"HARRY!" came from downstairs, followed by pounding stairs and, too quickly to be anything good, the sound of the door of Harry's office flying open.
Twisting around so he could see over the back of his chair, he found Ginny, out of breath and holding a banana in her hand, which she proffered to him as she clutched her side. "Merlin – I need to get back into Quidditch," she complained.
"Or maybe just apparate – or, y'know, wait for me to come down when you yell? I was going to come get a Butterbeer soon, anyway," Harry replied, eying the banana, from which were coming tinny noises.
"Get it yourself!" Ginny replied, and before he had the chance to protest that that was exactly what he had been planning to do, shook the banana at him. "Took me forever to work out which one it was, bloody James – why couldn't we just get a landline instead of this stupid thing?! Dad would have loved it."
"Who is it?" Harry asked suspiciously – normally, the only calls they got were inexplicable scam calls or the Grangers when birthdays or Christmas were coming up, none of which were. Somehow, despite the fact the number wasn't one that any Muggle would have – how many Muggles have seven digit telephone numbers? – their 'just in case' non-magic phone still went off a few times a year with calls from Muggles asking if they'd been in an accident then assuring them – or, more accurately, Albus when he was being a bit literal – that St Mungos wasn't on the approved hospital list and would they like to sue. James had taken pleasure in snatching the banana on that occasion and letting them know he'd been burnt by a dragon last time they'd visited Uncle Bill, at which point the called normally hung up.
"I think it's Dudley," Ginny whispered, raising her eyebrows and jerking her head at her still outstretched hand.
"What the – " Harry spluttered, and went to grab the banana now more audibly saying "hello? …hello?" before remembering that, despite the surprise propelling his interest, this was decidedly not someone he particularly wanted to reconnect with.
"Just take it!" Ginny replied, "I want to know what he wants!"
Rolling his eyes, Harry gingerly took it, and held it to his ear, jolting slightly as a voice he hadn't heard in over a decade became sharply audible.
"Is anyone there?" Dudley plaintively said. Thinking he'd just listen for a minute, Harry pettily leant back in the chair before Ginny poked him, and his loud OUCH gave the game away.
"Hi, Dudley," he said tentatively, "where'd you get this number?"
"Well, that's polite," the gruff but somehow still whiny voice retorted, "wrote to… that school, didn't I?"
"Ah," Harry replied, sighing. "Well, I guess that's sort of why we have this ba – phone. What can I do for you?" Noticing that Ginny was still hovering at his shoulder, he cast her a pleading look and, her face now more sympathetic but still amused, she ran her fingers through his hair and kissed the top of his head. He wondered how much of the lingering kiss was affection and how much was wanting to hear what was happening on the other end of the line, but decided not to brood over it. Why couldn't it have been Hermione's parents asking for stupidly early present ideas, he irritably wondered.
"Um, it's just – well, see, me and the Missus have a bit of bother," Dudley replied, his voice lowering and sounding decidedly annoyed, but whether that was at said 'bother' or having somehow come to the conclusion that getting hold of Harry would help was yet to be determined.
Asking for more information, there was a long pause, and Harry began to wonder how long a pause he could take to mean the conversation was over. Before he reached that threshold – and wondering if he'd actually be callous enough to hang up – Dudley sighed heavily.
"It's just that…" and another long pause ensued, until Harry irritably drew breath before being cut off by an angry voice on the other end of the line.
"Oh, give that here!"
Fumbling sounds blended with Dudley protesting came down the line and Ginny leaned away to give Harry a perplexed look. What's going on? she mouthed at Harry who shrugged, pulling a face to indicate he knew as much as she did at this stage. After an apparent struggle for the phone, a woman came on the line. "Is that Dudley's cousin?" she asked, her tone making it unclear whether a yes or no would be more unwelcome.
"Um, yes," Harry reluctantly replied, feeling a bit out of his depth. His eye was caught by a map on his desk, with a tiny werewolf formed from the parchment rippling its way up and down over the mountains. Why couldn't he be plotting the movements of Fenrir Greyback's grandson last full moon and packing for next week instead of doing this?
"You need to help!" she grated into his ear, her tone reminding him decidedly of Aunt Petunia, who he had happily not thought about much in years. Resenting this, Harry gritted his teeth.
"Do I?" he replied, deciding that he was not going to make this easy.
"Yes, they're eating all my strawberries!" she replied, somehow even louder, and Dudley chimed in in the background angrily with something along the lines of "never mind your damn strawberries, what about my outside gym?!"
"I'm sorry?" Harry continued obstructively. There was an enraged groan down the banana.
"Dudley said you'd know what to do!"
There was renewed banging at the other end of the line and Harry leant back, becoming more amused at how clearly frustrated this generation of Dursleys were getting all by themselves. After half a minute of crashes combined with bickering, Dudley came back on, breathing heavily. "A'ight, so can you fix it?" he asked.
"Dudley, I don't have a clue what you're on about. What's eating the strawberries and what's happening to your… gym, was it?" Harry asked, invested now despite his better judgement.
"Well – they're little – and they bite," Dudley replied, "it's got to be something to do with your lot, hasn't it? I thought one was a potato and was gonna – but it bit me! And it runs! And throws my weights at me! And they won't – wait," his voice became muffled, "I don't care about the strawberries, why can't you grow, like, cake or something – Harry?"
"Yeah?"
"Please help."
"I don't understand why we're helping," James said, swinging his broom at his side as the family left the house. Albus, nose in a book, almost tripped over as a particularly badly aimed pass with the broom went directly in front of him, and James sniggered before side bumping him affectionately.
"Because your dad thinks it's funny," Ginny said grumpily, side eying Harry. "Seriously though, why are we helping? Couldn't we just send someone to sort it out?"
"It's funny," Harry replied, grinning. He'd been tempted to call in Ron and maybe George to come along for the show but, on balance, thought that without them there'd be more chance of Dudley providing hilarity for him to enjoy. After what had happened with the Ton-Tongue-Toffee, there was a chance he'd emulate that inability to speak if he caught sight of a male Weasley again.
Ginny chuckled reluctantly and rolled her eyes, before swinging a leg over her broom and kicking off. "Come on then, slow pokes!" she called, and Harry swung Lily carefully over his broom before mounting behind her as his sons shot up into the air ahead of them. The family in the air, and cloaking spells already cast, they began to make their way to Essex, where Dudley had apparently moved so his wife could be closer to her family.
Harry always enjoyed flying with his family – James' propensity to show off mitigated by the fact Albus got nervous when he got too raucous, causing his older brother to rein it in before either Harry or Ginny had to tell him to stop or he fell off. Lily, at only seven, was nervous on a broom but relaxed when she was safely tucked in front of Harry, which he selfishly hoped would continue for a while yet. Having his youngest on the broom with him elicited such a sense of warmth and family that he knew he'd sorely miss it when she spread her wings and became more independent. James and even Albus had resented having to fly with one of their parents by the time they'd got to her age, even though there was no way they were flying solo anywhere other than the Molly and Arthur's orchard until they were bigger. Now, look at them! Confident and calling back and forth to each other, Albus' habitually more reserved nature fell away slightly when he was in the air, and James had taken great joy in teaching him the rules of Quidditch, even trying to correct his parents on occasion when they had mini games all together, which Harry had learnt to find amusing from Ginny.
Watching his wife leading the family as he kept an eye on the kids, Harry was overcome with a rush of love, and promised himself he wouldn't be too sarcastic with Dudley.
It took them around an hour before the anally kept box-like house that Dudley and his family apparently lived in came into view, a little longer than perhaps it ought as it seemed Ginny, like Harry, was enjoying the ride enough to take a few meandering loops over more interesting parts of the route, one stand out moment being skimming down close enough to the surface of a river to almost brush their heels against the fast flowing water. Out of character for Ginny when they were flying with the kids, Harry thought, before hearing James whoop in satisfaction and acknowledging they were skilled enough on their brooms now to mess around in that manner. Descending in a curve, they all landed in the back garden, and Harry went to lift Lily off the broom but she hopped off herself before he had a chance to hoist her free.
"Thanks, Dad!" she said, her cheeks flushed and looking unnervingly like a smaller version of her mother when he'd first seen her at King Cross. Collecting the brooms, the actual Ginny opened her small shoulder bag and shoved them inside, winking at Harry as he grinned, remembering Hermione teaching her the charm as James hopped around them begging to be put inside once Ginny had mastered it.
"HARRY?" came a roar, and Harry jumped, momentarily thinking he'd see Uncle Vernon when he turned around – not that, as he saw upon turning, there was much to tell Dudley and his lump of a father apart nowadays, even down to the moustache.
"Hi, Dudders," he replied, walking towards his cousin, and deciding that while he would try to rein in the sarcasm, proffering his hand was out of the question.
"How'd you get into the garden?!" Dudley spluttered, clearly in agreement on the handshake, eying the kids and Ginny over Harry's shoulder before scanning the ground suspiciously as the clasp on Ginny's bag clicked shut. "You didn't… fly," in a disbelieving whisper, "did you?"
"'Course we did," Harry replied, "figured you were probably too chicken to have a fireplace here after what happened that time with – "
"Fine, God, whatever, just, you'd better hope nobody saw you," Dudley interrupted quickly, going a disconcerting shade of purple and clearly thinking it better to let it go rather than dredge up that incident.
Deeming it best to not mention the cloaking spell for fear of his cousin inflating not unlike Aunt Marge had, but through pure indignation on this occasion, Harry mumbled something he hoped sounded appeasing and put his arm around James, who was peering around the garden hopefully. "No chance of a pumpkin juice?" piped up Lily who had wandered up to Dudley and was looking up at him, despite his tangible stroppiness, like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
"Pumpkin juice?" came a voice from the back door to the house, and a little girl of about Lily's age came out, clutching a creepy looking plastic doll dressed from head to toe in pink. "We've got Coke, why would you want pumpkin juice?" she asked, looking Lily up and down – mainly down, as she had at least a foot on Harry's daughter, who put her hands on her hips and stared up at her challengingly.
"It's amazing, that's why," Lily retorted, as Ginny stepped forward, "anyway, what's Coke?"
"Okay, sweetie," Ginny said, putting a hand on her shoulder and trying to hide a smile, "I've got some in my bag, hold on." She began to rummage in the bag, and Dudley's already thin lips pursed as he saw a broom handle, the corner of a hardback book that was double the size of the leather bag, and the top of a rather raggedy looking quill make a swift appearance before a bottle of pumpkin juice was deposited in Lily's hands, with another couple taken out and passed to the boys before they could open their mouths to ask.
"This is Angelica," Dudley announced, positioning his daughter in front of him and looking down at her simperingly, "and – TABITHA! – my wife, she's…" he trailed off as a rather severe looking woman with short black hair and cats eye glasses came out of the house, holding a toddler in her arms.
"This is them, then?" she said in a gravelly voice, trying to pull a pack of cigarettes from her apron but, as the small boy in her arms twisted around to see the strangers in his garden, she fumbled them and Dudley quickly stooped, wheezing slightly, to retrieve the packet. Without saying thank you, she pinched it open with the hand supporting the child's bottom, angled her head and somehow managed to get one in her mouth which hung unlit from her lips as she gave everyone a sharp once over, her expression giving nothing away.
"Yes, dear," Dudley replied, his voice having completed its transition from hostile to simpering, rushing forward again with a Bic he'd pulled from his pocket. Lighting her cigarette, Tabitha stroked the little boy's hair as Dudley took him into his arms and kissed his forehead, before looking back at Harry in slight confusion as he became aware of the starkly different family dynamic he'd automatically fallen into as his wife came out.
"So, what direction are the gnomes coming from?" asked Harry, wanting to move on from the awkwardness to the impending hilarity.
"Yeah!" James said excitedly, hopping up and down and swinging his arms excitedly back and forth before turning to Albus, "bet I get more than you!"
"Not on your life!" Albus replied, puffing his chest out. "Dad, Dad – remember how I got one over the house that time?"
"You mean the same day you broke the kitchen window?" Harry muttered, making eye contact with Ginny and raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah – no! That was James!"
"It was both of you, actually," Ginny pointed out, "you were pretending to be Beaters, and not very good ones at that!"
"Muuuuum!" they both chorused, before being distracted by a rustle in a neatly pruned rosebush behind a rather pillaged looking strawberry patch.
Harry gestured his head towards that corner of the garden questioningly and the Dursleys, taking a few steps back in unison, nodded as one. Moving towards the bush slowly and gesturing his pouting sons back – Lily having already moved closer to her mother – he saw a movement, then another, and darting forward to the background sounds of Dudley squawking, yanked a gnome from the bush by a bony ankle and held it at arm's length to inspect it, before turning to the group and grinning triumphantly.
"Want a closer look?" he asked teasingly, and was surprised when Dudley passed his son back to Tabitha and edged forward, his jowls twitching slightly but face set in determination. He neared Harry, veering back slightly as the gnome snapped its teeth at him, but doggedly continued until he was half a metre away, peering at it as it wriggled angrily – Harry swung it a bit further in the other direction to minimise biting potential, eliciting a muted, disappointed groan from Albus' direction.
"Looks like a potato," Dudley muttered, his face so scrunched up his eyes were almost invisible. Squinting at the bush, he shuddered slightly. "What now?"
"Well, we spin him, then we throw him," Harry replied, turning as he spoke, and swinging the gnome rapidly around his head before letting it loose and watching it soar over the hedge. At this, Dudley jumped back, almost tripping, and James giggled slightly behind them.
"My turn!" he yelled, breaking free of the group and running towards the cousins, Dudley surprisingly moving to block him before he got too close.
"Won't they come back, though?" Dudley asked, his brow creasing as he eyed the bush suspiciously.
Surprised by the civil turn this was taking, Harry shrugged. "Maybe, but after you've done this a few times they'll get the message."
Dudley nodded and visibly braced himself before striding forward to fully join Harry, making a motion that could have been an attempt at rolling his shoulders or suppressing a shudder, depending on how generous one wanted to be.
"Look, Dudders…" Harry said, beginning to feel a bit guilty at the fun he'd had anticipating Dudley's angst this afternoon, "You guys can just go inside if you want, and let us know if they come – "
"No!" Dudley interrupted forcefully, "this is my garden, and those little runts aren't getting the better of me!"
Reluctantly impressed, Harry nodded and returned to examining the rosebush and the hedge beyond it. "Okay, then – right! You see that bit, there? Where it's rustling?" At Dudley's nod, Harry edged closer again, stuck his hand in briskly and extracted another gnome, female this time, not that he thought the Dursleys were likely to be able to tell the difference at this stage.
"Gerroff me!" this one squawked at Harry, twisting around enough to give him a nip – cursing, Harry tossed her the way her kin had gone, and Dudley squeaked but remarkably held his ground.
"Go fast," Harry advised, nodding at his sons to approach, and noting that Lily and Angelica seemed to now be sharing the pumpkin juice, and that from the latter's surprised expression, it was going down a treat. Ginny and Tabitha were making stilted conversation, Ginny patting her nephew on the head gingerly and Tabitha visibly holding him a little tighter as she did so. Dudley gritted his teeth, almost catapulting his hand into the leaves and came out with a knobbly branch, much to Harry's sons' mirth, before an actual gnome poked its head out to see what all the fuss was about – "GET HIM!" Harry yelled, and Dudley yelped and grabbed the creature by its shoulder, earning himself a nip for the trouble as it began to wail before being chucked unceremoniously over the hedge – Harry happily noting, nowhere near as far as the previous two had gone.
Before long, the four of them were out of breath and had their fair share of bites and scratches – Dudley probably accounting for most of them – but Harry couldn't help but be impressed by how his cousin had conducted himself - never saw this coming, he thought to himself as he lobbed a final one that had been sitting on a dusty dumbbell (which he assumed to be the 'gym' Dudley had mentioned) watching the fun, much as the little twerps tended to do when a degnoming was in progress.
"Are they… always… that stupid?" Dudley wheezed, putting his hands on his legs after wiping sweat from his forehead.
"Yeah, they're not the brightest," Harry replied, patting him on the shoulder before looking around the garden and thinking it was probably time to call it a day. "Oi – you two!" he directed at James and Albus who had a furious gnome suspended between them, held by the hand and foot respectively, and were swinging it while laughing uproariously, "just lob him, will you!", and they released their hold at the height of the swing and watched him soar over the hedge.
The rest of their respective families had gone inside, Lily having considered helping briefly then remembering James' habit of throwing gnomes at her when Harry wasn't looking and deciding that explaining to Angelica how her dolls were much more fun than Barbies was a preferable activity. Ginny, poking her head out the kitchen window where she'd reluctantly holed up away from the fun with Tabitha to keep an eye on Lily, wiggled her eyebrows at Harry and he gleaned from this that whilst the girls might be getting on okay, the women were, unsurprisingly, bonding about as well as he'd expected. The only unsurprising thing about today, he considered, giving Dudley a sideways glance and catching his cousin ogling him out the corner of his own piggy eye.
"Um, thanks," Dudley muttered, now looking pretty much anywhere but atHarry now he'd been caught.
"Er, it's no problem," Harry replied, resenting the fact he too was finding it difficult to maintain eye contact – the bite visible on Dudley's cheek being a mixed blessing of a distraction. There was a stilted silence, then from the house came two simultaneous cries of "DAAAAAAAD!" before the girls came running out giggling, brandishing a yellow, hairy puppet which seemed to be pulling faces despite the fact nobody's hand was inside it.
"Look what Lily did!" Angelica said, barrelling into Dudley who scooped her up and visibly tried to control the look of horror that slid over his face. "Can she come again, Dad, please?"
Dudley spluttered and threw a look at Harry, who was at an equal loss for words, feeling like he ought to apologise but also secretly enjoying that he was finally getting some of the amusement at Dudley's expense that he'd hoped for out of the day.
"Fine by me, if Dudley agrees," he finally managed, rolling his eyes at Lily affectionately, and by Dudley's slightly strangled grunt – funny how he'd managed the gnomes fine after the first shock, but the now pouting puppet was too much to handle – and Harry assumed that he'd have to break the news to Ginny later on that a… yearly, that sounded just about manageable, visit was likely to be scheduled in from this point forward.
And maybe, he thought hopefully as the group made their way towards the house, from which came an unappetising smell of cabbage, Ginny could see if Tabitha's expected distaste for magic extended as far as kitchen 'tips and tricks'.