Chapter Six

"Dudley, why do you spend so much time with Malfoy?" Dudley looked up from the book he was reading. He had stayed downstairs reading after lunch, and had ended up losing track of time. When Harry came in, he'd got up to leave, but his cousin had gestured for him to stay. They'd sat in silence for a while, Dudley reading and Harry flicking through paperwork. Until, after half and hour or so, Harry had broken the silence with this question.

"Well it's not like I have a huge variety of people to choose from," Dudley said thoughtfully, "Draco and I are both stuck in this house for a while, so it makes sense that we should be friends."

Harry frowned.

"You're not stuck here," he said, "You can leave whenever you like. And if you want to just go out for a bit or whatever then you can. You're not like Draco – he actually can't leave."

"I know," said Dudley, "But I'm stuck here regardless. Just as much as Draco is." Harry looked curious, but didn't press the issue, and Dudley was grateful. He didn't feel ready to go into that right now.

He knew this would be the perfect opportunity to ask about Draco: what he was doing here and why he couldn't leave. He was sure Harry would have explained it all to him. But that would be betraying Draco's trust somehow, and Dudley wasn't willing to do that. He'd come to understand a lot about the importance of trust over the last year, enough that he was unwilling to talk about his new friend behind his back, even simply to find out a little more about him.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Harry asked, "I mean, I don't really mind. It's not exactly been much trouble having you here. But surely you must have been tempted to go to Majorca with your parents? I'm sure you must have had enough of living with witches and wizards last year to last you a lifetime. Why come stay with your freaky cousin? Your parents must have been horrified."

"They were certainly surprised," Dudley said wryly. He wasn't sure how he was going to explain this to Harry. His cousin still thought of him as being the same person he'd been over a year ago. He couldn't possible begin to understand how much Dudley had changed during the year he'd spent in hiding. But he supposed he owed Harry an attempt at an explanation. After all, he'd taken Dudley into his home, when he would have been perfectly justified in telling him to get lost.

"They wanted to go on as if nothing had happened," he said eventually, "My parents, I mean. They wanted to fly off to Majorca and pretend the past year had never happened. And I guess that might actually be possible for them. They pretty much kept themselves to themselves all year, and avoided contact with everybody else as much as possible. But I can't do that. Not after the things I've seen. I can't pretend they didn't happen."

Harry looked at him thoughtfully.

"You've changed," he said, "It's taken me a while to properly realise that, because I've had such a biased picture of you in my head, but you really have."

"Yeah," Dudley agreed, "I mean, I was already starting to change I think. The thing with the dementors started it. And then you saved me from them, and I started to rethink a lot of stuff. But spending a year in that safe house really opened my eyes. I grew up a lot."

"I guess I should have seen it coming when you said I wasn't a waste of space," Harry joked, "That was a pretty radical statement coming from you." Dudley laughed.

"I guess that was a pretty pathetic way of saying thank you," he said.

"Aunt Petunia didn't think so," Harry pointed out. The two of them shared a grin as they remembered his mum's ridiculous outburst. It was the first moment of friendship he could ever remember sharing with his cousin.

"I really am grateful, though," he said, "Those dementors were awful, and you saved me from them, even after I'd been so awful to you a few minutes earlier."

"Yeah, well, nobody deserves the dementors," Harry said awkwardly, clearly uncomfortable with gratitude, though Dudley was sure he must receive a lot of it.

"And I'm sorry, too," Dudley continued, determined to get all of this out now that he'd started, "I was a real jerk back then. I still cringe a bit when I think about how I behaved some of the time."

Harry looked down.

"I want to say I forgive you," he said quietly, "I really do. It's just … well those ten years before I went to Hogwarts were awful. I'd have given just about anything to have you treat me like a brother, like a friend. I don't think I'd have minded the way Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon treated me, if I'd at least had you on my side. Or even if you'd let me have some friends of my own at school. But you couldn't even do that."

He sounded so vulnerable suddenly, and the guilt struck Dudley all over again. It had been easier when he'd been hearing all about how wonderful and brave and heroic Harry was. It was easy to forget that, although Harry might have hundreds of friends and admirers and fans now, back when he was a kid there'd only been one person who could have been his friend, and that was Dudley. And Dudley had failed.

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, staring at the ground, "And if it helps at all, you had the last laugh. I called a couple of my so-called friends the other day, and most of them barely remember who I am. They've got a new leader now, and they don't need me anymore. Whereas there are hundreds of people who'd give just about anything even just to get to meet you in person so that they could thank you for everything you've done for them."

"I know," said Harry, "I've got lots of people now. But it would have meant a lot to me to have someone back then."

He got up and walked out of the room. Dudley sighed. He wished he could go back in time, if only to find the younger version of himself and shake him very hard. He really had been a jerk back then.

"You okay?" Dudley looked up to see Draco standing there, looking at him with a rather odd look on his face.

"You heard that entire conversation, didn't you?" Dudley guessed. Draco seemed to consider denying it, before nodding.

"Yeah, I did," he said, "I was through in the next room. I didn't mean to listen in but …" he shrugged. Dudley understood. He and Draco were good friends now, but they still hadn't told one another much about their pasts. If Dudley had overheard a conversation as interesting as this one between Draco and Harry, he'd have struggled to walk away without listening in.

"You don't have to tell me anything else if you don't want to," Draco said, "I can just forget I heard anything, and it doesn't need to affect anything." Dudley knew what he was saying. So many times when people had found out how he'd treated Harry, they hadn't really wanted to have anything to do with him anymore. But Draco was saying that they could walk away from this and leave their friendship intact.

And Dudley really wanted to do that. He'd experienced rejection so many times from those who knew the truth about him that he didn't really want to risk it again.

But at the same time, he really needed to talk to someone. After that conversation with Harry, he wanted to confess everything. He hadn't done that yet. He'd told them that he and Harry hadn't really got on, and that he'd bullied him a bit, but he'd never shared all the details of how Harry had been treated in their house. He'd only told one other person about how Harry had been forced to sleep in a cupboard, knowing that he and his parents probably wouldn't have got out of there alive if it had been made public knowledge.

And if Draco decided to judge him for his past actions, then so be it.

And so he told him everything. He told him about Harry living in the cupboard while he had two bedrooms for himself. He spoke about how he'd used Harry as a punch bag, and had thought bullying him was just an amusing joke. He talked about everything, everything he was ashamed of and everything he knew must be making it hard for Harry to forgive him. And Draco listened. Not with disapproval or judgement. Not even with that look some of his new friends had given him, like they were trying to understand but it was really hard for them.

Draco actually seemed to understand. He seemed to understand completely. And that, more than anything else, convinced Dudley that Draco was hiding something very, very big.