December, 1991

The Dursleys collected Harry from Kings Cross Station right on time, glaring suspiciously at other families receiving any odd looking students, who came onto the platform almost out of nowhere. Harry waved goodbye to Hermione as she joined her parents.

"I imagine they're that type of people," said Uncle Vernon disparagingly.

"No, just Hermione. Her parents are both dentists – quite ordinary," reassured Harry. "She's a good friend."

"Must've been a shock for them," said Uncle Vernon.

"I don't know. I guess so."

Dudley seemed pleased to see him. "Hi Harry."

"Dudley. How've you been? How's Smeltings?"

"I'm fine. It's alright, I guess. I don't like some of the teachers."

"Yeah, I have a couple of rubbish teachers too," sympathised Harry. "One of them took points off my House in my second week for me 'breathing too loudly'. Can you believe it?"

They swapped stories on the long drive home, mostly Harry listening to Dudley complain about unfair grading and too much homework. He had to be careful to leave out all references to magic in his own stories, which made it difficult to tell his own tales. They were both surprised to hear about the level of supervision their respective schools had (which Harry thought would be a safe Dursley-approved topic of conversation). Smeltings had house masters and mistresses, tutors, house meetings, supervised outings, and a wide range of organised extra-curricular activities. Whereas Hogwarts only had a Head of House who didn't even take roll in the mornings or check people were in bed by curfew, no house meetings, no clubs except for Gobstones, and only one sport that a limited number of people could join in. Harry was of two minds about the prefects - most didn't seem to do anything much except take points occasionally for misbehaviour, but Percy was always happy to chat about classes and offer assistance if you approached him for help. Dudley said some of Smeltings' prefects helped with homework but weren't very good at it. They were better at stuff like organising parties in the common room and playing games, and there was a movie night next term that he was looking forward to. Uncle Vernon was happy to hear how much better Smeltings sounded, and Harry was happy that Uncle Vernon was happy (but he was a bit jealous of Dudley). Dudley was jealous in turn of the sound of Hogwarts' all-you-can-eat feasts – Smeltings had too much "rabbit food" for his tastes.

When they got home, Dudley helped Harry take his trunk upstairs (though Harry was the one who had to go up the stairs backwards, and take most of the weight). Once they reached the privacy of Harry's room, he got straight down to business.

"Look Harry, I need you to do study notes for me again. The tutors in my House help a bit, but they don't do things properly, like you or Mum did. They're totally rubbish at helping me with my homework, and won't write up study notes at all! So I guess maybe you can't do homework like you used to, but you really have to do those notes for me again."

"What? But I'm not even at your school – I don't know what you're studying. I couldn't do it."

"Sure you can - don't lie to me. I doubt Maths is that different from one school to another. Just do, you know, general Maths notes. And English. And they're making me learn French now. I hate French. Maybe some Geography and History too. The rest I can manage with on my own, if I have to," he said, with the air of one conferring a great favour.

"But Dudley, Hogwarts doesn't teach any of that, I swear. I can't do it. I won't."

That started a furious but relatively quiet argument (neither of them wanted Dudley's parents to come upstairs), including a punch to the gut and some threats of more bodily harm to Harry if he wouldn't recant his claims. Harry eventually decided there was only one way to convince Dudley he was telling the truth.

"Okay, look. I'll open up my trunk, and you can look through all my school books and stuff. But you have to swear not to tell your parents. You know they hate the m-word."

Dudley looked puzzled.

"Magic."

"Oh, right."

Harry piled all his books and notes on his bed for Dudley to look through. Dudley picked over Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them with fascination. "There's some crazy animals in this one! Cool! Dragons are real?!"

"Yup, though I haven't seen one yet. I saw a cerberus though. It's a giant dog with three heads. It could bite both your arms off with one nip. I saw a troll too."

"Wicked! Hey, the pictures are moving!"

Dudley flipped through the other Hogwarts textbooks and Harry's folders of notes more quickly, and with less interest. He found a couple of Harry's Stonewall textbooks eventually in the pile. Harry had packed them to read up on subjects he especially liked, in case Hogwarts really didn't cover them (which turned out to be sadly true).

"I found the texts, but where's the notes for Maths and Science and stuff?" Dudley concluded grouchily at the end of his rummaging. "There's way too many notes about weird magic potions, but where's your stupid colour coded notes for normal subjects? You love Maths, like the scrawny little swot of a nerd you are." He looked around the room, and spotted some labelled folders and a few textbooks on the bookshelf. "Hey, did you put them away already? How did you do that?"

"You've been watching me the whole time since I arrived, Dudley. I didn't. Those are my notes I started making for Stonewall back in August, in case I got to go somehow. I didn't bother taking them to Hogwarts, just a couple of the textbooks. The notes and rest of the textbooks, like for Spanish, have been here the whole time. Hogwarts doesn't teach normal subjects."

Dudley told Harry not to move, and went and fetched his Smeltings textbooks to see if any matched Harry's books. A couple of them did, but not all of them. Stonewall didn't teach Spanish (they did French instead), and the Science, History and English textbooks were different. Their Maths and Geography texts were the same.

"Well, that's two you can get started with," said a smugly satisfied Dudley. "Now how are you going to get you set up to do the rest, and send me notes?"

"Who says I have to do any of them?" taunted Harry.

"My fist says you have to," said Dudley, holding his clenched fist in front of Harry's face.

"Maybe," said Harry slyly, "but I'll be gone in two weeks, and you won't be able to touch me then, will you? I couldn't get much done in two weeks even if I wanted to. No, you're going to have to make a deal with me. A favour for a favour."

Dudley didn't like the sound of that. But after some more arguing, and a recess for retrieving some chocolate cake from downstairs (and a pear for Harry), they reached an agreement.

"So, you have to convince your mum that I don't have to do laundry or ironing or dusting any more, whenever I'm here. None of that. Just cooking and gardening. A bit of vacuuming if I absolutely have to. Tell her whatever you want. Tell her you don't want a girly cousin who does girl jobs, or that you're worried I'll hex your clothes," said Harry. "Or better yet - say you want me to come out with you and muck about so there's no time for it. I'll get out of your hair and go to the library as soon as we're out of sight."

"And then you'll send study notes for me for the terms until the start of the next holiday you're home," concluded Dudley. "By an owl. Which is so dumb."

"Look, I'll try and find out how wizards get mail to people through the normal postal system. I'll ask Neville or maybe Pansy."

"Pansy!" snickered Dudley.

"It's a girl's name! It's like Petunia, you cretin!"

Some tussling later and demands to take it back, Dudley was out of breath and tired of putting Harry back in his place, and Harry was called downstairs to help Aunt Petunia cook dinner.

Dudley started putting his side of the deal into action the very next day, insisting to his parents' initial bewilderment that he wanted Harry to come out with him and his friends instead of doing laundry all morning, and that his mum did his laundry better anyhow. Harry nodded at him in acknowledgement, which Dudley ignored with a puzzled look. That evening Harry got started on making a list of Dudley's most important textbooks to obtain copies of. He also began studying his maths textbook next morning at the library after peeling off from Dudley as soon as they were around the corner from the house.

Harry's presents he opened at dawn were the most interesting he received that Christmas. He unpacked from their hiding spots wrapped inside his robes in his trunk the gifts from friends at Hogwarts. Neville had bought him a book about medical potions, and Hermione gave him a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. He rather thought Hermione would've been more likely to give him the book, not the teeth-rotting sweets. Sometimes people surprised you.

From his cousin Pansy he got a vial of invisible ink and notes on the Revealing Charm (Aparecium) that let you read what you'd written once the ink dried and faded. Useful! Tracey got him a box of chocolate frogs – pity he was allergic. From Millicent there was a very soft green woollen scarf, and Daphne had bought him a new quill.

A couple of owls had arrived with more gifts, and were waiting on his windowsill when he woke. There was a large lumpy package from "the Weasley family", which held a thick, hand-knitted sweater in emerald green and a large box of home-made fudge. From Hagrid (of all people!) wrapped in layers of thick brown paper there was a roughly-carved wooden flute. Harry blew it – it sounded a bit like an owl. How odd.

The last owl-delivered present was the smallest, a very flat parcel with a note inside and a dark wooden photo frame. The framed photo was a wizarding one, an animated photo of a young teenage girl with dark red hair and green eyes, wearing a plain black robe as she stood in front of the Black Lake at Hogwarts. There must have been a strong breeze blowing when the photo was taken. She would smile for a while, then wind blew her long hair about crazily - plastering it across her face and making her laugh as she pushed it back. She grinned happily at him out of the photo, and gave a little wave. Harry had a wonderful suspicion as to who the girl in the photo was, as he thought he recognised her from the wizarding history textbooks he'd read, and the unsigned note enclosed in the parcel confirmed it.

I have been led to understand that you do not possess any mementos of your mother.
I enclose a photo of her as a young student when she was about your age, which I bequeath to you.
Your mother had an enchanting laugh, excelled at Potions, Charms, and Ancient Runes,
and was fiercely loyal to those she felt worthy of her esteem. She deserves to be remembered.

Harry cried for a while, after reading that. He hugged the photo frame to his chest as he sobbed. He couldn't do so for long though, as Vernon hammered on his door telling him that it was Christmas, and to stop lazing about and go and help Petunia in the kitchen.

Christmas day was a moderately delightful time with no visit from Aunt Marge that year. Harry got his usual parcel of second hand clothes (plus new underwear) from his aunt and uncle, some shoes that looked too big for him, and a gardening book about tending roses. Dudley had clearly quickly laid the charm on his mother, for there was a gift ostensibly from him - a stack of textbooks. There were textbooks for history, science and French, a French-English dictionary, and an anthology of classical poetry.

"Sweetums said he doesn't want Harry to miss out just because he's forced to go to a school that isn't as good as his. Wasn't that so thoughtful of him, Vernon?"

"He's a good lad," said Uncle Vernon, ruffling Dudley's hair affectionately. Harry sighed, and thanked Dudley with a smile. At least he wouldn't have to buy them himself. He might have to buy a long-distance owl though, if he was going to be sending stuff back and forth from Scotland to the South-East of England.

Though really… hah! Harry won twice over – free textbooks and study opportunities and less chores. He became even more happy with the situation the more he thought about it.