Dudley/Slughorn for Anonymous

)O(

No one had come to Horace Slughorn's door in years.

There had been a time when he had been inundated with near-constant visitors, and when rarely a day had gone by when he did not receive a visitor, or at least a letter or package. Even when he was constantly moving from house to house, things had still managed to find him. And that was how he liked it.

But now, it was a shock to hear someone ring the bell.

He had been lounging in an armchair and reading through a scrapbook of his favourite students, and at first, he thought he must have imagined the sound - he was getting old, after all. But then it rang again.

He stumbled to his feet and hurried to look through the peephole.

There was a young man on the doorstep. He was rather porky, and his cheeks were pink and his hair blonde, and he had a nervous, slightly defensive look about him. Horace opened the door just as he reached up to ring the bell again.

"Who are you?" Horace blurted out, quite by accident, so shocked was he to see this stranger on his doorstep. The boy adopted a somewhat forced smile.

"My name's Dudley Dursley," he said. "And I'm looking for Harry Potter."

Horace blinked at him. "I… beg your pardon?"

"My name's Dudley Dursley, and I'm looking for Harry Potter," repeated Dudley Dursley, more loudly this time. "Are you Horace Slughorn?"

"I… how did you get this address?"

"Mrs. Figg told me to look you up," he said, then added, when Horace looked stymied, "Arabella Figg. She's my neighbour. Or, she was. She told me that if I wanted to find Harry Potter, I ought to ask you."

"Are… were you a student of mine at Hogwarts?"

"No," Dudley said rather sullenly. "I'm a… not a Wizard."

"A Muggle."

"Yeah, that's it."

"Then, if I may ask, what are you looking for Harry Potter for?"

Dudley sighed a long-suffering sigh. "He's my cousin. I haven't seen him in ages. Was wondering how he was."

"Well, young man, I'm afraid that I really didn't know him too terribly well, so I'm not really–" Horace began, but Dudley cut him off.

"I was told that you were the person to come to if I was looking for someone," he said. "I was told you have more connections than any other Wizard."

Horace blinked at him, then, slowly, a smile formed on his lips.

"Well, in that case, come in," he said. "I'll see what I can do to help."