School: Durmstrang, Year 1
Main Prompt: (any pairing) Cho Chang-Dudley Dursley
Additional Prompts: (plot point) Unlikely friendship
Theme: Look at relationships between wizards, Muggles, Muggleborns and other sentient creatures.
Wordcount: 980
Dudley stared at the counter of the restaurant, feeling as despondent as the peeling paint on the walls and the cracks in the drywall. The last few years had been horrible, as first he and his parents had to leave the house he'd grown up with. Their guards, Daedalus Diggle and Hestia Jones, had been nice enough, but being stuck in a tiny flat for close to a year was, to put it simply, mind-numbing. Being alone and in hiding with only then, he'd begun to see how they had caused so much misery for Harry, and even how his own personality had been shaped by their desire to have a certain image. Then, just as everyone thought it was safe, a confrontation with Death Eaters still on the run right as things had started to get back to normal ended in his parents' deaths. Still, it was a devastating blow.
There had been several other much more minor incidents- several lost jobs due to under-qualification, a cheating girlfriend, and a robbery—all piling misfortune on misfortune. He'd finally managed to find a steady job as a handyman, but he didn't really want to be doing that. He didn't know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, but he knew it was more than sitting in a dilapidated restaurant after a hard day's work at a dead-end job (although they did have decent nachos).
He'd lost contact with all his friends from Little Whinging (not that he'd want to go back to the toxicity of that group). He had a few friends at work, but they hadn't reached the point of "Let's go have dinner together" status. If there was anything he hated more than being in this situation, it was being in it alone. Unfortunately, he'd never been good at making friends on his own merit.
"Can I get you something?" Dudley looked away from the wall to the young Chinese waitress that had come over to him. He glanced over to see if she had a nametag, but she didn't. "Something to drink?"
Dudley shook his head. "Nah, I don't have anyone to drink it with," he said.
The waitress checked her watch and said, "I know what it's like to be lonely. Want someone to talk to? I get off in twenty minutes."
Dudley perked up in surprise at her offer. He was so unused to talking to girls, he didn't know how he was supposed to respond. "Uh, I suppose we can talk for a bit…"
She grinned as she hurried away to the back, calling over her shoulder, "I saw you looking for my nametag, I'm Cho Chang."
The chat that Dudley and Cho had was surprisingly helpful, and one discussion slowly turned into regular meet-ups after work. During their initial chats, all they did was talk about their reciprocated feelings of loneliness and being adrift. Eventually, they exchanged addresses (she didn't have any kind of phone), keeping in contact and coming over to each other's houses. He also met her whenever he knew she was working at the diner even though it was twenty minutes out of the way, and often had conversations there that lasted for hours. They weren't romantic but often ended in tears and faraway glances.
During one of these chats, she had mentioned her conflicting feelings from the death of her boyfriend several years before and then falling in love with another guy who was involved in the event. It was at this point that Dudley began to think that Cho might be holding something back. Of course, it had made sense for her to hold back during their initial acquaintance, but by this point, he thought they'd gotten pretty close.
Cho was saying, "I imagine losing someone you love hurts, no matter what. I still think about Cedric every day, and-"
"Cedric?" A memory came through Dudley's mind from years before. The play park, teasing Harry. 'Don't kill Cedric!" Several pieces fell into place for him at once. "Cho, I think I knew your Cedric. At least, I've heard about him." Inadvertently, he thought, but there was no need to mention that.
It was Cho's turn to look surprised. "Really? How?"
How would he say, "I think he was the boy killed when my cousin's worst enemy was brought back to life, and my cousin is the boy you liked afterward. Oh, and by the way, I think you're a witch"? He decided to just spit it out.
"My cousin's Harry Potter, I think he was the one there the night your Cedric died."
As long as he lived, Dudley didn't think he'd ever seen anyone as dumbstruck as Cho Chang at that moment, either before or after. "Wait, what?" Dudley felt this was an appropriate reaction. "Harry's your cousin?"
The rest of their chat lasted several more hours. Now that they both knew that the other knew about magic, they had much more to talk about.
Over the next few years, Cho and Dudley grew very close. They never became romantically involved (Cho had a steady boyfriend in the Wizarding World named Terry Boot) but became great friends. Meeting up at least once each week, they ended up learning to lean on each other for the support they couldn't find anywhere else.
They were both invited to events by the others, including weddings and birthday parties. When Dudley eventually married and the new couple had their first child, he named Cho godmother, and she did the same for him after she had her own child.
Their friendship became Dudley's foundation. Years later, when he looked back, he knew that if he hadn't met Cho in that diner, he would have ended up a despot on the side of the road. She had changed his life, and that, he realized, was exactly what friends should do.