Ok so I don't really like this chapter much myself, but it's necessary for the story to get to the place I want it to go. Reviews are always welcome. I hope you guys like it!

It all belongs to JK Rowling

Chapter two: The Vigil's over but the wait is not

It had been nearly a week since Voldemort had been defeated and still the Dursleys were on the run. It seemed that a few of the Death Eaters were still determined to get at the family before they could be rounded up and put back into Azkaban. Dudley wondered exactly who would guard the wizard prison now that the Dementors had abandoned it. He shuddered at the thought of these ghastly creatures who had shown no signs of returning to the right side even though Voldemort was now gone.

He sighed heavily he still hadn't seen his cousin. Harry had of course been very busy in the aftermath of the great battle. He had been rounding up Death Eaters, the two cousins had not been in contact at all and Dudley only knew what he did from Elphias' Order connections.

Dudley hoped that he would be able to meet Harry back home at Privet Drive once he got there, for that was where they were headed. Number four was going to be set up as a safe house for the Order and the family. Of course Dudley's parents were not at all happy about having a group of wizards in their house, but they were just going to have to deal with that. They owed these people for everything that they'd done for them. They owed these people their lives.

Dudley was roused from his thoughts by the tap of the post owl; he went to get it, knowing that both of the wizards travelling with him would be much too tired to after last night. Hestia and Elphias had been ambushed on their rounds and had only just managed to escape the five or so Death Eaters. Elphias' arm had a lot of nasty slashes over it and Hestia was still stunned when he managed to get her back to the motel room and cast a few protective spells.

Carrying the paper, Dudley returned to the kitchen table with a sigh. How long would it be until one of their protectors was injured and maybe even killed? It would take them around five days to get to Privet Drive always travelling under the cover of night and taking the longest routes possible to make it harder for people to follow them.

Dudley opened the paper and scanned it for any new of Harry, there wasn't much. Only a small note on the very back page that said Harry was very busy and had just caught the Anton Dolohov, the notorious Death Eater. Dudley wished that he could use a wand so that he could get out there and fight alongside his cousin.

Though there wasn't much news on Harry in the TruthSeeker, and Dudley there was a large article about Azkaban and its new guards. It appeared that everyone was confused as to who would take over from the Dementors, who had eventually offered to return to their old posts. The recently re-established Ministry of Magic did not want to accept them though, it was the second time that the foul creatures had let them down and who was to say that they wouldn't do it a third time?

The Ministry was cautious about accepting the Dementors again, but there was really no other option. If the Dementors did not guard Azkaban they would be swooping all over the country, putting fear into the hearts of even the bravest of people. Also, if the Dementors did not guard Azkaban the only other creatures that could fill their position were the giants and most of them had sided with Voldemort. In fact reading the article Dudley knew that the Ministry was eventually going to accept the Dementors, they were just holding out on them to show that they were only doing this grudgingly.

Dudley scrolled through the rest of the paper; his eyes eventually fell upon the column at the back that listed the names of all the dead. Dudley had recently found himself reading through the names each day and thinking over how much each of these people would be missed by those who loved them.

He had never before recognised any of the names listed but today two names screamed out at him. Remus Lupin and Fred Weasley. Dudley felt a jolt of shock as he realised that the boy whose toffee had caused his tongue to grow to four feet long was gone and Remus Lupin had been amongst the group of people who had accosted the Dursleys at the end of one school term when Harry got off the train.

Dudley felt a pang of sorrow for his cousin, realising that though he did not know the names of most of the people on this list, Harry would know and be close to a lot of them. The battle last night had taken nearly 70 lives and the death toll was still mounting, several of the bodies discovered remained unidentified. Dudley winced as he read this part of the article, picturing a charred dead body, features distorted beyond recognition.

Repulsed by the images in his head, Dudley threw the newspaper across the table, so that it landed in a spot farthest away from him. He then got up and tried to rid himself of the images in his mind by cooking breakfast. That had been another change to Dudley's life. He was losing weight, not because he wanted to, or was trying to, but simply because either no-one had the time to cook, or they were all too despondent to do it.

He pulled out sausages that Elphias had gotten two nights ago out of the motel fridge and set about cooking them in the tiny saucepan that was the only real cooking utensil they had, apart from forks and knives of course. Once he was done he put some food onto five plates, and set them on the table.

After that Dudley got a bit carried away, preparing a salad with the few vegetables they were carrying on them, tomato, lettuce and cucumber. He also made a bit of the instant mash they had bought a while back and dunked some into everyone's plate.

Then he stood back to admire his work. It was no feast, but compared to the meals that they had been living on for most of this past year it was a meal fit for a king. Dudley had decided that this was going to be their little celebration Voldemort's demise, because if anything, everyone had become even gloomier since they had heard the good news.

Dudley continued to potter around the kitchen and made everyone a coffee or hot chocolate in his case, since he still hated the bitter taste of coffee, he then placed these drinks on the table alongside the food. A yawn coming from his parents' room told him that the house was waking up, and he smiled, he had timed the making of his breakfast perfectly.

Petunia and Vernon Dursley stumbled out of bed and into the small, and Petunia's eyes began to water as soon as she saw her son standing next to the best meal she'd seen in a long time. Petunia felt as though she had been losing her son these past months, and she struggled to swallow the emotions within her tempting her to run over and hug him. Dudley was a man now, she couldn't treat him like a child any longer.

Vernon merely grunted at the sight of the breakfast, "What's the special occasion?" he asked Dudley in a nasty manner.

"Well, I thought it was about time we celebrated Harry's win over Voldemort," Dudley said quietly knowing that his father would not like to hear his cousins name .He was all too right, Vernon's eyes narrowed and he turned an odd shade of purple.

Thankfully Dudley was rescued from what would have been an awkward and angry exchange of words by the arrival of Elphias who looked at the food hungrily, "I think that's a brilliant idea. I'm starved," he then heaved a huge yawn and crossed over to the table digging into a plate of sausages and mash.

"Good work Duds I never took you for a cook, but this is good," he said once he had finished his first mouthful.

Vernon merely snorted and sat down to sample the food himself, "S'ok," he pronounced. Petunia stared worriedly across the table between father and son. She hated the animosity she'd been seeing there for the past month.

It seemed that Vernon's comments about Harry Potter had finally made Dudley lose respect for his father. To be honest Petunia found her husband's constant offensive treatment of the boy just a tad irritating. Harry was her nephew and even though Petunia had managed to trick everyone into believing that she despised him, she did not. It was just the same with her sister Lily; she had pushed her away because she was afraid, not because she hated her. She hated the wizarding world and all who belonged to it, not because of an insane fear or prejudice, but because she felt that this world had torn her sister away from her, taken her to a place that Petunia could not possibly follow.

Petunia stared at her son, noticing the grim set of his mouth as he looked at his father and Petunia felt her heart break as she watched the disintegration of her new family. This was just like what had happened between Lily and her, one person changed a bit and the other couldn't take it, so they began to treat their one time friend with dislike. Only in this case it was happening between a father and a son. Petunia felt crushed to know that the same stupidity would rip her from the people she loved most twice.

All this while, Dudley continued to hold his father's gaze coolly. Vernon's eyes may have been full of anger, but Dudley's were not. He looked grim and somehow blank as he looked back at the man who had raised him. He truly did feel sorry for the situation between his father and himself, he saw what it did to his mother, but there was really nothing he could do. Vernon had chosen for it to be this way after Dudley had proclaimed that he 'liked wizards and witches' Vernon had uttered scarcely a word to him, it was like he had disowned his son.

Dudley did not take well to being ignored so he responded in anger of his own, but he always concealed that portraying a blank cool façade to his father. The staring competition continued and was only ended by Hestia's appearance in the room.

Dudley snapped his head around to greet her and in the same instant Vernon's eyes flashed downwards to focus on his plate. Dudley was glad that the tension had finally been broken, but Hestia looked wild and he could tell that something was up. "We need to go now!" she cried, clearly in a state of alarm.

"What's happening?" Dudley and Elphias asked at once.

"Just, no time, we have to go now, side along apparition is the only way. So sorry," Hestia was so scared she was speaking in disjointed sentences that made little to no sense, particularly given the frenzied manner in which she was spewing them out. However Hestia was not going to waste anymore time, "You know where to," she told Elphias and then grabbed both Dudley and Vernon by the arms and disapparated.

Dudley felt his insides squirm as he experienced the odd sensation of your body slowly fading away into nothing and reappearing in another place. Dudley examined his surroundings as soon as he had the squirming in his stomach under control. He appeared to be standing on a hill and there was a sign to the left that informed him that he was on the top of the Stoatshead Hill.

"What's happening?" he asked Hestia.

"Yes, what's going on?" Vernon looked slightly green in the face as opposed to his usual ruddy complexion, and he spoke with an angry vicious tone. It was as though each of his word was a bark, Dudley wondered why exactly his father hated wizards so much because if you thought about it didn't make much sense. Sure there was a fear of the unknown, but that could only last you so long. Dudley knew that Vernon was quite well acquainted with the magical world now, it was no longer unknown and there was no need to be afraid.

Hestia snapped, she was not known for her patience and she had put up with Vernon Dursley's irritating tone of voice for long enough, "Walk," she commanded pushing each of them forward, "I'll explain as we go," she added quickly as she took note of Vernon's mutinous look.

"What happened was, I just saved you again Dursley," her tone was acerbic; she had learnt to be always sharp with Vernon. "Yaxley, Garrow and only god knows how many others had gathered outside the motel. They'd cut through most of Elphias' enchantments and neither of us is fit enough to fight another lot of Death Eaters after last night. I don't know why so many Death Eaters are intent on killing you, but they are, so I'm taking you to the safest of the safe houses. The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Elphias and Petunia should be along in a bit," and true to her words a faint popping noise behind them alerted Dudley to the presence of his mother and Elphias standing on the crest of the Stoatshead Hill.

"So," Hestia concluded, "Move quickly if you want to move into the safety zone and avoid getting caught out in the open by Death Eaters and I'm sorry about the side-along apparation Mr. Dursley. I know I promised that we'd never make you disappear, but it was an emergency, that or your lives." Hestia was right of course and Dudley thanked her for making the right decision, but his father continued to glower at the ground, his moustache quivering in anger.

They continued to march forward at a slower pace though, so as to allow Elphias and Petunia to catch up. Once they were caught up though, Hestia took the lead and redoubled the pace. They had to go fast or the Death Eaters may catch them before they were in the protective bubble that surrounded every safe house and was known as the safety zone.

"We're close now," Elphias squeaked upon reaching the bottom of the hill, he was attempting to reassure Vernon and Petunia, both of whom were puffed already. That was when they heard it the faint, muffled pops that told them the Death Eaters were following.

"Run!" Hestia yelled and the Dursleys lurched into motion fear scrawled across all of their features. They had only physically been in the presence of the Death Eaters once and the jeering, laughing sneers of the masked men, as they shot spell after spell at the defenceless Muggles, had been enough to scare them all out of their wits.

Hestia stayed behind casting some protective spells to slow the Death Eaters down and Elphias continued to lead the Dursleys towards the safe house wherever it may be. "How did they know that we'd come here?" Dudley panted at Elphias as he ran.

The wizard seemed very short of breath but he managed speak, "There are twelve safe houses; the Death Eaters know the rough location of all of them. They must have just sent as many people as they could to all of them," he wheezed. Dudley did not ask more because he knew that the wizard needed to focus all his energy on running, but he wondered to himself how these Death Eaters had managed to evade the aurors and the Order for the past five days.

Dudley tried to separate his mind from his body as he ran. He may have lost weight, but he was still not physically fit enough for this, his relatively unused calf muscles were aching under the strain of this run. Even in his wrestling days Dudley had not gained a high enough level of physical fitness for long runs like this one and separating his mind helped his body to run without shutting down.

They continued like this for quite a while, feet beating out a frenetic rhythm upon the ground. None of them dared to slow down, not even for an instant, and then just when Dudley thought he could take it no more, Elphias threw out an arm to stop them.

"We're….inside…the boundary…now. Should be fine," Elphias gasped clutching a stitch in his side. The entire group stopped and collapsed to the ground hiding behind a tree. Dudley felt his mind and body reconnect and the pain in his joints nearly overpowered him. No-one was faring much better, Petunia was rubbing her leg gingerly and Vernon was softly moaning in pain.

Dudley's mind didn't linger on his pain for long, he was too busy being worried about Hestia. He had developed a close friendship with her over the preceding months, she was almost like an older sister to him. The thought that she may have been slowed down enough to have been cornered by the Death Eaters was a horrible one, particulaly since she had only slowed to help protect them.

Dudley felt a hole of anticipation well up inside of him as they sheltered under the tree and waited for Hestia. At length they heard voices just outside the border, there was a scuffle and then someone crossed over. It had to be Hestia; Dudley did not think that Death Eaters could pass into these protective zones.

"Elphias? Dudley?" called an all too familiar voice and relief swept through the small group of people sheltered beneath the trees. Even Vernon was glad to see Hestia again, for without her their guard would be shortened by one, placing the family in graver danger.

They waved Hestia over and set off once more towards their destination. It took them only a few minutes of walking at a slow pace to arrive at it. Dudley looked at the crooked house, it seemed to tilt to one side as though almost about to fall over. The peeling paint on an old, hand-painted sign informed him that he had arrived at The Burrow.

Dudley heard his father snort at the sight of the house, it clearly wasn't up to his standards. His mother just looked plain scared at the dirty state of the yard, which sprawled messily about the house. For his part Dudley felt nothing but a strange sense of safety at the sight of a building that must surely be in constant danger of toppling over.