The ride to Buckingham Palace Road was one filled with sharp jabs from all sides. Dudley didn't bother minding Harry's personal space, and he showed it whenever he wanted to budge around even slightly. Needless to say, once every minute or so Harry would find himself pressed even further into his seat than before until he was practically one with it. Steven was swaying on the spot, and while he hadn't thrown up on the journey he looked dangerously close to doing so a few times. Even the ring seemed to be having its fun with him; whenever Dudley tried to adjust, the ring would pulse back with a sharp flare of heat, as though to provoke him into attacking his cousin. Thankfully, Dudley couldn't feel the intense warmth emanating from the smooth metal, though Harry was sure any leg hair he might have had was thoroughly singed off.

Rosier spoke animatedly with both of them, and while Harry didn't respond much and he spent more of his time simply staring out of Steven's window than not, he was smiling. Rosier told funny jokes, often at either Claff's or Steven's expense, and his warm grin found Harry amused more than once. Dudley, in contrast, talked all about his toys, his school, and his friends. Harry's mouth turned downwards when he remembered how he'd knocked Piers to the ground.

All the while, Claff was silent. Sometimes, Harry could catch him staring in the rearview mirror. He never looked away like the kids at school did when their eyes met. Instead, Claff's eyes only narrowed a bit. Harry turned his head every time.

After what felt like hours Claff pulled off to a different road. Harry stared out of Steven's window, the older man having finally fallen asleep with his head against the headrest. He'd only been to London once, and that was when Mrs. Figg had been ill and Uncle Vernon had a business convention to attend. He'd ordered everyone out of the house at once, even Harry, and holed them all up in a hotel room in Greater London. Harry had, of course, not been allowed out of the room for the entire trip.

But even at night, London was a sight to behold. Lights scattered around the city, seeming more like stars than anything else. Harry watched a group of cyclists ride past. The reflective tape on their wheels flashed pleasantly, and he brought up a finger to trace the wheels of orange-white light. He pulled his hand down when he noticed Dudley staring at him, but his cousin didn't do anything.

"Buckingham Palace Road," Claff announced eventually. Harry started; were they there already? It had only seemed like a few minutes since they'd entered London proper. "I'll be waiting for you two right here. Go to your friend's house, give them the book, and come right back, you hear?"

Harry nodded quickly, Dudley following at a more sedate pace. He winced when he pushed himself out of the car. Stevens hadn't woken up, but his leg had fallen asleep, and between the warm radiation of the ring and the pins in his thigh, he stumbled a few times.

"What happens now?" Dudley asked. Harry frowned. Claff had been kind enough to drive them all the way to London, true, but he was still expecting them back after a few minutes. If it took too long, he'd follow, and Harry was fairly sure that between running for his life twice in the day, doing whatever it was that had sent him careening into Dudley's prone form, and the late hour, he wouldn't be able to outrun the man.

"I need to get somewhere they can't follow," he muttered. He started moving towards an apartment a street away, his steps deliberate. Dudley followed a second later. "Somewhere high up, where I can get a good view of the palace."

"You're not trying to break into Buckingham Palace, are you?" Dudley asked, incredulous. Harry rolled the ring in his pocket before slipping his hand out. The crystals glowed softly in the night, barely visible under the luminance of a number of streetlamps.

"You wouldn't understand," Harry said after a moment. "This is something I have to do."

"You're going to get yourself killed," Dudley whispered furiously. Harry stepped away, noting how Dudley's hands were clenching into fists.

"And since when have you ever cared about that?" Harry snarled, stopping briefly. The fork he'd stolen jumped in his hands, laced with an azure aura. "You and Uncle Vernon take every opportunity to hit me or yell at me just because I'm not normal. Don't think I don't know—I know it was me that blew out the lights in gym class last years, I know it was me that turned Ms. Wilkins' wig blue. Aunt Petunia's only a little bit better."

"Don't you insult my parents, freak," Dudley sneered. "They're way better than you are."

"I don't know why I saved your life," Harry retorted, angling the fork high. He wasn't a fantastic thrower, but the balcony he was aiming for presented a near-perfect target. The blue glow suddenly strengthened around the fork. "I don't know why you're here, either. If you wanted to come to London you should have just asked Uncle Vernon. He'd take you in a heartbeat."

Harry lobbed the fork. It flew unnaturally straight, cutting through the air with velocity it shouldn't have been able to achieve. Harry only had a split-second to notice how the stone-grey exterior of the balcony, rimmed with columns and bricks, caught the blue light attractively before a hand clamped down on his shoulder and he vanished into nothingness.

He reappeared with his knees on the cold stone. Judging by the startled shout in his ear, Dudley had come along for the ride as well. "What the bloody hell was that?" he squeaked, voice shrill. Harry whapped him on the shoulder with an absent hiss to be quiet. Instead, he focused on the headlights that had just flashed on at the other end of the street. Claff's car started up, driving sluggishly down the road. Harry could see Rosier leaning out the passenger-side window, calling for him and Dudley.

"Harry, what the fuck—"

"Language!" Harry grunted. "And stop calling me by name, it's weird."

"Then answer me!" Dudley growled. His hand tightened on Harry's shoulder. Fire lit within Harry's chest, stronger than he'd ever felt from the ring. It burned bright and hot, so powerfully, straining to escape. Every inch of his body burned in tandem with the next, blue-white flame trickling through his veins, welling inside his marrow.

Harry clamped down on the feeling brutally. The fire still raged inside, but with a bit of self-control it turned inwards, compressing, collecting. He turned to Dudley, pulling his shoulder away. His cousin stared.

"Why are you here, Dudley?" Harry asked again. The flames began to elongate inside him, then outside him. A single line of energy, so bright it could compare to the flare of the ring, lay unmoving in his hand. A stream of glowing blue sparks shed from its edge, a fire that caught on the stone and created a flickering half-moon at his feet. "Hurry up and answer; this is making me tired."

"I don't know!" Dudley admitted finally. "I was going to go home but then there was something that told me to go with you, and I don't know why."

Harry scowled and dipped his free hand in his pocket. True to form, the diamond centred in the ring blazed with inner light. "Why do I have the feeling you had something to do with this?" he asked it sarcastically. The ring didn't change, though he couldn't tell if it was simply inert or the intensity of his light-lance was overpowering the temperature differences he'd begun to become used to.

"Well, if the ring wants you along, I won't say no," Harry grunted. "Just… be careful, okay? I don't know if you can use magic like I can, so keep hold of me when I say so."

"Don't tell me what to—"

Harry stuffed the ring back in its pocket and grabbed Dudley by the arm. "I don't have time for this!" he snapped, raising his hand. The light-lance glittered, though it was quickly overpowered by a streaming pair of headlights from below. Harry, against all better judgment, looked down.

Claff's eyes stared back at him, unnaturally bright. "Boy!" he roared. A few lights flicked on in response to his shout. "You get down here now!"

"Sorry, Claff," Harry murmured. He focused on the palace, trying to remember every detail he'd seen of it on the television. With a heavy grip on the still-struggling Dudley, he launched the lance.

It speared across the night, bringing a brief moment of day wherever it flew. Swaths of night parted before its passing and closed in its wake, though the moon and streetlamps still illuminated the streets evenly. Harry watched it cut through sheets of coalescing fog and—in the far edge of his abnormally bad vision—an actual bolt of cloth hung from a building. The beacon eventually came to a stop, embedded in a pillar in the near distance. He concentrated on that tenuous connection, the same feeling he'd experienced with the fork.

This time, raw light consumed him and Dudley instead of darkness. He was thankful Dudley had stayed quiet when they passed through the veil between the two balconies, because he was certainly close to shouting. Stabbing pain assaulted his eyes, even though he didn't have eyes, or ears, or anything for that matter.

Reality asserted itself once more, and Harry dove for cover just as a shadow passed by a window. He sighed in relief when he realized it was just Claff's car, moving past a light.

"Oh, Claff!" Harry groaned. "Dudley, you alright? We have to get somewhere safe before Claff worms his way in here!"

Dudley grunted, but he followed when Harry picked the window lock and slid it open. The thing was damn hard to manage, and it took him nearly two tense minutes with more than a dozen spare paperclips inserted into the book, but eventually they rolled onto the floor of Buckingham Palace's second level.

"Aren't there patrols?" Dudley asked. "Dad told me about them—apparently they do it all the time in Buckingham Palace, and Windsor Castle too. Something about this place being a 'monumental historical landmark' or something like that."

"If there are, they won't find us," Harry promised. He glanced around and pressed his back against the wall. "Dudley, grab on to me again. I don't know if this'll work on you, but I can try."

"You're weird, Potter," Dudley said. Still, he placed a considerably gentler hand on Harry's shoulder, and Harry focused back to the crystals in his hand. Just like before, shards of glassy crystal flew away from his body, starting at his fingertips and rapidly encroaching up his arms. Dudley let out a hiss that Harry just barely managed to quiet.

"At least it works with you too," Harry breathed. Then again, could he do it on anyone? His fingers came up, intent on caressing the nearest loose object—a picture framed carved from a beautifully rich wood—but he brought them away at the last second. "Dudley, you can still hear me, yeah?"

"Yeah," Dudley muttered somewhere to his right. "Blimey, this is odd. I can't see me, but I can feel me, y'know? Like where my arms and legs are and stuff."

"You'll get used to it," Harry lied. He certainly hadn't, though it hadn't even been a day. "Just try and stick close to me. You'll probably be able to hear my footsteps."

Harry set off, and after a few moments he heard the gentle thumps of Dudley's feet against the carpet. They traveled in silence, Harry looking for anything that might be a lead to the queen. They must have passed dozens of rooms, each one ornately decorated and undoubtedly regal, before Dudley spoke up again. "What are we looking for, anyway?" he asked.

"The Queen, who else?" Harry shot back. Honestly, did Dudley ever think? Who else would be in Buckingham Palace?

"Wha—you never told me we were going to see the Queen!" Dudley shouted. Harry made a shushing motion, then palmed his face and softly shushed. "Damn it, Potter, if I'd known you were going to do something stupid…"

"It's not stupid," Harry said, fighting to keep the rising anger down. The ring warmed considerably in his pocket. He flicked at it, and it sullenly cooled again. "It's something that I have to do."

"Then why?"

"I can't tell you that!" Harry cried softly. Even without being able to see him, he knew Dudley was glaring at him and crossing his arms. It was the same thing he often did on his birthday, when there wasn't something he really wanted under the tree and Uncle Vernon had to go out and try to find one for him.

"You're going to tell me," Dudley's voice echoed matter-of-factly, "or I'll start making noise. And I won't stop until they catch both of us."

"Dudley, you prat!" Harry blindly swung, and was only partially disappointed when his fist met empty air. "Fine, we'll talk, but can we please make it quick? I have places to be, and Uncle Vernon will have a fit if we're not back at the house by the time he wakes up." If he hadn't woken up already. Dudley's initial crowing had been enough to rouse the whole neighborhood.

"Don't act like you're important, Potter," Dudley said. "You're not."

"Just follow me into that room up ahead." Harry moved quickly and silently, wincing every time Dudley's heavy footfalls padded against the carpet. He opened the door, thankful that its hinges were oiled and well-used. An unused tea set lay inside, obviously forgotten from the layer of dust covering the pot. He sank into one of the chairs.

"It's weird, not being able to see you," Dudley said after a moment. "Can you take this stuff off?"

Harry frowned and allowed the magic to dissipate. It was more instinctual at this point than anything else, just like breathing. The pattern that the magic made through the crystals embedded in his skin flickered across his body and shattered into chunks of crystal that eroded to dust not a moment after.

Dudley's, however, was considerably harder to dispel.

Harry tried for a full five minutes, growing more and more agitated with each attempt, before he finally sagged. "I don't know if I can," he admitted. "It's easy to do it to me, but you're really hard to work with. It's like the magic its trying really hard to cling to you or something. I think you need to want to cancel it yourself for it to work."

"I don't have magic, though," Dudley said. He paused. "Wait, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. You don't have magic either! Only cool people like the Great Humberto can use magic."

"I can leave you invisible," Harry grunted petulantly. "I'll leave you invisible and leave you in here and run away."

Dudley whined. A gust of dust blasted past Harry's face, and suddenly his cousin was visible again, if a little perturbed. Harry could see a bit of redness in his eyes; genuine irritation, not the crocodile tears he spilled whenever he wanted something and Aunt Petunia was in a loving mood.

"I did it," he breathed after a minute. "I actually did it."

"Congratulations," Harry muttered. "Now can we actually talk so I can go see the Queen?" Seeing Dudley raise a hand, he raised his own warily. "And if you try and hit me, I'll use one of those light things that I did earlier."

He wouldn't, but Dudley didn't need to know that. The invisibility hadn't taken much out of him, but the teleporting thing with the fork had left his muscles feeling sore and shaky. Doing it three times, not to mention making that light-lance, deposited a bone-deep chill that he hadn't even noticed until the raging flames emanating from his center had died down. Even then, he could feel a bright ember, little more than a few sparks but steadily building.

"Why do you want to talk to the Queen?" Dudley asked.

"It's a long story," Harry began, but on seeing Dudley's dangerous look, he quickly amended, "but I guess I can say it all now. So when Aunt Petunia woke me up a week ago, I had all my hair back from when she shaved it."

Harry told his story quickly, though it still transpired for more than ten minutes before he finally got to Claff. Once his throat was sore and he was breathing a bit more heavily than usual, he pulled the ring from his pocket. Dudley reached towards it, but it gave off a pulse of searing heat in warning. Harry didn't even flinch, though he was sure his skin would still be red in the morning.

"That's the ring, then?" Dudley probed. "The one I tried to take from you?" Harry nodded warily. The book was still safely stowed in the crook of his elbow, but if the ring suddenly decided to change his mind, he doubted he could overpower Dudley. "It looks cool. Cooler than it did before, with the shiny stone."

"Yeah, it does," Harry said after a moment. He almost immediately wanted to hit himself, if only on principle. Agreeing with his cousin? What was the world coming to?

"But why did that guy—Noct, you said his name was—why did he want you to bring that to the Queen of all people?" Dudley's feet scuffed against the ornate rug beneath their feet, a pair of gentle grooves left in their wake. "She's married, you know? Not that easy on the eyes anymore, either."

Harry had to stifle a snort. "No, it was something about continuing the line of Lucis, or something. See, I think his kingdom was a magical one from another planet or something, and when he finally beat the empire he was fighting he came here since everything was destroyed."

"So he didn't want to be king, but he wanted to keep his kingdom going," Dudley surmised. "And eh couldn't do it in his old one since it was blown up by that Niffy-something empire, so he decided to start a new one here. That still doesn't make sense, though. Why not just do it himself?"

"I dunno," Harry said. He reached for the tea tray before remembering it was empty. The light-lance had left him cold and aching, but more than anything he was thirsty. The only water he'd had all day was a small glass in the morning and at midnight each, and with all the running he did he'd probably burned through that and yesterday's intake as well.

"Didn't want to be king, but he stepped up anyway," Dudley muttered. He stood, shaking his legs out. "Other than the freaky magic thing, that Noct guy sounds pretty wicked. Wonder if he'll ever show up again?"

"Dudley," Harry began, a thought blossoming in the forefront of his thoughts. "Why did you follow me here?"

Dudley scoffed, but even the socially-inept Harry could see the traces of doubt in his eyes. "I already told you, I—"

"You were lying," Harry accused. Dudley hadn't been making much sense during the trip, and what he did talk about pointedly avoided any thoughts of Harry Hunting and the like. Dudley was being unnervingly nice. "You're freaking me out, Dudley. You'd never want to come to London with me anyway, not when Uncle Vernon would take a day trip and buy you anything you wanted."

"Fine!" Dudley snapped. Harry leaned back warily; the thunderous expression on his face, complete with wrinkled forehead and confused grimace, seemed completely at odds with how relaxed his hands were. "I did it because I wanted to say sorry, okay?"

"Sorry?" Harry breathed. "What for?"

"For everything," Dudley stressed, waving his mostly-limp arms about. Harry couldn't see much of it in the faint light cast by the ring and his hand, but he had a brief imagining of Dudley trying to make finger puppers. "For nearly getting you hit by Claff's car and trying to bash your head in with a frying pan!"

"That's all well," Harry said dumbly, "but what exactly brought this on? You weren't very sorry when we were in the car."

Harry could have been imagining it, but he thought for a moment that Dudley's ears had turned red. His hand twitched, and the spotlight that had been on his cousin's face vanished, but the embarrassed tone remained. "A lot," Dudley admitted, his voice cracking harshly. "Gordon's cousin came over from Kent a few days ago, and there wasn't anything freaky about him. I asked why, and Gordon and Piers just gave me this weird look. Got me wondering why mum and dad don't like you."

"It's because of this, lummox," Harry grunted, holding up a hand. The crystals extruding from his veins throbbed with their inner light. He idly scraped off a bit of dried blood from the sharpest of the crystals, a spine that ran all the way from his wrist to the second knuckle of his ring finger.

"It's gotta be," Dudley agreed. "But they don't have any problems with the Great Humberto or that drama on the telly about wizards. They grumble a bit, yeah, but it's all you. And…" Dudley scratched the back of his head. "Looking back on it, you didn't seem to be doing anything wrong."

As much as he wanted to ignore Dudley and turn his attention back on the ring, Harry couldn't help but feel a bit of a chill run through his spine. Dudley had never, ever been on his side. He went out of his way to put Harry at odds with everything he did, and Harry always got the blame for anything bad that Dudley did. So why the sudden change of heart? It couldn't be that Dudley was a genuinely good person. Could it?

"Dudley," Harry began warily.

"Well that's a touching story, truly, but can one of you explain what you're doing in my home?"

Harry winced and turned, fighting the urge to go invisible on the spot. Standing in the doorframe, short but stately and immense in presence, was an aging woman in a tartan nightgown disturbingly similar to Aunt Petunia's. Harry tried to find a word to describe the situation.

"Bugger."