"MOOoooooOOOM!" Dudley's voice called with a crack at the end. "I don't wanna mess with his stupid magic stuff!" The boy said in protest, all according to he and Potter's plan.
Petunia scowled lightly but sighed and pinched his cheek. "I'll let you have ice cream for lunch, my sweet baby duddy-kins."
The boy pretended to mull this over for a moment before he looked towards his mother with conviction. "And a slice of cake?"
"Oh don't be silly, we don't have any cake." Petunia said with a pat to his head.
Dudley crossed his arms and turned his head. "Then the freak's owl can starve. If I'm expected to possibly get creepy stuff stink all over me, then the reward has to be worth it." His stubborn demeanor took hold as he started towards the stairs.
Petunia glanced to the cupboard and rolled the idea of getting covered with smelly wizarding stuff in her own head. "I suppose I could always go buy a cake from the store..." She muttered.
"Okay then." Dudley said with a nod as he wandered back to her and held out his hand.
The woman sighed once more then dug around her pocket and handed him a key. "Remember- outside! If it gets all over you, you can take a nice bubble bath." She told him as she slipped her shoes on. "I'll be back in 20 minutes."
Dudley unlocked the door to the cupboard and began to drag the trunk out as Petunia waved goodbye to him. He pulled the trunk outside to the back yard, where Harry was mowing the lawn, and sat it down. Harry turned off the lawnmower and looked at him somewhat confused.
Dudley smirked. "I'm getting ice cream, cake, and she's out of the house for 20 minutes, so she said, but she always chats with the lady behind the counter, so it'll probably be 40 minutes. You owe me." He said as he lifted open the lid.
The young wizard ran over to the trunk and scoured through it. He pulled out his notes, his wand, and his owl food. On top of that he pulled out the stink pellets and handed them to Dudley. "Take it for pranks- keep it hidden. PLEASE don't use them at home, or I'll get blamed." He pleaded.
"And your unbreaking oath vow thing?" Dudley asked as he tapped his foot and crossed his arms.
Nervousness set in to Harry's features as he fiddled with his wand in his hand. "Oh that... Well, okay listen. I never actually did it before, I've only read about it in a book. I think I remember well enough to do one, though. I know you stick out your hand like you're shaking hands, then you cast the spell, and some string or something ties your hands together, then you each say your part of the deal, and you dispell it. Problem is, it requires a third party, a 'bonder' or something. So if we're gonna do this, we need to find another witch or wizard."
"Ugh more of you!" Dudley groaned as he closed the trunk and started to pull it back inside. "Alright, no funny business or I'll beat the crap out of you. I'm putting this back."
Harry sighed and crinkled his nose, but he agreed. Soon the roar of the lawnmower started again and Dudley had disappeared inside the house with the trunk. Minutes passed until he was outside again, and this time he waved to get Harry's attention. "I had an idea." Dudley said as his cousin turned off the mower once more. "You were gonna help me with stuff anyway, and frankly I don't wanna invite some random creep over to the house while mum's out. So how about you just help me with something now?"
Harry frowned and looked to the boy, unsure. "What do you want help with?"
"Make me handsome!" Dudley said as he stood tall with his chest puffed out.
The discontent on the young wizard deepened. "Er, you'd need a potion to do that, and I don't have the supplies or the ride to make the potion. Try something else."
A bird chirped off in the distance as Dudley thought about it. "Alright then, make me rich! Magic me 20,000 pounds!"
Harry slapped his own forehead with his hand. "It doesn't work that way, you can't just create legal currency, you'd have to steal it from somebody, and I'm not really in the mood to get sent to JUVIE! Something else." He said with a groan.
Dudley rolled his eyes. "Of course, it's gonna be like this for everything, isn't it? A reason why you can't do this, can't do that. Fine! Let me hold your wand."
Harry tensed as he clutched his wand tightly to his chest. "I... I guess so?" He said uneasily as he held out the wand to Dudley. "Be careful with it! Don't break it... they're 11 galleons a piece and I don't wanna have to figure out how to replace it on the first day of school next year."
"Yeah, yeah." Dudley muttered as he snatched the wand away. He held it in his hand and his brows furrowed. The boy switched to another hand then shook his right hand. "Tingly." He muttered.
For a moment Harry blinked. "What?"
With a shrug Dudley put the wand back into his right hand and began to wave it around. ZAP! A bolt of yellow light shot from the wand and blasted a scorch mark on the side of the house. "Woaah cool!" Dudley said with a wild grin.
Harry looked positively mortified. "GIVE IT BACK!" He yelled as he ran for the wand to snatch it away. "You're not supposed to be able to do that!" Harry winced as he thought of 100 different ways to get out of this mess, all leading back to disaster.
"Why not?!" Dudley demanded as he fought his cousin for the small wooden stick. "You do it."
"You're not a wizard! Muggles don't have magic!" Harry said as he reached up and grabbed the wand from his cousin. He panted and ran back to the scorch mark. "Oh no, oh no, they're gonna kill me. Scourgify!" He said, and soon a cleaning spell washed away the soot.
For a moment things were quiet as Harry examined what remained of the scorch mark on the side of the house. Dudley tilted his head to the side. "Did you call me a muggle?"
"Non-magical person is what it stands for. It literally means a person without magic." Harry glared back to Dudley. "You're a muggle, aunt Petunia's a muggle, uncle Vernon's a muggle. You shouldn't have been able to do anything with my wand... unless you're not a muggle and you're actually a wizard."
Silence. Both parties stood and stared at one another, then, from nowhere, Dudley shrieked. "AHHHHHH!" He ran back into the house at full speed. "Mum's gonna kill me! I'm a freak!" He screamed as he ran into his room and slammed the door behind him.
Harry shook his head at the spectacle and winced. He looked back out to the lawn that was still half mowed. This, he decided, was more important than some grass. The boy racked his brain in every way possible that he could think of to try to figure something out about this. He didn't know how to call anybody, he didn't know how to get hold of anybody, he didn't know of any floo networks nearby, and outside of stealing Vernon's car in the dead of night and stowing away to King's Cross Station, he didn't know how to get back to the wizarding world on his own from here. He truly was out of luck.
HONK! HONK! An obnoxiously loud car horn came from the front yard. Both boys had come out of their room to see what the commotion was, and they'd met outside standing beneath a massive triple decker bus. "We got your call, where do you need to go?"
Harry blinked at the man and shook his head. "I'm sorry you must be mistaken. Nobody called anybody."
A young man stepped out from the bus in a uniform. "Don't be silly. When a wizard waves his wand about in the air and calls, or thinks, for a way to go somewhere, we respond. Where do you need to go?"
Dudley looked at the man and his jaw dropped. "Oh my god this is a magic thing."
The young man raised an eyebrow then looked back to Harry. "Your friend's not very bright, is he?" He asked. "Look here, either you're coming, or you're not. Make up your minds, we can't hang around all day- places to go."
"We're coming!" Harry said at the same time that Dudley had said, "We're not!"
The two glared at one another. Harry held his wand up to Dudley. "Shush." He looked back to the bus attendant. "Actually, we're not coming."
"I literally just said that!" Dudley stated indignantly.
Harry ignored him. "I need you to go find Dumble- no, Hermione Granger. Or-or better yet, Ron Weasley- NO Molly Weasley! I don't know! Not her either... I need someone who won't go off telling people and who knows about this sort of thing, who won't lie to me, and who knows a lot- I already said that... Who knows about magic! Wizards! How to tell if someone's magic or not!" He nodded as he tried to get his thoughts straight. "Please go find someone! We don't have but 10 minutes left before they can get here though... can you do this? Oh who am I kidding that's impossible."
The attendant looked up to the bus driver. "Hey Ernest! Can we get someone here who knows about how to tell if a kid's magic or not, who won't lie, and who won't tell other people, who isn't a Dumbledore, Granger, or a Weasley in ten minutes or less?"
"Of course we can Stanley!" A gruff voice answered from inside. "Get in, we haven't got all day!"
The attendant looked back to the boys and tipped his hat towards them. "Back momentarily."
With that the doors slammed shut and in the blink of an eye the bus was gone. Harry and Dudley stood wide-eyed for a few seconds, then looked to one another. Dudley frowned. "If I'm a wizard, how come I didn't get the letters like you did to get me to that freaky magic school?"
"Nobody gets letters like that." Harry told him with a wave of his hand.
"You did." Dudley reminded him.
Harry rubbed at his face with his hands. "That's because I'm special, okay? Someone really wanted me there. Dumbledore told me that normally Hogwarts only sends one acceptance letter, if they don't respond, they don't go."
Some mixture of envy and irritation crossed Dudley's face. "What makes you so special? I've got more friends."
"Shut up Dudley, I-"
The bus screeched back into place and for a moment it stood still. Harry and Dudley looked to the doors as a dark figure approached from the other side. The glass panes swung open, and a tall wizard with long black robes and a hood obscuring half their face greeted them. "Potter." A low baritone, almost monotonous voice acknowledged.
Harry felt every muscle in his body tense. "Oh no, not you..."