Yet Another Snape Meets the Dursleys Story: by rabbit
Disclaimer: Still not mine. Still belongs to JKRowling. Still.
Chapter 21 : The Day
Summary: Dudley has to cope with having Harry in charge.
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Something moved, beyond the edge of the book, and Dudley looked up to find Harry standing in the room, holding a magic wand. He froze, waiting for the laughter and the scorn. It was too late to wipe the tears off of his face, and of course Harry would be pleased to have the chance to tease.
But Harry didn't smile. He beckoned Dudley towards the opened door, his mouth opening uselessly. The magic silence was working on him, too, then. Maybe the one who had been shouting about Snape sleeping had made the silence. Or Snape.
Harry beckoned again, a little more impatiently, and Dudley scrambled to his feet, clutching Oliver Twist a little tighter. He didn't have any feet on it for Professor Snape, yet, and he wasn't sure how to go about having any, but maybe Harry would tell him, and then Snape would stop being mad at him. Dudley was tired of having people being mad at him.
He followed Harry into the hallway and down the stairs. About halfway down, all of a sudden he could hear Harry talking again.
"... just a little farther. Now. Can you hear me, Dudley?" Harry asked, looking back up at his cousin.
"Yes," Dudley answered, but he still couldn't hear himself. Harry seemed to be satisfied, though.
"Do you want to stay downstairs for a while?" Harry went on. "You can, if you don't scream."
"Why would I...?" Dudley started to ask, and then he saw his father tied up and gagged with towels, floating upside down at the end of the hall. A little...brown...thing... was standing underneath, pointing a long bony finger upwards. When it moved a little, so did Daddy. Dudley felt himself scream, a little anyway, but since he still couldn't hear himself at all he didn't think it counted. After the first shock he swallowed hard, and inched on down the stairs to Harry, holding his hand over his mouth to keep from screaming again as the little whatever it was started up the stairs, with Vernon bobbing along behind. His father's eyes were furious, and they didn't soften much when they caught sight of Dudley on the way by. But there wasn't anything Dudley could do but shrug. He watched wide eyed, crowding close to Harry as the strange parade passed him. At least Harry looked human.
"Come on, Dudley," Harry said, tugging on Dudley's sleeve to get him started down the stairs again once the creature had vanished into the upstairs hall. "Do you feel sick?" he went on, to Dudley's surprise. "Is that why you didn't eat breakfast?"
Dudley's stomach rumbled, and his face got warm. To cover his embarrassment he shrugged, and scowled, glad that he had cried so much it was hard to start in again. "I'm not allowed to eat any of that stuff, you know that Harry," he mumbled, looking down at his belly as he followed Harry down into the dining room. Someone had cleaned up all of the dishes from last night's dinner, and Dudley's stomach growled with the memory of all that food, even as he cringed at the thought of what the doctor would say if he knew. "Unless Mummy sent it up?" he asked, thinking of the possibility for the first time. If Mummy thought it was all right for him to eat some bacon...
"Aunt Petunia's still locked in my room," Harry said, sitting down and raking a hand through his hair, which was even messier than usual. "I never thought I'd see the day you turned down food, Dudley."
Dudley sat down too, and used a napkin to wipe his face, hiding his expression for a moment. It wasn't that hard to start crying again, and he didn't want Harry to tease him. "I hate my diet," he tried to explain. "But... I don't want ... I hate being fat, too," he blurted out, and somehow the words just kept on coming. "But since I've had to keep to my diet at school, I'm not as fat as I was last year. I'm stronger. I don't want to go back to being so fat I can't even walk down the hall without getting tired."
He waited, but Harry didn't say anything. He put down the napkin and met Harry's eyes, expecting scorn. But Harry was just listening. He even looked worried.
It was one of the hardest things Dudley had ever done, telling his cousin the truth, but he felt compelled to go on now he'd started. "The doctor said if I keep eating all the foods with a lot of fat, I'd die."
The green eyes looked back at him as if they'd never seen him before. Harry bit his lip before answering. "I'm sorry," he said. "I never thought of that. I thought you liked all those foods."
Dudley blinked. It hadn't occurred to him that Harry might have given him those foods because he liked them. "I do," he said slowly, working it out in his head. "I just can't have them. Not that much, not all at once. Just a little, now and then, for special occasions."
Harry smiled, wanly. "I'd count this as a special occasion," he said. "I mean, how often are you held hostage in your own house?"
Dudley shrugged, and smiled back nervously. He was glad Harry understood. He couldn't remember ever feeling quite this way before. He'd never cared about Harry's good opinion. He wasn't sure that he cared about it now. But it was good not being all alone anymore. "How long do you think it's going to last?" he ventured, not really expecting an answer. "Being a hostage, I mean?"
"I dunno," Harry said. "At least until Snape wakes up. And that might be days."
"Days?" Dudley echoed. That meant he could wait and read the book later. And that he'd be stuck in the guest room for days. "But... No one can sleep for days, Harry."
"Snape can," Harry said, pulling a face. "Professor McGonagall... one of my other teachers... she told me that he's gone dormant. He's awfully tired. You could tell if you'd ever seen the way he usually is."
"Nicer?" Dudley asked hopefully.
"Not really." Harry leaned on his arm, resting his face against one hand. "I don't really know how long he'll sleep. He might wake up an hour from now for all I can tell."
"But I haven't got his feet yet!" Dudley fretted. If Snape was meaner when he was rested, Dudley didn't want to be found wanting.
"His what?" Harry said.
"Feet. Three feet, he said, on this book. But I don't know what he meant by it." Dudley confessed.
"Three feet of writing," Harry said. "Like a book report." He turned the book Dudley had held out so he could see the title. "Oliver Twist. I liked that one." He handed it back to Dudley. "Don't worry. I don't think Snape's really going to wake up in an hour. McGonagall wouldn't have sent Dobby if she thought that being dormant was only going to last as long as regular sleeping."
"Dobby?"
"Yes," Harry said, brightening a little. "Look, if you're hungry, I'll have Dobby make you a breakfast of things you are allowed to eat, all right? You just have to make sure you don't eat too much."
"Is Dobby that little brown thing that was making Daddy float??" Dudley pulled in on himself, looking around worriedly.
"Yes," Harry said. "Dobby's a house elf. But he won't hurt you. Not unless you try to hurt me or Professor Snape, that is."
"Are you certain?" Dudley's voice cracked a little.
"Yes." Harry turned his head and called, "Dobby! Come here."
Dudley put the napkin into his mouth, and bit it out of sheer nervousness, but the small figure that came to Harry's call didn't look quite as dangerous close up. Just ... freaky. Lightbulb eyes and big mobile ears on a shrunken marionette made out of brown wrapping paper might come close to describing it. It dressed as badly as Harry did, or worse. But it seemed to be... well... humble, bowing to Harry and smiling hopefully.
"Yes, Harry Potter, sir?" said the creature, like it had been trained or tamed or something.
"On the refrigerator there's a paper that says 'Dudley's Diet' on the top. It has a list of all the foods Dudley's allowed to eat, and how many calories he can have at each meal. Could you make him another breakfast? One that fits the diet, please?"
"Does Harry Potter sir want Dobby to make a second breakfast for everyone?" Dobby asked, tipping his head to one side.
"No, just for Dudley, thanks," Harry said decidedly. "Come on, Dudley. You can fix the television while Dobby's cooking."
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Harry watched Dudley surreptitiously from the couch as his cousin stewed over the Dickens and tried not to drip juice from the large fruit salad that was the centerpiece of Dobby's idea of a diet breakfast onto the pages. The television was on, showing a rerun of an old American series, but much to Harry's surprise, Dudley was pretty much ignoring it.
Harry had never known Dudley to ignore the televison. Or to care much about schoolwork or what the teachers thought. Or about what the doctor thought, for that matter. Only about what Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon thought, and they both thought that Dudley was perfect the way he was.
And Harry had always thought that he was just awful.
And stupid.
But...
But Dudley had known just exactly how to go about getting the television to work. Something about the power going out and losing all of the settings because the batteries were dead; he'd mumbled to himself as he went about it, with a quiet competence that Harry had never suspected in him.
Not that being an expert in getting televisions reset was all that much to brag about, but that had also surprised Harry: Dudley hadn't bragged, or run Harry down for not knowing how to do it.
Of course, it might have been breakfast that distracted him. Or Dobby. Dudley was definitely frightened of Dobby. And Dobby was fascinated by the television, coming from the kitchen trailing bubbles to see what had happened whenever there was a burst of laughter.
Maybe Dudley thought Dobby was checking to see that he was doing his work. That might explain why he was working.
As long as he was behaving himself.
Harry shifted position and watched the flickering scenes on the television screen for a while, but it was just sound and patterns. He closed his eyes, to rest them for a minute, and was vaguely aware of his own breathing steadying and slowing as he drifted off into a doze, only vaguely aware of the moving patch of sunlight, and Dobby giving Dudley a plateful of something to snack on. His dreams were strange, and he wanted to wake up enough to wipe the sweat away from his face, but he couldn't quite manage it.
And then the doorbell rang.