the appropriate channels, but it came from someone who shouldn't have known how to send such a message. After bouncing around the system for a couple of days, it came to me to handle. My task is to get to the bottom of how this person found out our messaging system, and decide on next steps from there."
"Okay," Callie said slowly. "But, how does that affect us?"
Uncle Harry fixed her with a level gaze, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, his twinkle was back. A smile just barely visible at the corner of his mouth, he reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled a battered looking envelope out. "Let's see if you can figure that out for yourself." And without breaking eye contact, he set it on the tabletop and slid it carefully over to her.
It was, of course, her envelope. She could feel the smug smile growing on her face the second she recognized the writing, and she didn't bother trying to hide it. Instead, she looked back up at Uncle Harry, watching her with that twinkle in his eye, and crowed, "I knew it. I knew it! I knew you were a - a sorcerer! Or a magician, or . . ."
"Wizard," he said calmly, "is the term we use."
"Harry," her dad said, his voice carrying no small amount of question and alarm. Uncle Harry shifted his attention to his cousin.
"Dudley, she used an owl to send a letter to the Department of Magical Records, so I think the cat is out of the bag."
Callie rounded on her parents. "You knew?" she demanded. "I mean, I knew you knew, but you knew? And you didn't tell me?"
"Darling," her mother said. "It's meant to be a secret. Dad's only allowed to know because Uncle Harry is his cousin and they grew up together. You and I aren't supposed to know about wizards and magic at all."
"Why?" Callie asked her uncle. "Why keep it all a big secret?"
"Because historically, non-wizards knowing about magic hasn't ended well for us," he said, a bit wry. "Callie, I need to know how you knew to use the owl to send a message."
"I didn't," she said honestly. "Not really. I guessed that you might be using the owl like, like a carrier pigeon or something, because he always showed up right before Dad would say 'I've had a letter from Harry.' And, I dunno, he always seemed to be waiting for me to do something, so one day, I just called him over and he came. He held out his leg and I told him where to go. I didn't know if it would work or not."
Uncle Harry shook his head, chuckling. "Just a lucky guess, then."
"It wasn't luck!" Callie exclaimed, indignant. "It was months of observation."
"What I mean is," Uncle Harry said, still laughing slightly, "is that your dad didn't tell you. You figured it out on your own. It's not a true breach of our Statute of Secrecy, which simplifies things. So now, we need to talk about what happens next. Typically, in cases like these-"
"Harry, you can't," her dad interrupted, the first thing he'd said since Uncle Harry's reveal. "You can't. It's not fair, and she'll just figure it out again, you know she will."
The amusement left Uncle Harry's face. "I'm not going to, Dud, I swear. I wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?" Callie asked, jumping in. The look on her dad's face was unusual - fierce and stony and protective, and it wasn't disappearing with Uncle Harry's assurances. Uncle Harry glanced at Callie.
"Typically, if a Muggle finds out about us - that's our word for non-magical folk. Muggle - if a Muggle finds out about us, a team is sent to remove the memory. We wipe their minds clean of the encounter, but I don't like to do it. It's too easy to mess up, to take away more than intended or do permanent damage, and regardless, I don't like using our power that way, to muck about in someone's head. I use that spell only as a last resort. I would never use it on you, any of you."
Finally, her dad relaxed in his seat, though his look remained guarded. "Can you say the same of everyone in that Ministry of yours?" her mother asked.
"There is no cause to take action against any of you," Uncle Harry assured them. "I ensured that ages ago. Dudley, you know by legitimate means. Susanne . . . Calliope Clare was not supposed to go around telling people about the magical world. Had the Ministry known that was going on, something might have been done. But by virtue of being married to Dudley, your knowing is also fine. Admittedly, that is stretching the Family and Marriage clause of the Statute thinner than some people would like, but I'm Harry Potter, so when I say it's fine, no one argues too hard."
"And Callie?" her dad demanded. "She's protected the same way, right?"
"If it was necessary, I would ensure it," Uncle Harry said fervently, and then a funny look crossed his face. "But as it turns out," he said slowly, "Callie doesn't need the protection of the Family and Marriage clause. Or the protection of Harry Potter."
"What do you mean?" her dad asked. "Why not?"
"Because," Uncle Harry said simply, looking at her dad with sympathy and something like an apology in his eyes. "Callie . . . is not a Muggle."
He let the words sit there for a moment, then he withdrew another envelope from his jacket, this one pristine and yellowed, like it wasn't made of regular paper, with an actual, honest-to-God wax seal on the back. He held the envelope out to Callie, who reached forward and took it as if she was underwater, the whole world moving in slow motion. She read her name, Miss Calliope Dursley, on the front in emerald green ink, her address beneath it, and she'd just turned it over to see the embossed "H" on the seal on the back when her father found his voice.
"What?" he demanded of Uncle Harry as Callie, still in something of a fog, slowly opened the envelope and pulled out the letter inside. "Harry. Harry, how can she be?"
"I know," Uncle Harry said, almost like an apology.
"Harry, I've watched, we've watched, watched for every sign you told us about, since she was two weeks old!"
"I know," Uncle Harry said again.
"And she's never, not once, done any of the mad stuff you did when we were kids! She's never flown to the top of the school or exploded anyone or turned a teacher's hair blue -"
"I know," Uncle Harry said a third time. "I know, Dud. I've been watching, too, and you're right. She's never done any of that."
"Then how do you know? How do you really know for sure?"
"Because magic looks different on everyone. And because the Quill of Magical Record is never wrong, and her name was right there on the list. She's a witch, Dud. And she has a place at Hogwarts, if she wants it."
"And she's sitting right here," Callie interrupted. The letter was read, or skimmed at least, and her brain had caught up to everything, and she was a little put out that they'd been talking so long about her like she wasn't in the room. Both her parents and Uncle Harry turned to her. "What do you mean, I'm a witch?" she asked.
"I mean that you were born with the ability to channel and use magic. One of the most advanced and important magical achievements of the last five centuries was the creation and enchantment of something called the Quill of Magical Record. Please don't ask me how it works; that is far above my comprehension level. But it is aware of every child, Muggle and magical, born in Britain. It measures their capacity to perform magic, and if it is high enough, the Quill writes down the child's name, to reserve a placement at Hogwarts School. It does this in isolation. It's all but impossible to get into the Quill's chamber. No one sees the list as it's being written. At the end of each academic year, the list is sealed and secured and kept closed until those children start reaching the age of eleven. Then the list is allowed to be seen by certain people, or people who are given permission. I checked the list myself. Callie's name is there, it's been there for almost eleven years. And in the five centuries the Quill has been at work, it has never been wrong."
Callie digested all this for a moment. "I'm a witch?" she finally repeated, looking up for that twinkle in her uncle's eye. It was there, but it was more than just amusement. It was something maybe like pride. He nodded.
"You are," he said.
Callie turned to her dad, a little nervous to ask her next question. "Do you . . ." she said softly, then hesitated. "Do you not want me to be, Dad? Is that why you're upset?"
Her dad immediately looked horrified and took her hand. "No," he said at once. "No, Callie, of course I'm not upset that you're like Harry. I'm just surprised, is all. I stopped thinking this was a possibility a long time ago."
"What did you mean about the mad things Uncle Harry did when you were kids?"
Uncle Harry laughed. "Young wizards and witches, well. They tend to lose control of their magic in ways that are rather . . ."
"Explosive?" her dad suggested.
"Nothing ever exploded, Dudley."
"I'll just ring up Aunt Marge, shall I, and see if she agrees with that statement."
"She will agree with it, because they wiped her memory and also because she didn't explode."
"Boys," Callie's mother interrupted from her end of the table in a voice that said clearly that she'd interrupted similar arguments before. "Callie," she said then. "Just because we've missed your magic doesn't mean it hasn't been there. You'd know better than anyone. Have you done anything magical?"
"I -" She hesitated. "You have to promise you won't be mad at me." Her parents exchanged a slightly surprised look and held a brief silent conversation.
"We won't be mad," her mother said. So she told them about The Thing and how it worked and what kinds of things she heard and how she hadn't thought it was magic, just that maybe she had really good hearing or concentration or something.
"Well?" her dad asked her uncle when she was finished. "That sounds like magic to me, but you're the expert, Harry."
"Oh, that's absolutely magic," Uncle Harry said with a nod. "I mean, the fact that she directed an owl was confirmation enough for me, but that cinches it. You can control this?" he asked Callie. "You do it deliberately?"
"It doesn't always work," she hedged.
"No, but it's much more controlled than most underage magic. Not to put any undue pressure on you, but I think that you, Callie Dursley, could be a force to be reckoned with."
She blushed, though she wasn't sure why. She didn't know what to say to that, so she stayed quiet. Eventually, her uncle spoke again.
"I know this is a lot to take in, and it's a big decision to make. Why don't I give you a few days to think everything over, and then, instead of me coming here for your birthday, why don't you come to my house?"
Callie lit up. "Your house?" she repeated. "Your magical house in the magical world?"
Uncle Harry laughed. "Well, the house itself isn't magical, but yes. My house in the magical world, and I'll take you and your parents on a whirlwind tour of magical London, how's that sound?"
Callie could barely contain her excitement. "And you'll tell me all about Calliope Clare?"
Uncle Harry shook his head. "One track mind. Not much to tell, Callie. She was a Squib, which meant she had no magic despite being born to wizards. It was a very shameful thing back then. Squibs were sent into the Muggle world as quietly as possible."
"That's horrible," Callie said. Uncle Harry looked troubled.
"It is," he agreed. "We're not perfect, Callie. I'm the first to admit that. We're not perfect, and we get a lot of things wrong. We're plagued with strange prejudices that lead us into trouble with terrifying frequency. But I hope," -And here he met her eyes with an intense and earnest gaze that startled her- "that you will decide to be part of our community. Because the wizarding world does not like change. And the only way we get anywhere is when smart people with big, new ideas - many of them Muggleborns - drag us kicking and screaming into a better way of living."
While she was still wrapping her mind around that thought, something pinged. Frowning, Uncle Harry pulled a pocket watch out of his vest pocket and snapped it open. "I need to be getting home," he said, standing.
"You can't stay for dinner? There's plenty," her mum said. Uncle Harry shook his head.
"Gin's expecting me. But thank you."
They said their goodbyes, and Callie hugged Uncle Harry long and hard. "Will you show me some magic before you leave?" she asked him. He laughed.
"I'm really not supposed to," he said. "But just for you." And he reached behind her ear and pulled out a strange silver coin. Callie fixed him with A Look.
"Uncle Harry," she said.
"That was no sleight of hand!" he protested, sounding affronted. "I Conjured that sickle. And I did it without a wand." He looked back at Callie's parents. "A magically raised child would be much more impressed." Callie shook her head and hugged him once more around the middle. He ruffled her hair. "I'll see you on Saturday, yeah?" She nodded. "Oh, and Callie?" She looked up as he gently stepped back. "Watch closely, okay?" She nodded again, feeling a thrill of anticipation. Uncle Harry nodded to her parents, turned on the spot -
And was gone.
Once upon a time, JK Rowling said Dudley would never have a magical child. Then she signed off on the story line of Cursed Child, and I decided I didn't care about her Next Gen headcanons anymore. Enter Callie, Dudley's completely magical child.
I had so much fun writing Callie, and especially writing her relationship with Harry. This is Harry and Dudley from PS Sorry 'Bout All That, my Dudley redemption story. Dudley spent his year with wizards learning about their history and culture, and he had a hard time going back to a completely Muggle life afterwards. He met Susanne through a friend of a friend, and discovered that her family had this old story about an ancestor who was a witch. They fell in love, married, and in a moment of whimsy, named their daughter Calliope. An exchange that didn't make it into the story was Callie telling her parents that that whimsical decision was what first started her curiosity, since whimsy is not something they indulge in. When Dudley insists that he can be whimsical, Callie says, "Dad, I asked you for a puppet show once, and all the puppets went to the bank."
I wanted a Dursley family that was close and loving and healthy, but I also wanted Dudley to be the kind of person who has been quietly freaking out his daughter's whole life that she is actually magical and he's going to have to deal with that someday. Harry, meanwhile, enjoys every second.