A/N: Written for the 19,000 Prompts, 500 Words, One Week Challenge by andthearrowflies on the HPFC Forum. Prompt: 'come what may'

Painfully Abnormal

It wasn't a conscious decision that found Harry returning to Surrey after the war. He'd told the others that he needed some time to himself - which was true - and had Apparated to the park near Privet Drive, whereupon he spent half an hour walking the five-minute stretch to number four, and another ten minutes just standing outside it.

He vaguely remembered hearing from someone in the Order that the Dursleys had moved back to Privet Drive in late May. Hermione had asked him tentatively what he was going to do about it, if anything, and he hadn't answered because he hadn't known. It was where he'd spent the majority of his life, and yet he felt no attachment to it. He'd thought he could go without visiting it ever again, but apparently something had drawn him back to the place he'd never wanted to call home. It had been a stifling, restricting household, one in which he'd been painfully abnormal among people whose greatest desire was to be normal. No, it wasn't nostalgia ... a sort of reckless, come-what-may attitude had brought him here, but it had gone as quickly as it had come, leaving him stranded.

'Harry!'

He started; he had not thought that anyone was home, and yet here was Dudley, standing on the front steps of number four and grinning broadly.

'Blimey, I thought it was you!' said Dudley, striding forwards and reaching out to shake Harry's hand. 'Are you OK? You've been standing outside for ten minutes. Did you get my letter, then?'

'I ... er ... yeah,' said Harry, taken aback. He had indeed received a letter addressed to 'Harry Potter', again courtesy of an Order member. He thought it was perhaps the strangest note he'd ever received, and that was including fanmail:

Harry,

We moved back into 4 Privet Drive a few months ago, with the help of some of the wizards who kept us in hiding and gave us a place to stay. Our old place had gone up for auction, but they managed to get it back for us - I won't ask how.

Look, I won't blame you if you never want to speak to me again, but I just wanted to say that anytime you might decide to drop by, you'll be welcome. Mum and Dad go out most Sunday afternoons, if you'd rather not meet them. I know it wasn't exactly the happiest place for you, but could you please just think about it?

Dudley

'... Harry?' Something that sounded oddly like concern was in Dudley's voice. 'Is - is anything wrong? Look, if this is about when we were kids, I -'

'Can I come in?' Harry asked, cutting Dudley off. Dudley did not hesitate.

'Sure,' he said easily, and led the way. The interior of the house was much the same as Harry remembered - he thought Aunt Petunia must have wanted to erase every thought of the war from memory. He couldn't help glancing at the cupboard under the stairs as they passed.

'You know,' said Dudley, once they were seated at the table, with steaming cups of tea between them (Harry was irresistibly reminded of the one he'd stepped on a year ago), 'I wasn't expecting you to come back.'

'You know what?' said Harry. 'Me neither.' Dudley's attitude was nothing short of bizzare - Harry could not understand why he looked so pleased to see him. Wasn't it Harry who had forced them to go into hiding, after all?

'Where're you staying now?' asked Dudley, as if he had read Harry's mind.

'My godfather's old place. It's in London.'

'And did you ... lose anyone in the war?'

Harry's head snapped up. 'Why do you care?' he burst out.

'I just - look, you don't know how it was,' Dudley said desperately. 'They took us to a safe house, and we were staying with other kids. Most of them had non-magic parents, I dunno what you call that -'

'Muggle-borns.'

'Yeah. But whenever the others came in with information, they always told the others, never us. Dad told them to piss off whenever they tried. Mum - well, she acted like she didn't care, but I heard her asking after you once, when she thought I wasn't listening. They were kind of surprised, I guess. Seemed to think she wouldn't bother.' He looked at Harry closely.

'I never really said anything,' Harry answered with difficulty. 'Dumbledore - the wizard who came here two years ago - knew some of it, I dunno how. But it wasn't exactly a secret, either. Loads of people at Hogwarts knew we didn't get along, even if they didn't know the whole story. Stuff like that always gets out ...'

'When you're famous?'

'Yeah.'

'What about you?' Harry asked.

'What about me?'

'What did you do while you were in hiding?'

'I dunno how I found out, but I did,' said Dudley. 'They said you were on the run from - well, they wouldn't say his name -'

'Voldemort.'

'Yeah, him. There was this undercover radio station they kept listening to, with secret passwords and all that. I remember it was named after you. One time, we heard rumours that you'd been captured, but you must have got away somehow. They kept dashing in and out of the place one night in May, it was mad. And then we got the news - that the war was over because you'd let yourself be killed, then came back to life and defeated the evil bloke.' He glanced at Harry's face and faltered. 'That - that is right, isn't it?'

'Er ...' It felt strange to smile, and yet Harry could not seem to stop. 'Close enough.' He didn't think he'd ever heard Dudley say so much to him without finishing it with an insult or a threat.

'You are OK, right?' Dudley pressed.

Harry nodded, taking a long draught of his tea.

Dudley looked uncomfortable. 'I know we weren't friends, but d'you think we could try? I just want to say ... I heard a lot about you while we were in that place. About that secret chamber, and the school tournament ...' He swallowed. 'And I found out who that Cedric bloke was.'

Harry wanted to say coolly, 'Did you, now?' - but he couldn't do it. He knew what it had been like for Dudley to find out that a person he had lived with for years had horrors in his past that were kept secret from him, not out of shame, but because it was a deeply personal issue. He'd experienced the same thing with Neville Longbottom. But he himself had never made fun of Neville or put him on the spot concerning his parents. He could only imagine how much worse Dudley must feel.

'It's OK,' he said sincerely. 'I know what you mean.'

'Do you?' Dudley became visibly more relaxed. 'Listen, I'm sorry for all the stuff I did when we were kids. I was an idiot and a prat and -' They were words that Harry had often dreamed of making Dudley say, yet he gained no satisfaction from hearing them.

'It's fine,' he found himself saying - and then, when Dudley did not look convinced, added, 'Really.'

They talked for several hours - one of the first civil conversations they'd ever had, stopping only when Harry glanced at the clock above the kitchen window.

'I've got to go,' he said, almost regretfully. 'My girlfriend's coming to dinner tonight, and I -'

'You have a girlfriend?'

'Er ... yeah.' Harry suddenly realised how little he really knew about Dudley. It was possible to live with someone for nearly all your childhood and most of your life and never get to know them, he thought. 'Her name's Ginny.'

'Wait!' cried Dudley, jumping up and following Harry to the door. 'This was really cool - can we do it again? Next week, maybe? Mum and Dad'll be here on Saturday if ...'

'Yeah,' said Harry. 'I'll keep in touch. See you later, Big D.' And he turned on the spot and Disapparated, enjoying the impressed look on Dudley's face as Harry vanished from sight.

A/N: The sequel to this story is Bare Bones (published separately).