Chapter 2
|Stages of Hope|

Author's Note: A few notes. First, this story is not rated for explicit sexual content like my other stories, so please, do not worry about it taking that kind of turn. Second, this is obviously a multi-chapter story, however I doubt at the moment that we'll be looking at following Dudley's kids all the way through school or something like that. It's just not that kind of story. Perhaps at some point once this story is finished I will come back to these characters and do some kind of follow-up, but this story is about Dudley and Harry's relationship after their childhood and years of growth.

Lyra watched vaguely as Mr. Dursley left the room through the open door. Could this really be happening? Having the OCW investigate again would earn her some extra chores and some punishments, but she could handle that. She hadn't expected Mr. Dursley to know anything about magic though, and now the situation was far outside of her control.

What would happen? What if Mr. Dursley's cousin got the Auror's involved? She had no idea what the Ministry would do about a case like hers, squibs hardly ever came up in the magical world as something of any importance. No one cared. What if they made things worse? If someone magical got involved, but didn't get her out… she couldn't imagine how terrible things would get for her. Right now she was just a private stain on her mother's honor… if this became public though?

She shuddered. Sometimes she wondered if she was lucky or unlucky that her mother was so talented with healing charms.

A deep, cold fear settled into her chest as she began to truly think through what might happen now. The fact that Mr. Dursley knew about magic would drastically escalate things, no matter how it turned out. The ending of this ordeal would be ten times as severe, whether that was severely good or severely… unpleasant. Never in her life did Lyra wish more she could do magic just once. Just make Mr. Dursley forget, make all of this go away, take back the flippant comments she had made that had tipped him off. Why hadn't she just played along again like last time?

No one truly cared about people like her. Even the Weasleys, the literal poster children of the war against blood-status bigotry, had a squib relative that they never mentioned; that wasn't invited to family events, or sent cards at Christmas. How could Mr. Dusley's cousin be any different? There was no one that it could be that would be on her side. Well… no, if Mr. Dursley's cousin had been someone like Hermione Weasley, then she might actually get some sympathy, but Mrs. Weasley didn't grow up with a cousin. Lyra knew Mrs. Weasley's life quite well, she thought, as she was one of the few people in the magical world that Lyra felt some respect for.

Just two more years, Lyra thought. Two more years and then I'd be able to leave home and make my way in the muggle world.

Lyra felt a calmness flow through her body. It was calmness without contentedness. Calmness that didn't come from feeling safe and secure, but rather from knowing there was nothing to do. Her skin felt clammy and cold, and there was a bitter taste in her mouth that she was too familiar with. The aftereffect of adrenaline following an unexpected fright or trauma.

She stood slowly and her eyes, half-lidded now, glanced towards the open door. She didn't have the money to go to the cinema like Mr. Dursley had suggested… but she did have some cigarettes and weed in her backpack. She could walk down to the park and just… try to relax. Yeah. Maybe if she was lucky she would be able to figure out a way to score some alcohol too, or at least steal some.

She couldn't come home from school drunk today though, that was a mistake she never intended to repeat.

Lyra walked slowly out of the front doors of the school and waited a whole half-block before she pulled a cigarette out and lit it, pulling in the bitter tasting smoke with relief. Fortunately her mother didn't care at all about her smoking as long as she didn't do it at home where it would require constant Air Freshening Charms. She closed her eyes as her legs carried her down the road, another long pull filling her lungs.

Smoking was bad for you, and obviously Lyra knew this. It was difficult to become a teenager in the muggle world without learning this fact. Her mother even knew this, but brushed it off as unimportant. From her perspective, any health problems cased by muggle cigarettes could be fixed in moments with some magic, so why worry?

Lyra's feet had nearly taken her all the way to the park, and the cigarette in her fingers had only a few good puffs left on it. She looked around and started to make her way to a small copse of trees that she often enjoyed sitting under. A place where it felt like everything else was far away and she could just float in the moment as the breeze moved past her.

What would happen now? Mr. Dursley would contact his cousin, and then things would be out of her hands. She was so close to being free of her prison, it would be a true shame for everything to fall apart now.

With a dark chuckle she pulled the weed out of her backpack along with a crude pipe. She was going to relax for the rest of the afternoon. It might be one of her last relaxing afternoons for a while.

Jinani heard the front door open and paused. Something was very different, Dudley wasn't even removing his coat, and even on the days when things were very difficult he still did that. She put down the book she'd been reading in their sitting room and walked the few steps to the entryway, seeing her husband standing there with a bewildered look on his face.

"Dud, hun, are you alright?"

"I…" Dudley slowly began to remove his coat and looked up at her, and his expression turned to one of excitement. "I met with Harry, my cousin."

"You… You met him?" she confirmed. He had been saying only yesterday that he wasn't even sure if it was possible to get a message to his cousin, let alone meet him. "But how?"

"There's someone who—" Dudley was interrupted as a patter of feet signaled the approach of one of their kids, and Dudley smiled and held his arms open as he dropped down. "Hello Heather!" he said enthusiastically. "How was your day?"

"Boring," Heather whined. "Ari and Harry are playing a game and they won't let me play!"

Dudley glanced at his wife for clarification, but she didn't appear to be that concerned with what Heather was saying, so he assumed that it wasn't something that was a problem.

"Well that's good," Dudley told her seriously. She looked up at him confused. "I need someone to play games with me, you see. If you were busy playing with them, I'd be alllll alooone… no one to play with…"

Heather perked up instantly and smiled widely as she looked up at her father.

"Can we play tea party?" Heather asked.

"Is Mr. Butter invited?" Dudley asked, a serious look on his face as if this were a matter of great importance. "He was a bit rude to me last time we had tea together."

"Of course he's invited," Heather told him with a giggle. "But I told him he had to say sorry."

Dudley nodded at his youngest and gave her an eager expression.

"Then go set up the tea party, my Lovely. I'll be up in a few minutes after I talk with your mom."

Heather pattered away, her downcast mood from earlier entirely forgotten.

"Mr. Butter was rude the last time you played tea party?" Jinani asked curiously. Dudley looked disgruntled as he nodded to his wife.

"Heather must have seen something on the telly," Dudley grumbled, "because she was playing that stuffed bear as a perfectly stuffy aristocrat."

Jinani smiled fondly as they walked into the kitchen where she started putting on a pot of tea.

"So… you met your cousin?" Jinani prompted him.

"I—" Dudley stopped and looked at his wife for a moment. "Tell me about your day first, Angel. I think once I go into my story… well, I want to hear about your day first."

Jinani gave her husband a curious look, but shrugged and started recounting her own day.

"I was able to sign another client," she said proudly. "This one is the biggest yet."

"Really?" Dudley asked with enthusiasm and some surprise. "I thought you said you weren't hopeful about this one."

"I wasn't," Jinani agreed, "but Mr. Rosenthal seemed impressed with my portfolio and decided to give me a commission."

"That's fantastic!" Dudley enthused. His wife did independent digital design work, and he was often impressed with her talent and creativity. Most of the time she actually made more money for the family than Dudley did while also working from home, but the payments were irregular and not guaranteed, so they tried to live within Dudley's government wage as much as they could. "Is it on a tight deadline?"

"Not really," Jinani explained. "It's definitely on a deadline, but they started the process fairly early and it seemed like Mr. Rosenthal was expecting to spend much more time finding the right designer."

"Lucky for him that he talked to you early, then," Dudley said with a grin. Jinani smiled warmly as she poured the tea for them.

"So your cousin?" Jinani prompted again. "Harry?"

"Right…" Dudley said, his face immediately becoming much more pensive as he took his first sip from the cup. He honestly wasn't quite sure where to start. Deciding it was best to start from the beginning, Dudley began speaking softly. "Harry was left on my parent's doorstep when he was a baby," Dudley started, watching as Jinani's expression turned to shock. "His parents, my aunt and uncle, were both murdered when he was around 15 months old."

"What?" Jinani sputtered. "But… the authorities just… but why…" The confused questions were floating through her mind too rapidly for her to put any of them into words fully, but Dudley understood anyway.

"He wasn't placed there by the authorities, or at least, not the normal authorities." Dudley paused, working up his courage. "You see, Harry is a wizard. He can do magic, real magic, and was born into that society which normally remains hidden from the rest of us."

Jinani was silent as she stared at her husband for several moments, trying to figure out exactly what game he was playing. Her heart began to race as she contemplated the idea that Dudley may actually believe this bizarre conspiracy theory, and what that might mean for his mental state.

"You're serious… aren't you?" Jinani asked quietly, almost dreading the answer.

"Yes, I am, though I fully expect that you'll worry I'm 'round the bend until I can show it to you." Dudley shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "Harry can do real magic, like the things in story books. I've seen…" Dudley trailed off into memory for a moment. "I've seen some truly fantastical things, Angel. But until Harry can come over to our house and show you himself…" He trailed off again, realizing that he wasn't quite sure what would be the right way to handle things until then.

"If it's a secret society of wizards," Jinani asked slowly, "why would he show it to me? Because you're related?"

"No," Dudley said with a shake of his head. "It's because our Harry is also a wizard, and when they come to offer him a place in school where he can learn to control it, they usually demonstrate for non-magical families."

"Our Harry?" Jinani asked breathlessly, her pulse quickening. This conversation was becoming very frightening. If Dudley had suddenly lost his mind, drowned in some delusion, then it was terrifying that he was already involving their son in his thought processes.

Dudley realized that he was botching this explanation but felt at a loss for how to mollify her at least until Harry was able to make it over. If only he had some kind of artifact, or photo, or—

Dudley stood with a start, causing Jinani to jump back in fright, but he quickly rushed over to the closet and pulled out a small box that Jinani had never seen him open before. He pulled out a photo, making sure it was the correct one, and returned to his wife.

"This is a magical photo," Dudley said, offering the picture to her. "It was taken when I was 17."

Jinani cautiously took the photo from him and stared as she saw her husband as a teenager looking thoroughly unhappy as a man and woman she'd never seen before seemed to be shaking his hand. Except, they were actually shaking his hand, and the Dudley in the photo was actively trying to pull away. She looked up at her husband, bewildered. She could think of a few technological explanations for what she was seeing, but they were highly implausible, and certainly not the sort of thing that someone like her or Dudley would be able to do. The photo genuinely felt like it was made of photo paper as well, which was again quite befuddling.

"I know this doesn't prove it to you," Dudley offered, "but it's difficult to explain, isn't it?" Dudley let the question hang between them for a few moments. "Just… all I'm asking is that you consider the idea that I haven't gone mad until I have the chance to prove it to you."

Jinani looked at her husband, the man she had been with for 13 years now. She was sure that she knew every expression on his face, every little muscle twitch that signaled an emotion he was feeling. It had been years since she'd felt like he even could lie to her without her noticing, not that he ever did, and it was easy for her to see that Dudley honestly believed the things he had just told her. That worried her immensely, because that either meant that this life-changing information was true, or that her husband was now utterly unfit to be a parent without warning.

Calming herself, she decided that given those options, the only one she had the heart for at the moment was to hope that the love of her life was still with her, and that this entire tale was somehow the truth.

"When can Harry come over?" she asked quietly.

"I'm going to ask him if he'd be willing to Monday evening, but I don't know if he'll accept."

"Okay…" Jinani said, staring at the moving photograph again with a slow nod. "Okay… and he can prove it? I won't have doubts?"

"Yes, Angel," Dudley soothed. "No doubts."

Dudley pulled up to Mrs. Figg's house on Monday morning, his stomach churning. It was partially in anticipation of the work they would being doing with Lyra — there was always an element of tension working with the sorts of cases that he did — but most of it was about Harry. Their first meeting had gone much better than he could have expected, yet it had been short and focused. But he expected that there would be a lot of silence to fill on the drive over together and felt uncertain about whether or not their uneasy rapport would hold.

Harry opened Mrs. Figg's door and began walking out towards the car before Dudley had even turned the vehicle off, and Dudley was happy to see that Harry was dressed like a normal person. No, Dudley forced himself to think, not normal… non-magical. We're both normal, just different kinds of normal. Dudley supposed that Harry had come directly from the magical world on short notice on Friday, so he hadn't had a reason to change, but now he was dressed in jeans and a button up shirt that made him look professional yet casual. The perfect attire for their task today.

"I hope I didn't make you wait too long," Dudley said as Harry opened the door. The green-eyed man waved his hand dismissively as he sat down in the passenger seat and fastened his seat-belt.

"No, only a few minutes," Harry said. "One of the nice things about magical transportation is that it gets you where you're going almost instantly, so there's no guessing about travel time."

Dudley began to pull the car back out to begin their drive but saw out of the corner of his eye that Harry was staring at him intently. He glanced over confused, and a little worried, about the look, not sure why Harry was staring him down. A few moments later it clicked for him though: Harry was observing his reaction to the mention of magic. Dudley relaxed and looked back at the road as they got under way.

"Wish that were the case for me," Dudley said with a grin. "Traffic is awful around London. I use the Tube to commute, but I still have to use an office vehicle to visit the schools during the day."

Harry gave Dudley a considering look before his expression relaxed and he slouched into the seat.

"This is one of the office vehicles?" Harry asked, looking around it for the first time. "Seems pretty nice for a government office."

"No," Dudley said shaking his head. "I drove my own car in today because I knew I'd have to come out to Surrey and pick you up. Didn't want to take one of the office cars for that, they all have GPS on them."

"Erm…" Harry looked confused for a moment. "Jee-Pee-What?"

"It's—" Dudley stopped short. Just how much technology would Harry be familiar with, actually? All the magicals he'd interacted with had been baffled by the simplest things. Certainly Harry was familiar with at least the concept of computers, Dudley had owned a few of the early ones when they were teenagers. "It's like… a tiny computer the size of a ten pound note that tracks the exact location of something," he explained. "Then other computers can see in real time where that computer is. So if you put one of them on something like a car, then some bloke in an office can just pull up your real time location whenever they want."

Harry looked alarmed at this news, glancing around the car interior briefly.

"But there's not one of those on this car," Harry insisted.

"Well," Dudley started, motioning to the small screen he'd had mounted near the wheel, "this is one of them, but it's not like any computer can see where any GPS is. The only reason it's set up that way with the office cars is because the government owns all the cars and the computers." He glanced over at Harry's somewhat concerned face. "Even then, it's not something that a person sits around watching, it's usually only used if there's a problem, or something goes missing, or stuff like that."

"So you have one for… your wife?" Harry guessed. "So she can see where you are?"

"No," Dudley said with a laugh. "Nothing like that. Mine actually doesn't transmit information at all, so no computer outside of this car even knows where it is. Mine just shows me where I am on a map to help me navigate." He pointed to the arrow icon in the center and Harry watched as the lines on the screen, clearly representing the roads, moved in real-time with the car. His eyes widened and a smile crossed his face.

"I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good," Harry muttered with a chuckle. Dudley shot Harry a confused glance, but Harry waved his hands dismissively. "I had something like that at school made with magic, only it just showed the school and it showed everything with ink and parchment instead of a screen." Harry smiled fondly, as if recalling a memory. "To activate it, you had to say that phrase, 'I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good'."

Dudley was about to ask how ink and parchment would work for something like a real-time location map, but then he recalled the times he'd seen the moving pictures and ink that magical people seemed fond of, particularly when the family had been in hiding with Hestia and Dedalus. In fact, Dudley had experienced quite a lot of casual exposure to magic during those months, much to his mother's dismay.

Dudley frowned as he recalled that time and how much despair those months had entailed. As much as it shamed him to admit, almost none of his despair at the time had been related to his cousin, though he hadn't really been told the kind of danger that Harry had been in that entire time until after it was all over. No, his despair had been over the greatest regret in his entire life that had happened only a few months prior. It had been the reason he'd made his feeble and inexperienced efforts to reconcile with Harry before they had parted ways.

"Something on your mind?" Harry asked, startling Dudley. He realized just how long he'd been in his memories, the car silent, and heaved a weary sigh.

"Just…" Dudley paused, unsure of how open he should be with Harry. It wasn't kind to just dump your own trauma on someone unexpectedly, particularly someone you weren't really close to, but Dudley also wanted to begin fostering an actual familial relationship with Harry if he was open to it. "Something you said made me remember those months we spent in hiding, and that reminded me of my worst memory."

"Oh," Harry said, seeming to deflate a bit. In a few moments Harry's expression changed to one of annoyance. "I'm sure it wasn't pleasant being around all that magic and being cooped up, but I assure you I have worse memories from that period."

"No!" Dudley exclaimed, looking over at Harry in shock. "No, I'm sure you do have much worse stories of that time, but the time we were with Hestia and Dedalus was actually brilliant. The magic I was around was honestly very cool to a teenager, I'd just never seen the cool things it could do before." Dudley was silent for a few moments as Harry once again looked at Dudley with some surprise. "My worst memory is from right before that summer, something that happened at school," Dudley explained. "I was just kind of stuck stewing in it for all those months since there was nothing else to do. The magic was honestly a great distraction."

A few moments of silence passed and Dudley made another turn. They would be arriving at the school in just a few minutes.

"Umm…" Harry seemed to be considering something for a moment and opened his mouth to speak, but Dudley cut him off.

"I'll tell you about it some other time if you're curious," Dudley said in an even tone, "but we probably don't have time for it right now, we're almost there." Harry closed his mouth and stared at Dudley for a few seconds before nodding. "Besides," Dudley said tiredly, "it's more of an 'over-a-pint' story than a 'passing-time-in-the-car' story."

Lyra watched the door with apprehension as the seconds seemed to slip by. Mr. Dursley had told the front office to pull her from class, and she couldn't help feeling surprised and anxious. She hadn't expected Mr. Dursley's cousin to be available so soon from how he had been talking, but obviously things had gone much more smoothly than expected.

Who would it be? She wasn't tuned in to everything in the magical side of things, but she was fairly certain there wasn't a wizard or witch named Dursley. Her thoughts ground to a halt as the door handle jiggled and the door began to open.

Lyra's eyes got wider and wider as the two men walked into the room and closed the door, and after a few seconds she found her voice return with a vengeance.

"Your cousin is Harry-Fucking-Potter!?"

Both men seemed to be startled by her words, but Harry recovered first and let out a small chuckle.

"Just… Harry Potter will do," he said. Lyra felt her face flush deep red as she finally began to comprehend who was standing in front of her listening to her shout. Potter was like… like a real life superhero. If you let any of her magical relatives tell it, Harry Potter could do anything no matter how impossible it might be to other people. Maybe… maybe there was a chance?

Lyra didn't feel it until it was too late, and wasn't sure she could stop it even if she had, but soon found herself crumpled onto the floor, crying into her knees. There was no way out, her life was so pointless and hopeless, and the closest thing to an actual superhero had just walked through the door to help her. This wasn't the kind of thing to happen to her; this wasn't the kind of thing she would have dreamed of even in her most secret moments.

It had been years since she'd lost control and actually cried, and now she felt like she didn't know how to stop. She didn't want to let herself hope, but that hope felt so tangible now.

The two men looked at each other as the teenage girl sat on the floor, sobbing. Harry gave Dudley a hard look that sent a small shiver down his spine.

"This is what you do?" Harry asked Dudley quietly. "You help children in these kinds of situations? Every day?"

Dudley could hear the unasked question in Harry's tone: Why? But this wasn't the time or place to get into that topic. He was a professional and these kids all depended on him to put them first. He gave Harry a quick nod before dropping down to the floor slowly so that he could speak more softly to Lyra.

"I told you I would help," Dudley told her. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder for a few moments before pulling back to give her space. When Dudley turned and looked at Harry again, about to explain how to do one of these kinds of interviews while Lyra collected herself, his throat clenched at the visage of pure fury on Harry's face.

"There's no need to do an interview," Harry spat. "Her thoughts are leaking badly, I'm having to work hard just to give her some basic privacy."

Harry could read minds? Dudley stared for a moment before nodding and glancing back at the normal, non-magical looking girl who was still quite beside herself and unable to properly speak to them.

"So then," Dudley said, turning back to Harry. "What do you think we should do? Is there some office in your ministry we should contact? Someone you know?"

"She leaves with us," Harry demanded through clenched teeth.

This made Dudley look back at the girl with curiosity and concern. Normally that would be wildly out of bounds in his profession, but the magical aspect of this case made it feel like he was flying blind without a rulebook. All he could really do is try his best and trust the people he was depending on, just like he had asked Lyra to do.

"Alright," Dudley said. "I'll need a few minutes with the office to set something up so that no one freaks out about her leaving."

Dudley stood and glanced at Lyra one more time before leaving the room and closing the door. Harry watched the girl intently as his anger continued to boil beneath the surface. Sometimes he really wished he wasn't so naturally talented at Legilimency.

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