Chapter 3:

Dudley's Nightmares

Dudley awoke in a cold sweat. It was an experience he was growing uncomfortably accustomed to. It was only thanks to his foresight in purchasing a new mouth piece to sleep with that he didn't wake up screaming anymore.

Every night when he finally fell asleep it was to find himself in that cold, dark place where all the joy in the world faded away. Just as on that terrible night when his cousin saved his very soul, he constantly came face to face with the person he was. The fat, selfish and cruel little boy who wanted everything, despite also having it. The hooded, scabrous shade hanging over him and chilling him to his bones.

Every night he fought with the dementor, and every night he lost. Except on nights where he didn't. Those were worse and today had both of such dreams.

He dreamed of a dead earth covered in the scars of nuclear and magical war. Mutated lycanthropes, from werewolves to weregiraffes and everything in between, ravaged what little wilderness remained under what little sunlight pierced the constant overcast. That htey were mucking about during the day was what made the dream so weird.

He got up out of bed and walked over to his desk. As always, it was covered in the many books he had taken from Privet Drive that once belonged to Harry. He had thrown them out days before the evacuation, but Dudley had saved them. He wanted to know. He needed to know the threats his cousin was facing, as he was certain he himself would face them as well in time.

He grabbed "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" along with the stacks of "Defense Against the Dark Arts" grades one through six to rifle through the glossaries. These were the only ones that detailed magical creatures that he could read, and sometimes wizards too. There was also the sentient book wrapped in one of his old belts, but he couldn't get that one open safely.

There were plenty of mentions of were-wolves, but not were-anything-else. Same for Veela, these weird fiery bird babes he had dreamed about a few days back but had never heard of. According to these books they did not exist. Or at least they didn't warrant mentioning.

His brain really was just making stuff up at this point.

"I need to take a break from reading these." He groaned as he rubbed his face tiredly.

What he wouldn't give for a dream recorder. Maybe wizards had something of the sort?

He shook his head and made to the bathroom where he spat out the mouth peace and brushed away the gunk from his teeth. A quick cold rinse in the shower and he was ready for his morning jog.

Six laps around the block later and he took another cold rinse, this time using soap and shampoo, and returned to his desk where he merely stared at his notebook. He didn't know why he was putting so much credence in these dreams. At first he thought it was just his overactive imagination being given ideas by his reading of magical books, but then he saw things like Veela and Titans and knew he didn't have the imagination to come up with things like that. He considered sharing his concerns with Diggle or Hestia, but even after all these months living with the pair, he couldn't bring himself to trust them.

Maybe he could broach the topic of myths and ask if some creatures existed or not. Like dragons and unicorns, then shift the conversation to asking about Titans and Veela, whatever those were. That could work.

But it would have to wait for later. He was meeting with Piers in ten minutes.

The doorbell announced his friend's arrival by the time Dudley had his gym clothes on.

He greeted him with an overly complex handshake and half hug.

"What's on the training regimen today, commander?!" Piers said with a mock solute as they got to the sidewalk.

Dudley gave him a half-hearted shove. When he explained to his friends that he believed a war was on the way and that he didn't have time to hang out anymore he couldn't very well tell them why he believed it. But Piers had stepped up to the plate and joined him in his self-imposed training regimen.

Malcolm had tried but could only make the trip up from London once or twice a week. Piers was the only one with a car, and offered to drive the others, but Dennis and Gordon couldn't be bothered to join them except on days he went to the shooting range with his father. They hadn't been particularly supportive of his boxing career either, save for pointing out how it could help them bully more money out of others.

That was water under the bridge now. It didn't matter anymore, because he still had Piers.

They went for an hour-long jog through the back roads, opting for back alleys and scenic views in place of the crowded streets. The suspicious and hateful glares of nosey old women was a terrible nuisance, especially since he didn't used to get them back when he and his gang honestly deserved them. Back before the dementors showed him things.

With their warmup finished they rested in a park for a time before putting on gloves and practicing boxing katas.

Piers actually had a real flare for the sport when he applied himself. He didn't have the power behind his punches Dudley had, and certainly couldn't take a punch as well, but damn it all if his friend wasn't fast as hell. He could land a good four body shots before Dudley could get one in.

They switched it up with wrestling when they got tired of cardio and here too his best friend excelled, especially since Dudley lost all that weight. He still had fifty pounds on Piers but his technique and maneuverability just weren't comparable. He would twist around every grapple and get Dudley into the most uncomfortable holds.

They broke for lunch after that, some chicken and veggie kebabs from a vendor, and walked for an hour to the gym. Weight training was the same boring affair as ever and by the time they finished another set of boxing and wrestling rounds it was getting dark.

Damn winter and it's shorter days!

"Dinner at your place or out again?" Piers asked as they made their way back to the safehouse, not that Piers knew it as such.

"Sorry man. I'm not allowed to have guests over anymore. And I'm eating in today." Dudley said.

It was true too. He played it off as his parents finally getting strict on him, a lie that he couldn't believe anyone bought, but it worked as a cover story. They'd all gotten so used to lying by now that it was almost second nature.

"Well, I'll go get some junk food then. You enjoy your healthy eating man." Piers said before they shared another complicated handshake and half hug. "We're on for next weekend, right?"

"Yup. I'll see you all then, my man."

"Later Big D."

"Later."

Something was wrong. Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

The safehouse lights were all on. That was his first clue. For one, he never left his own bedroom light on. For another, they had to conserve as much electricity as possible to survive on what little funds they had left until they could come out of hiding. Dinner was normally lit with magic. Yet all of the non-magical, electrical, lights were on.

His second clue was the lack of greeting from Hestia. She should have been on duty by now and she would always wait near the fence gate with a security question. She wasn't there.

The third clue came as a wave of magical euphoria flowed through his body and a mental command echoed in his skull.

"Go inside." The voice said. "Your mother needs your help stuffing a pig for dinner."

Yes. That sounded nice. They hadn't been able to afford any of the usual fare for Christmas, opting for Chinese. The idea of a making up for it with a late easter feast was a great idea. A honey roasted ham would be amazing.

"Yes." He heard his voice whisper. It sounded so distant. "I'd love to help."

Almost against his will his feet took him towards the front door, even as he waged an internal war against his captor. Dudley knew what this was. He'd read about it along with the other unforgivables. But how did the book say to break it?!

"Mum. Dad. I'm home." He heard himself say as he entered the threshold.

"In here sweety." He heard his mother's voice call from the dining room. It was dreamy, as if she were in a trance.

Damn. They had her under it too. What about his dad? Did they get him with the mind control magic?

His answer came with the sight of his father, naked and tied down to the kitchen table with an apple stuffed into his mouth. Thick cords of rope dug deeply into his inflamed skin and wrapped around the legs of the table. Seated all around him were dirt covered men and women in tattered robes.

Two had unusually hairy faces, a sign he recognized as that of a werewolf, and they twitched horrible. That's not good. They had the cannibal shakes, a symptom associated with those who got to the point that they craved human meat even without a full moon. There was also a woman in cleaner black robes and a skull mask and an impossibly emaciated man with pale skin, a beak-like nose and bloodshot eyes.

He spotted Hestia, equally naked, crucified to the wall and gagged. He could still hear her pained moans as she leaked blood into an aluminum pan placed beneath her feet.

She was alive! That alone gave him hope. If he could somehow break the enchantment on himself and get her wand to her, that might be enough. But where was Diggle?

"Be a dear and help your mother carve the roast won't you?" The masked man who had him under the Imperius asked as he stepped around to join his peers.

Yes! What a wonderful idea. After all, the guests were waiting on him. They must be hungry, and there were so many his mother couldn't hope to serve them all in a timely manner by herself. Right?

No! They aren't guests! The Dursleys couldn't have guests. They're invaders! Murderers! Cannibals! He had to fight it.

"Yeeeees." The groaned word came out of his mouth even as he raged at the world, god and all of his creations.

Even as tears streamed down his face his body moved at the wizards command. He gripped the meat fork in one hand and cleaver in the other. He stabbed his father's thigh with the first and sawed through it with the second.

He convulsed and screamed through his gag as his blood seeped out of him, and yet Dudley couldn't stop, couldn't fight it. When the blade reached bone he forced on, sawing through that too.

He didn't stop when he heard the roar of an engine. He didn't even stop when a massive motorcycle crashed through the bay window. He did stop when that very same motorcycle rammed the two masked assailants through the dining room wall and into the living room.

"Aaaaaaaah!" Dudley screamed in abject terror as the Imperius curse finally broke it's hold on him.

His mother started screaming too, but the pale man tore her throat out with a swing of his arm before she could finish her wail.

Dudley reacted instantly, leaping over his still spasming father and bearing down on his mother's killer with steel fork in one hand and cleaver in the other. His aim was true, and the emaciated killer was rewarded with a meat fork through the eye, which Dudley buried so deep into his skull that it vanished all the way to the hilt. The momentum from his leap took them both to the ground but before Dudley could bring the cleaver down onto his foe's neck he was flung bodily against an adjacent wall.

To his horror the pale man rose from the ground with the tip of the meat fork sticking from the back of his skull. He grasped the handle and with a stomach-churning squelch he pulled the weapon out of his face, leaving an empty eye socket behind. Black, necrotic blood seeped from the wound and down his face.

In his shock and horror at the undying thing Dudley found himself rooted to his spot on the ground.

"Lumos Solem!" A familiar voice yelled and before Dudley's very eyes the house filled with warm, invigorating sunlight.

His mother's killer vanished in a thick black mist as he fled from the light.

The obvious werewolves and pair of wizards in the dining room had recovered from the crashing motorcycle and fired an array of green and red lights through the new door provided by his savior. The sunlight immediately faded under their onslaught. Dudley returned to the present and bore down on the nearest one with the cleaver still clutched in his hand, only to himself be enveloped by that same black mist from before.

It lifted him effortlessly and pinned him against the ceiling before the one-eyed man's face materialized in front of him. His mouth, full of serrated teeth, bore down on him and dug into his shoulder blade.

Dudley bit his own tongue so hard it bled, but had the presence of mind to strike out at his attacker with the cleaver. He didn't know what he hit, but he hit something. The force holding him up let go and he dropped like a rock onto the mass of fat that was his still bound father.

He rolled off of the injured man as quickly as he could and charged through the door to the kitchen, barely dodging a green light that passed over his head. Peeking around a corner through the living room doorway he spotted Harry using a toppled motorcycle as cover while exchanging spells with the killers in the next room. They locked eyes and Harry, reaching into the side of the vehicle, produced a sleek shotgun which he slid across the floor to Dudley.

Dudley took the shotgun, and the hint.

Still hidden from the quartet in the dining room, Dudley lifted the weapon and gave a single pump before pressing it against the thin drywall separating them. He pulled the trigger, praying the wide spread of pellets would clip one of them through the drywall, but the shotgun didn't spray run of the mill pellets.

A forked bolt of lightning spewed forth through the kitchen wall with such sound and brightness that it knocked Dudley flat on his ass.

"Oh sweet Mary, Joseph and baby FUCKING JESUS! Yes!"

He leapt back to his feet and pumped the shotgun a second time, expecting it to discharge the used shell and chamber a second. He noticed that instead of doing so it turned a revolving chamber near his grip. He'd never even heard of a shotgun using a revolving chamber before, let alone practiced with one at the range, but he didn't have time to consider the strangeness of his weapon as the man of the black mist seeped into the kitchen from the yard door.

Just as the man began to materialize Dudley pulled the trigger and this time a great orange inferno burst forth. The force of the blast blew his enemy straight through the yard door while the heat singed every wooden cabinet i nteh kitchen black. The kickback blew Dudley straight through the living room door.

At this rate the shotgun was as likely to kill him as it was his enemies.

He pumped the gun again and like before it turned the revolving cylinder, this time away from a cartridge with a red flame design, to one with a white crescent moon design.

Did he even want to know what it did?

The man must have rematerialized outside because he stomped through the now burnt yard door, cleaver and meat fork in either hand. Dudley decided that yes, he did want to know.

For a third time Dudley pulled the trigger on his shiny new shotgun and for the third time it produced a new miraculous result. A great white shape flew forth, bathing the room in warm, uplifting light similar to... similar to that stag Harry had used to drive away dementors. Unfortunately this wasn't a dementor and the mass of light passed right through his target without leaving a scratch. It snarled at him for the effort though, so he had that going for him.

"Dudley!" Harry called from his side.

He chanced to turn in time to see his cousin snapping a pool que in half on his knee before tossing one half to him, which Dudley caught effortlessly.

"Vampire!"

Ohhhhhhh.

Dudley ditched the shotgun and gripped the wooden stake with both hand, tip pointed at the vampire's chest. The nosferatu grinned, his smile exactly like that of a shark, and stalked towards him with his former weapons.

Dudley wouldn't consider himself fresh, but he was uninjured safe for a bite in his shoulder. His opponent, on the other hand, was missing an eye, had a sucking stab wound in his chest, and was scorched all over from both the sunlight spell Harry had used and the fireball shot. So surely he had the advantage, right?

He charged forward, intent on putting down the unnatural creature of the night, leaving Harry to finish off the wizards in the kitchen.

He roared at the vampire.

The vampire hissed back.

The clash never came. The coward faded back into smoke and passed right through him. Before Dudley could spin around to strike out with his spear the vampire slashed his face clean open with the cleaver.

He disappeared again and again, each time delivering a shallow cut or stab with the cutlery. None were deep enough to hit an artery and Dudley realized his opponent was playing with his food. Death by a thousand cuts.

Deciding enough was enough, Dudley settled on a plan to cut off his foe's avenue of attack.

He grasped the handle to their cheap, used fridge and with a mighty heave ripped the door off its hinges. He lifted it up as a shield while the rest of the fridge came tumbling to the floor, spilling it's contents all over the kitchen. It was a rather cheap, used fridge.

When the blood-encrusted meat fork next pierced his makeshift shield he bashed out with it and, hitting something solid, tackled the vampire to the floor. They lashed out at each other with their respective weapons. The vampire stabbed him in the shoulder with the cleaver. Dudley stabbed him through the heart with his stake.

It let out a high pitched scream as it, impossibly, shrank further into itself and became even thinner.

Before it could breath in the last of the black mist circling them a wand and hand entered Dudley's field of vision from the dining room door and his cousin delivered the second killing blow.

"Sectumsempra!"

And like that the vampire was staked and beheaded.

Dudley collapsed to the side of the vampire with a pained groan. He was breathing so hard and fast that he wasn't sure if he'd ever get enough oxygen again. Fortunately the stab to his shoulder hadn't been deep enough to leave the blade embedded in bone, and it was nowhere near the most painful of his injuries. Unfortunately Harry couldn't let him rest.

"Hey Big D." Came the belated greeting. "I'm sorry to say it's time for you to join the war."

With that he offered a hand to Dudley. It was black and rotting from what must have been a horrendous injury, but to Dudley it looked like the most beautiful hand to ever grace a human arm. A hand offering salvation.

For fourteen years he had tormented this man, this warrior, standing over him. And now was his chance to begin fourteen years of making up for it.

"What took you so long?" He huffed out as he grasped that withered hand, before promptly passing out.

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