Story Title/Link: Playground and Possibilities
School and Theme: Ilvermorny and Spinner's End - Look at the experience of half-bloods or those that live in two worlds at the same time.
Main Prompt: (setting) Muggle playground
Additional Prompts: (friendship to become romantic pairing) Cho Chang/Dudley Dursley, and (plot point) unlikely friendship
Year: 2
Word count: 1,946
Warnings: Slight AU where Cho and Harry get married before he leaves Cho for Ginny. They have a daughter named Alicia who they nickname Allie. Also slight warning for out of character.
I would like to take this time to thank all of those who beta read this story for me. It truly means a lot to me. So thank you very much for your help.
Dudley Dursley pushed his five-year-old daughter on the swings, smiling when she would squeal and ask to go higher. He liked to see his daughter smile. It hadn't been an easy year for either of them. In fact, it had been one of the worst years of both of their lives.
His thoughts broke away, remembering how he'd woken up to find his wife and all of her possessions gone one day. The sight of the divorce papers lying on her pillow floating hauntingly in front of his eyes. That is, until, somewhere on his right a voice spoke.
"You don't mind if we sit next to you, do you?" a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman asked as she held the hand of a little girl who looked like a mini copy of her mother. "My daughter loves the swings."
"I don't mind at all," he replied, watching the woman lift her five-year-old daughter into the swing. Their sudden appearance seemed very much like magic. Not that anyone could Apparate in the presence of what the magical people called Muggles. He remembered that much from the time his cousin rescued him from the dementors. "I don't believe I've seen you around here before. Are you new to the neighborhood?"
Dudley didn't usually make his personal mission in life to spy on people. That would be too much like his mother for his comfort. Not that he didn't love his mother, it was just the fact that some of her personality really grated on people's nerves, his included.
"I actually just moved here a few weeks ago," the woman said, pushing her daughter on the swing gently. "My husband recently filed for divorce and I decided to move out of the house so as not to confuse our daughter."
"You moved out without fighting for your house?" Dudley asked incredulously. He couldn't believe that someone as beautiful as this woman would even have to fight for her own house. "Why would you even need to fight for your own house?"
Fear lit up the woman's features. Dudley just couldn't understand why someone would be so afraid to answer a simple question.
He could hear the sounds of their little girls talking and giggling with each other. This made Dudley smile. He hadn't heard his daughter this happy in a long time. Something still nagged at the back of his mind though. Something about this woman screamed magic to him. He just couldn't put his finger on what it was.
"Seeing as his name is on the deed to the house and since we were no longer going to be together, I thought I really didn't belong there anymore," the woman answered, looking down at her shoes. "So I bought a house of my own and we are going to split custody of our daughter."
"Well, he sounds like a moron to let someone as beautiful as you get away," Dudley told her, smiling when he heard a snort of laughter coming from beside him. He caught the derisive look of his best friend's Piers's sister, Abigail as she walked along the walking path. She never liked the unexplained and Dudley wondered if anyone else could sense something unnatural coming from this woman too. Her dislike of the unnatural phenomenon must have come from her many run-ins with Dudley's cousin, Harry, in the past. One of which included a bunch of spiders jumping into her face while she was chasting Harry to help her brother Piers and Dudley catch him.
"He is," she said, trying to stifle the laughter that bubbled forth like a fountain. It sounded like she didn't want to sound mirthful about her divorce. But something in the way he was complimenting her without even remembering who she was made her laugh. Dudley couldn't help but wonder why.
Soon they were interrupted by a little voice from the woman's side of the swing set. "Mama," the girl said, then looking over towards Dudley, "Mr. Ellie's Dad, could we please go play on the slide now?"
The woman nodded, dumbfoundedly. It almost seemed like she wasn't used to her daughter making friends so quickly with other children like this. Either that or there was a reason she was surprised that the child would try to make friends with another little girl. He watched as she stopped the swing and set the child on her feet.
"Daddy?" whined Ellie.
"Sorry, muffin," he said, stopping the swing and setting his own child on her feet. He watched as the two girls ran off towards the slide. They seemed to be chatting animatedly about something and Dudley caught the woman's daughter doing a hand motion like waving a wand.
"They seem to be fast friends," the woman said, a soft smile taking off the hard edge the fear had put on her face. An almost magical lightness came across her features at that moment but that couldn't be. Could it?
"They do," Dudley said, smiling. "I don't believe that I've properly introduced myself to you though. I'm Dudley Dursley." He held out his hand to shake hers.
"I'm Cho," she said, shaking his hand. "Cho Chang."
"Your name sounds so familiar," Dudley murmured, trying to think of where he'd heard the name Cho Chang before. "Did you happen to go to school around here?"
Cho shook her head, a smile forming on her face.
Now that he actually took the time to pay attention to her, he found her face oddly familiar: the dark, caring eyes, the smile that made everyone believe she cared about them. "You weren't married to Harry Potter, by any chance, were you?" he asked, hoping that she would say no and that would be the end of the discussion. But both magic and Harry had a way of crushing his hopes.
"I was," she said, sadly. "But marriages tend to have a way of ending. People drift apart and one day you find yourself moving out of the house and divorcing the person you once loved." It seemed like she wanted to add almost like magic to the end of the sentence but thought better of it.
His blue eyes widened in shock as a chill overtook him. He'd been the one to tell Harry to follow his heart. He'd been one to make Cho's husband leave her. The thought of Harry being responsible for Cho's pain made him angry. He hadn't felt this way about his cousin since they were young and he was supposed to hate Harry because of his magic.
"Are you alright?" Cho asked, reaching out to put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "I didn't mean to upset you."
"I'm more upset with myself than anyone," Dudley admitted, looking over to where their girls were playing together. Ellie was making a flower crown out of the small yellow flowers that were popping out of the grass. Dudley watched for a few more minutes before he turned back to Cho. "I guess I messed up someone else's marriage besides my own then."
"Why do you say that?" Cho asked, eyes showing concern for him. "How can you know that you messed up some…"
"My words made Harry choose Ginny. I told him to follow his heart. I didn't think about either of you. I just thought about him and his happiness and I didn't pay attention to the context," Dudley said before she could finish her question. He hated the stunned look on her face. Like he'd just slapped her and then asked about the weather. "I didn't realize that he was talking about leaving you at the time I gave him the advice. I didn't know about that until now when you told me."
"Dudley, it's alright," Cho reassured him gently. "I know he probably didn't tell you the whole story. He does that a lot to get things to go the way he wants them to."
Dudley was about to say something when a voice shouted out something that made his blood freeze. Something he hadn't thought was possible. Something he didn't think would happen to his family at all.
"Look at what those girls over there are doing, mummy," a young boy's voice called out. A sandy-haired boy was standing there and pointing towards Ellie and Cho's daughter.
Dudley's voice failed him as he realized what was happening in front of him. His daughter and Cho's daughter were standing there holding hands spinning in a circle. As the girls spun the little flower crowns they'd made spun around too. The jaunty yellow flowers of the crowns floated several feet above the ground.
"It's time to go, Allie," Cho called out to her daughter.
The little dark-haired girl jumped and her hand was removed from Ellie's. The girl's smile fell as the little yellow flower crowns both fell to the ground. Both girls raced over to their parents wondering what they'd done wrong and why they were in trouble.
"I'll make sure you get home safely," Dudley told Cho, who was about to tell him she would be alright when he interrupted her. "People in this neighborhood aren't used to having magic users on their block. There are a handful of people who know about magic, like old Miss Figg and my parents, but they're either too old or me." He chuckled at his own joke. "Also Abigail Piers but after the last time she tried to tell people about Harry everyone just stopped listening to her."
"They wouldn't hurt my daughter would they?" Cho asked in fear. She watched as Ellie and Allie sat together on the park bench whispering together with gleeful smiling faces. "I mean they wouldn't hurt children, would they?"
Dudley raised his eyebrow. "You have heard most of my cousin's stories about living in Little Whinging, haven't you?" With her being Harry's ex-wife he doubted that Harry wouldn't tell her some of the horror stories of his past.
Cho shook her head, eyes wide with fear for what could happen not only to her daughter but Dudley's as well. She knew that Dudley's parents had locked Harry in the cupboard under the stairs for years until he'd gotten his Hogwarts letter.
Dudley realized where Cho's mind had gone as soon as he'd mentioned the stories of Harry's time at number 4 Privet Drive. He'd tried to understand why his parents had treated his cousin the way they had. He also knew that he'd never do the same thing as they if his child turned out to be magical.
"You don't think…" He realized that she did think that he was going to lock Allie in a cupboard under the stairs. "I would never do that to my own daughter. I tried to understand why my parents were doing it to my cousin when Harry and I were younger. I...even participated. But I grew up. I know they were so very wrong and I would never do something like that to my own child or anyone else's child."
"Come on," Dudley said, motioning for Cho and the girls to follow him. "We can discuss this further at your house and please from now on let's be honest with each other. A friendship started with dishonesty is no friendship at all."
Cho stared at him dumbfounded as Allie and Ellie followed Dudley down the path to Privet Drive. As she followed him back to the street, she made it her priority to find out if what she was seeing was true or not.
Dudley heard the sounds of Cho's approaching footsteps and smiled to himself. This could very well be the start of a beautiful friendship.
I hope you all enjoyed Playground and Possibilities as much as I enjoyed writing it.