Chapter Four

Over the next couple of weeks, a routine developed. Dudley, who over the last year had become accustomed to rising early, got up at seven and made himself breakfast. Occasionally he ran into Harry, in which case they exchanged awkward greetings and parted company as quickly as possible. Mostly he ate on his own.

After this, Dudley returned to his room. Often he spent his time reading, a habit he had picked up over the last year. A couple of years ago he would never have believed there would come a time when he was capable of spending hours sitting and reading textbooks about Wizarding history. Nowadays it was quite a common occurrence. He'd spent years attempting to ignore the fact that Harry belonged to a different magical world; now he was attempting to make up for that by learning as much about the world as possible. It truly was fascinating, and there was so much to learn.

At around noon, Dudley would head downstairs to the kitchen again, this time to prepare lunch. Sometimes Draco would be in the kitchen already when he went down; other times he would arrive soon afterwards. The boys would chat as Dudley cooked, and sometimes Draco would offer to help a little, though he was absolutely useless at it and had clearly never worked in a kitchen before in his life.

The one thing Dudley had learned about Draco through their conversations was that he was hiding something. Or rather a lot of things. He carefully kept the conversation away from himself, and tended to deflect personal questions as much as possible. This had the result that, in spite of hours of conversation, all Dudley knew about his new friend was that he had fairly rich parents, and had gone to Hogwarts with Harry. What his relationship with Harry was, and why he was staying in his home with no wand and no apparent reason for being here, Dudley had no idea.

He didn't press the matter. After all, wasn't he himself keeping rather a lot of secrets? Perhaps he would one day be close enough to Draco to reveal his own rather poor relationship with his cousin, and the prejudice against magic that he'd been brought up with and was still ridding himself of, but he wasn't yet. And until that day they would both keep their secrets and stick to light, trivial topics of conversation.

After eating lunch together, Draco and Dudley tended to return to their rooms again. It was easier than staying downstairs. Often people would drop by in the afternoons – sometimes in search of Harry and sometimes simply to drop something off or leave a message. Occasionally they would stay for a while and wait for Harry to return, but usually it was only Hermione – the girl who'd escorted Dudley here – or another boy with ginger hair who would do that. Both always seemed very relaxed and at home here, and Dudley assumed they were close friends of Harry. He thought he recognised the boy from that time with the exploded fireplace and that awful sweet that had made his tongue so long, but he couldn't be sure.

Anyway, Dudley had as little contact as possible with these guests. While most of the Wizarding World seemed fairly unaware that Harry Potter had a muggle cousin, he was sure Harry's closest friends would know exactly who he was, and probably didn't like him very much. It was easier to keep out of their way.

Kreacher always brought dinner up to Dudley's room for him. Dudley assumed that this was under Harry's orders and didn't argue or complain. The food Kreacher prepared was always delicious, and Dudley was often tempted to ask him about how he had made it, but the house elf didn't particularly seem to like him, and was unlikely to be willing to exchange cooking tips. He clearly adored Harry, and would put up with any family members, but it was apparent that he was not very enthusiastic about having a muggle in the house.

Apart from Kreacher, the only person Dudley had contact with on a regular basis was Draco. He began to look forward to their lunchtimes and the conversations they had. While reluctant to answer personal questions, Draco seemed quite happy to fill in any gaps in Dudley's knowledge of the Wizarding World, and to answer any questions he had about it. Dudley did the same for him regarding the Muggle World, and they both learnt a great deal from one another.

With regards to learning about one another, however, little progress was made. Or at least not until they'd been there for about a month. At this point something happened which gave Dudley a rather interesting insight into Draco's experience during the war.

It was a Sunday night, though days of the week mattered very little within their repetitive routine. Harry had informed them that he was spending the night with some friends, and had taken Kreacher with him, so they were the only two people in the house. In the absence of Kreacher, Dudley had made dinner, and the two had sat downstairs chatting until around half nine in the evening.

At this point Draco excused himself to go to bed. Dudley was about to follow until he spotted a book lying on a chair: Hogwarts, A History. Intrigued, he picked it up. Although he had found many references to Hogwarts throughout the other books he'd read, he didn't really know very much about the magic school Harry had disappeared to at the end of every summer holiday.

On the inside cover of the book was written the name Hermione Granger. Hoping she wouldn't mind too much, Dudley began to flick through the pages, soon becoming engrossed in the complex and fascinating history of the school. It sounded like a truly incredible place, and Dudley couldn't help but feel a spark of envy towards his cousin for the brilliant education he must undoubtedly have enjoyed there.

Dudley had only intended to skim through the book, but by 3am he was still sitting in the silent kitchen, having read Hogwarts, A History cover to cover. This surprised him. Although his ability to read had improved drastically over the last year or so, he had never before succeeded in reading an entire book in just over five hours.

Carefully laying the book back where he had found it, Dudley switched off the lights in the kitchen and began to make his way up to his room. Just as he reached it, however, a loud yell shattered the silence. It was coming from further up in the house, and couldn't reasonably be anyone but Draco. Dudley hadn't actually been in Draco's bedroom, but he was fairly sure he knew which one it was. Moving swiftly but calmly, he made his way up the stairs. Draco's room was at the very top. Carefully, he pushed the door open.

Draco was thrashing around in his sleep, moaning every so often. As Dudley watched, he gave another yell, then began to whimper.

"Don't … please stop … please … I'm sorry … make it stop! Make it stop!" It was a familiar sight for Dudley, and fairly similar to what he'd been expecting. He'd dealt with a lot of people suffering from nightmares over the last year. It had been a common feature among many of those staying at the safe house, particularly those who had arrived later on, or had lost friends and loved ones to Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

Gently, Dudley crouched down by the bed and touched Draco's shoulder. The boy shrank away from him, sobbing loudly.

"Please don't hurt me!" he begged, "Please … I'm sorry. I'm sorry! I'll do better next time, I promise. Please don't hurt me."

"I'm not going to hurt you," Dudley said softly, "Draco, you need to wake up. Nobody's going to hurt you. Wake up."

Draco whimpered again, then opened his eyes. He was clearly confused to find Dudley leaning over him.

"What … what's going on?" he asked, "What happened?"

"You were having a nightmare," Dudley explained gently, "I heard you yelling and came to wake you up."

"Oh," Draco said quietly, "Thank you for coming." Something flickered across his face, some memory of the nightmare, and he flinched.

"No problem," Dudley said brightly, hoping to inject a lighter note into the situation. He went to leave, but stopped as he saw a look of panic flash across Draco's face.

"Do you … do you have to go?" he asked tentatively.

"Would you rather I stayed?" Dudley offered. Draco nodded eagerly.

"He might come back if I'm on my own," he said, "But if you're here then He won't." Dudley sighed. Clearly Draco wasn't entirely awake, and was still partly trapped in the nightmare. He couldn't possibly leave him in this state.

"Alright," he said, grabbing a spare blanket from the end of Draco's bed and heading for the sofa in the corner of the room, "I'll stay. Now go back to sleep."

Draco sighed in relief and closed his eyes. Soon his breathing slowed and his face relaxed. Dudley lay down on the sofa and tried to sleep, but his brain buzzed with thoughts. What exactly had Draco been dreaming about? Normally the nightmares of people in the safe house had been about deaths – either deaths that had already happened or deaths that the dreamer feared would happen. Draco's hadn't been like that. He'd been scared of someone – someone who had hurt him in the past. And what's more, he'd been apologising for something. Had it been some kind of punishment, perhaps? But who was the "He" Draco had referred to?

These were not questions Dudley had answers for right now. One thing was becoming apparent, however. Draco was not simply some old friend or classmate of Harry who was staying for a while. It was much more complicated than that.