Chapter 2.
Harry was sitting in his room, working on his summer homework. He assumed for the sake of his own sanity that he had managed to pass all of his subjects in his owls and so was revising all he had learnt for that year and also doing some further work in preparation for the New Year. He had owled Flourish and Blotts earlier that week and had ordered the standard texts for Newt Potions, charms, Defence against the dark arts, transfiguration and after giving it some serious thought and consulting through owl with Hermione, Ancient runes. He had decided that Divination although providing some remarkable details in prophecies was largely a waste of time and add nothing to his knowledge to help him with either his future career or Voldemort. Hermione had told him that while he could do a lot of things with his wand, ancient runes was a different form of magic altogether that could enhance his magic store to now end and also provide another way of either adding protection to himself and others as in protective wards, but also defensively. He had received a copy of Hermione's notes from the previous two years and also the textbooks from flourish and blotts a couple of days ago and while waiting for his next letter from Ginny, took his mind off of it by plunging his way through the mountain of work that was ahead of him. Earlier that morning he had sent a letter off with Hedwig to Professor Dumbledore asking if at the end of the summer he could sit the owl at the end of summer, so if he passed, he could then take the newt subject along with Hermione.
He was roused from the midst of his studying by a knock at the door. He looked up frowning. Usually no one knocked at his door, they either roared at him from downstairs or screeched from the other side of the door, not bothering with the usual forms of politeness with him as they usually considered him to be as repulsive as a pair of abnormally smelly socks. Although he must admit to himself, they had been rather quiet since he had come back to Privet Drive as Mad Eye Moody was not a person to be trifled with and even though his appearance might have been enough to put them off of harassing Harry, they could also sense some kind of powerful aura around him, which indeed made them aware that this man would not hesitate to carry out any threat delivered to them. Harry got up and walked over to the door and bracing himself, opened it up. Dudley was standing there on the other side of the door with an expression on his face that Harry was not fully expecting or understanding. It almost looked as if Dudley was trying to be friendly, but not really sure how to do it as he had also always been contemptuous if anything else towards Harry. Harry opened the door up wider wordlessly, letting Dudley inside and closed the door behind him. He gestured to the chair he had been sitting in and sat down on the bed, watching his cousin closely. He could tell that this conversation needed to be private. If his Aunt and Uncle knew that Dudley was talking to Harry for anything else than tormenting him, they may do something rather rash which may end up with both of them staying in St Mungos thanks to Mad eye.
Dudley looked around at the room, never having been inside it from the time that Harry had moved in almost four years before and noticed a few of the moving photos that Harry had sitting on his desk, as well as the titles of the different books that Harry was studying. He gestured towards the photos and asked, "Are these your friends at school?"
Harry nodded, not seeing the harm in talking about this to Dudley.
"Yes the girl with the brown bushy hair is Hermione Granger, her parents are dentists, but she is one of the smartest witches in our school. Ron the redhead is the guy you met two years ago when his family came to take me to the quidditch world cup and they broke your wall to get through the boarded up fireplace. The two boys who played that trick on you are his twin brothers Fred and George. They constantly play tricks on people. One of the kids who is in my dormitory was turned into a canary last year by one of the cakes they
Had fed him." Dudley nodded at this explanation and then pointed to the picture of Ginny that Harry had recently added to his collection. It showed Ron, Hermione Ginny and Harry together after a trip of Hogsmead the previous year, before he had been banned by Umbridge. They all had their arms about each other and smiling into the camera. Harry noticed that the picture Harry and Ginny kept stealing glances to each other and blushing slightly when they thought the other weren't looking.
"Is that your girlfriend then?" Dudley asked.
Harry scratched his head, not actually sure for the moment what he and Ginny were to each other, he knew they were closer than they had ever been and she knew some things about him that not even Ron and Hermione knew about and that he probably knew more about Ginny the person and her private thoughts than even her brothers did. They had not, however made it official as yet. He had hoped that at some point when he was at the Weasleys in a few days that he would pluck up the courage to ask her and didn't se how it would be a problem, considering how easily they had developed a closeness with each other that he had never had with anyone, not even his two best friends.
"Well not quite yet, but we are working on it." Harry said with a small smile. Dudley smiled back and Harry instinctively knew something.
"How about you?" He asked shrewdly. Dudley turned slightly pink and grinned, saying
"I met someone during the year that really opened my eyes up. She actually saw the real me, not the spoiled brat that mum and dad had created."
To say that Harry was stunned to hear this from Dudley would have been an understatement. He always thought of Dudley as spoilt but never had thought one day Dudley would have realized it himself. He decided whoever this girl was; she was a godsend for him, especially this summer and for Dudley as well. He noticed that Dudley did actually seem happier than usual. Usually he noticed that Dudley was only happy when he had beaten up some poor unsuspecting kid in the neighborhood. Now he saw a difference, an almost softness that seemed to fill Dudley's face.
"So who is she then?" Harry asked, the smile lighting his face as he saw the faraway expression on his cousin's face as he thought about his girlfriend.
"Her name is Cassandra, Cassy for short. She goes to Smeltings as well, but really didn't want to know me until this year. I don't know what happened really, but she started to take an interest in me after the summer. Perhaps it was something to do with what happened to us that night those things attacked, I don't know. All I know from that time I started thinking about how unfair I had been to you all these years and how even though you could have left me to die, or worse from what you told us after. Instead you saved me and yourself, getting yourself into trouble for doing so in the meantime. I know that was why you received that warning in the mail from your lot of people. I couldn't say this in front of dad, but I am deeply ashamed. I now understand why that guy put a pig's tail on me when you received your letter, because I was a pig to you all of those years and have been since as well, although I must admit I have been a bit scared to do anything to you since that day. I just hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I could say that I didn't know what I was doing to you, but that would be a lie. While my parents encouraged me to do a lot of things to you, I still have responsibility for my actions."
Harry sat in silence for a while, absorbing what Dudley had said to him. This was probably the longest conversation they had had without one of them ending up hurt and this surprised Harry to no end, although after the recent events in the department of mysteries, nothing much seemed to surprise him much anymore, save for the contents of the prophecy, although come to think of it he knew eventually that it was up to either him or Voldemort. He knew he would never rest until he had found and destroyed the being that was responsible for the murder of his parents and for the murder of Sirius, prophecy or not. He looked at Dudley and saw the sincerity in his eyes and instantly knew what he had to do. He stood up and walked over to Dudley. He extended his hand and said with a smile "No hard feelings, Dudley." Dudley was startled for a moment, sure that Harry was going to belt him, but seeing the smile, and he returned it and shook Harry's hand firmly. They stayed there in that position for a few minutes, just smiling at each other and pondering what this meant and then, releasing each other's hand, Harry sat back down and Dudley relaxed back into his chair.
"Ok, now that that is out of the way I know something had happened recently to you, I can see it in your face. Although I am not in the wizarding world I know that I can help in some small way, even if it is just listening as I am kind of objective in all of this." Harry was surprised to hear that Dudley had noticed something had been wrong with him and realized just how sorry the boy truly was if he was so concerned. He considered his offer for a moment before nodding and saying
"You may want to get something to eat and drink, this may take a while. After all I have five years of stuff to fill you in on." Dudley disappeared for about five minutes and then came back with a large plate of nachos for them both to share and 2 cans of coke. While eating the nachos and sipping from their drinks, Harry then proceeded to tell Dudley of all of what had happened to him in the last five years of his life at Hogwarts and the confrontations he had had with Voldemort. He could see Dudley's face becoming paler and paler as he recounted the amount of times he had faced the maniac who was trying to kill him and saw him sickened by the description of what happened in the graveyard that night that Voldemort had come back to his full body. Then Harry recounted the events of last year, starting with the Dementors, describing exactly what they were to Dudley and what they looked like. He then described the trial that had been held to decide whether he was to be expelled from Hogwarts or not and Dudley, he saw was quite angry by Fudge's attempts to wrought the system to get him thrown out.
"You bloody saved their world when you were 1 and this is how they bloody well repay you?" He muttered in a stunned tone of voice. Harry just nodded and continued his story, talking about how Umbridge had usurped power in Hogwarts and how he had led a resistance movement to teach the other students defense. He also then told him of the confrontation in the department of mysteries and how he had been fooled into thinking that Sirius was in trouble, only to find out that it was him and his friends that were in trouble. He then finished the story with telling Dudley about how Sirius had fallen through the veil of death and being told that Sirius could not come back, then about how he had chased Belatrix Lestrange into the hall of the department only to be confronted by Voldemort himself and then being saved by Dumbledore.
There was a few minutes silence when Harry had finished only broken by the occasional sips that the two of them took from their cans of drink, which were nearly empty. Finally, Dudley looked up and looking into Harry's eyes said,
"Shit and I thought High school was bad, if I had been what you had been through I doubt I would even be here." Harry chuckled dryly and said in reply
"Well I must say it was close a few times and I was incredibly lucky a lot of other times and had a lot of help from my friends. It's good to finally let someone else know about all of this though Dudley, but there is one more thing that happened when I returned to Hogwarts. It seemed that the prophecy that we had been trying to protect was only a record of the actual prophecy that was made. It had been made to my headmaster just before I was born." He then proceeded to tell Dudley the full prophecy and explained in plain terms what it meant for Harry, that either he had to kill Voldemort, or the maniac would never stop until he had killed Harry. Dudley absorbed this final bit of information and said
"Well if you think about it, it does make sense. After all he has specifically tried to do away with you at least five times now. Either you really pissed him off, which is possible considering how often you have stopped him coming back, but it seems more likely he was doing it for a reason, like the prophecy." Harry nodded at this, respecting the fact for once that Dudley did seem to possess an analytical mind. Dudley smirked at the look on Harry's face and said
"When I started boxing, the physical part of the training wasn't the only thing I had to learn. There is a whole psychological side to it as well. I had to learn a lot of things about discipline which I had not learnt before, thanks to the life I had previously led. My marks have improved significantly since my training started. I think perhaps you should look at what I have done and perhaps adapt it to your situation as well."
Harry was a bit startled by this suggestion, but was intrigued by it at the same time.
"What do you mean Dudley?" He asked, interested. Dudley shifted his position slightly and crossed his legs and began speaking.
"Well when you talked to me just now about your experiences, it seemed to me that a lot of the fighting that was done was mainly using magic and wands, am I right?" Harry agreed, saying
"Apart from the chamber of secrets when I had to fight that Basilisk, yeah the majority of it was magical. Not many wizards are into physical fighting." Dudley nodded, beaming and said
"Exactly! Not in any of the confrontations that you have had with wizards have any of them tried to do something physically to you, all of them have relied on wands. If you knew some way to protect yourself that did not require a wand at close quarters you may have an advantage you could use. Not only that but from what you tell me, an effective way of defending yourself would be becoming agile enough to actually dodge anything coming towards you. Starting tomorrow morning, I want you to come and train with me. I know your not here for long, you never really are anymore since you have friends, but you can start with what I show you now and develop on it further when you are at your friends and also at school. I am sure there is some way you can work it out." Harry thought about it for a moment and realized how much difference it may have made if he had known something about defending himself and the others at the department. He knew for a fact that when it got particularly dangerous, more physical stamina as well as a definite physical advantage would have helped. The only real exercise most wizards tended to get were on brooms with Quidditch and that wasn't exactly a physically hard sport to play unless the game went on for hours and hours. He accepted Dudley's offer and agreed to meet him downstairs at 6 the next morning, just as Hedwig came soaring through his window and alighted on his shoulder with a letter from Ginny secured to her leg. Dudley grinned and dropped him a wink and said
"I'll leave you to your reading and see you in the morning Harry."
"Sure Dudley and Dudley? Thanks." Harry responded. Dudley just smiled and shrugged his shoulders, saying it wasn't anything, really.
When Dudley had left, Harry took the letter from Hedwig and gave her a corn ship left over from the nachos. He then unsealed the parchment and smiled as he read the obvious excitement in the letter and became excited himself when he saw that he only had 9 days to go until he was with his friends for the rest of the summer. He knew although he missed Ron and Hermione badly, it was no comparison now to how he felt about Ginny. It seemed as they grew closer together through the letters, that the physical wanting to be close to each other grew stronger and stronger. He could picture her beautiful face clearly in his mind's eye and see the grin that often suffused her face when she was happy. He also thought back to the days when he had first known her as the little girl who had had a crush on him and remembered how cute she had looked as she blushed. He wrote his reply to her, saying he couldn't wait to see her as well and that he was working on something that would keep him busy in the meantime. He sealed the letter and sent Hedwig off before rolling into bed and settling into dreams of his red haired beauty.