For Phoenixmate who requested an elementary school reunion.

This isn't quite that, because I've never heard of such a thing (I suppose elementary school fundraiser/carnival type things would count?), but there are Career Days at elementary/primary schools!

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Career Day

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"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Harry muttered darkly to Dudley. He'd felt out of place here before, when he was ages five through ten, just as much as he did now. Except now he was a decade and a half older than the kids around here.

"Oh, come on. Won't it feel great to show our old teachers that we turned out alright? Talk the kids out of bullying and that?" He sounded optimistic. Too optimistic.

And Harry doubted he would feel good when he walked out of here. He gave a look to Ginny, who was at his side, her elbow wound around his in support. He wished Dudley would have brought his wife too. Now that he was here he felt like bringing Ginny was like bringing a teddy to school with him for comfort.

It still felt a small bit forced, this friendship he now had with his cousin. He could tell that Dudley really wanted them to be friends, and that he'd learned from his fathers behavior how he thought that should go about, the slightly tight smiles and attempting to be overly pleasant. Dudley was much better to be around when he wasn't 'on', when his guard was down and he was simply being himself.

Harry had decided to reach out to Dudley two years after the war by inviting him to his and Ginny's wedding; and he almost didn't recognize his cousin when he showed up. Dudley had completely turned his life around since they'd last seen each other, right before Harry's seventeenth birthday. It was only because of their last parting words that day that the Dursley's were going into hiding that Harry decided he would invite Dudley. He did not extend an invitation to his aunt and uncle though; they had been the one's that taught Dudley it had been okay to treat Harry the way he had, to use him as a punching bag and someone to look down on. Harry hadn't realized until Dudley asked why he wasn't going into hiding with them that Dudley actually felt a family connection there.

He'd been surprised when the owl came back with the RVSP saying that Dudley would be coming, alone. It also included Dudley's new address and a phone number.

Harry hadn't written or called though. Not before the wedding.

There had been too much going on at the time. His work was busy then and his downtime had involved a lot of calming Ginny down after she'd been to visit her mother about wedding details, and he just didn't need the extra item of reconnecting with his formerly abusive cousin added to his plate.

He hadn't been sure whether Dudley was actually going to head all the way out to Cornwall for the wedding, but then he showed up. It was the eyes that gave him away. He looked eager and nervous. Ron had been at Harry's side and asked if he knew who the man coming down the laneway was. It still took Harry a minute, but it finally dawned on him and he went over to greet him.

It turned out the year Dudley had spent in hiding had been the best thing for him. He learned more about the magical world and for the first time in his life, was criticized for his behavior by the people from the Order that stopped in on them instead of having every bad habit of his, particularly the eating and laying about, ignored. He'd started applying himself with his schoolwork, eating proper portion sizes, and helping out about the house they were staying in, as well as going on walks with Hestia Jones when she came to visit.

Dudley had dropped about six stone and was wearing a smart suit that fitted his new form properly. With the chubbiness gone from his cheeks the rosiness had left as well, and he was showing off a high forehead with his new, shorter, haircut. He now more closely resembled his mother, not his father.

He also looked kind. Which really threw Harry for a few minutes.

At the wedding, Dudley had been very cordial to the other guests and greeted Hestia with a hug before she introduced him around.

A few months after the wedding Harry called him up, just to say hello. Then Dudley had invited him to play darts at a pub around the corner from his place. They wound up meeting once every other month or so and last month Ginny had taken the initiative and invited Dudley to theirs for dinner, where Dudley had talked Harry into signing up for this Career Day even at their primary school.

Dudley had gone into banking and Harry was going to say he went into law enforcement and had studied up on what was involved in becoming Muggle Law Enforcement.

"You'll do great," Ginny assured him.

He nodded and looked around at the hall and lockers. "It looks so much smaller than I remember."

"Well, I remember what you looked like the first time I saw you, and you were much smaller."

"I always remember you as being scrawny too," Dudley said, putting his foot in his mouth. Harry just looked at him and Dudley turned red as he remembered why Harry had been so scrawny.

"I remember you weighing twice what you do now," Harry commented back. "Something about knickerbockers that simply didn't come in your size?" he teased, a wry smile coming to his face.

"Now boys, play nice. You were both mistreated as far as I'm concerned," Ginny told them.

A lady came into the hall from the classroom they were meant to be giving a talk in. She had the overall impression of an exasperated Professor McGonagall. "Good, you're both here. I must say, I was surprised that you two decided to come together. I remember there being quite the animosity there." She gave Harry a looking over, then the same to Dudley. "It seems you've both come a long way though. Good for you."

Harry clasped Ginny's hand then and ground his teeth. This lady before him was Mrs. Shea and she had been his year five teacher, she had always turned a blind eye to Dudley and his gangs bullying, no doubt out of concern that his aunt and uncle would cause too much of a headache if it was pointed out. He couldn't help wondering how many students she'd had over the years that had signs of coming from an abusive home and she hadn't done anything about it.

Dudley had talked him into coming here today with an idealistic approach of giving the kids a lecture about how they should be behaving. Harry had a different idea, one that he'd run by Ginny and she was in full support of.

After the war he and Ginny had found themselves with so much more time on their hands to talk. They hadn't done much talking when they'd gotten together in his sixth year, they'd been too busy snogging. One of the things that they talked about was his life with the Dursleys, and how none of his teachers had seemed to realize what his home life had been like.

It was the same thing at Hogwarts though. His school uniforms may have fit, and he had the nicest brooms, but his weekend clothes were all too big or incredibly worn down. His first acceptance letter to Hogwarts had been addressed to 'Harry Potter, Cupboard Under the Stairs' for Merlin's sake! For a few summers there, if it hadn't been for his friends sending him food, he would have starved.

"Now, Dudley Dursley," Mrs. Shea gave a tight smile, "you'll be talking about your work as a financial advisor. Harry Potter, you are in law enforcement, yes?" There was a little glint in her eye when she said 'law enforcement'. It sounded like she had an issue with Scotland Yard and didn't think much of them.

Harry pretended he didn't see it and gave a nod.

"And who might you be?" she asked Ginny.

"I'm just an observer," Ginny told her politely. "Harry's wife. I'll just sit quietly off to the side. We're going for lunch after this."

"How nice. Now," she moved on quickly, "Dudley, we'll let you go first, yes?"

The three of them followed her into the room, it had colorful drawings and projects around the perimeter of the room and twenty-five or so desks spaced out in the middle.

"Class, we have a special treat today. As part of our Career Day activities, I have with me two former students that used to go here, way back before you were even born. They are going to talk about what they do for a living and what led them in that direction. The first is Dudley Dursley." She started giving a polite clap and indicated that all the students do the same.

Dudley took the cue and went up to the front of the room and started off talking about what his father did for a living and how that drove him in the direction of business. He also mentioned that he was a big bully when he was in school and how he had to grow up really quick and realize what he'd been had been bad.

The whole time Dudley had been talking, Harry had been looking at the kids in the class. There was a mix of races and expressions as well as a few indicators of whether the kids came from well off families. He was trying to see if he'd be able to point out which kids might not receive enough care at home like he had.

He leaned over to Ginny, "that kids wearing something that belonged to someone else. It's almost wearing him."

Ginny looked over at the child he was pointing out. "The hem has been mended with a bright color and it looks like it was recently washed. He's also got new sneakers that he's drawn on. I'd say he comes from a large family. There's a healthy glow about his cheeks too."

She was right.

He looked at the kid and saw a baggy shirt with some disrepair, she'd seen a child whose family had done what they could to make their wages go the farthest and cared for their child.

The sound of applause indicated it was the end of Dudley's turn and he was next.

"Thank you, Dudley Dursley. Next up, we have Harry Potter," Mrs. Shea announced.

There was a gasp at the back of the room. Harry looked over towards the little girl the sound came from, and she was staring at him with wide eyes, her mouth agape.

He had not expected there to be a little witch in the class! That was a nice surprise.

Harry gave her a secret smile and a wink.

"Mister Potter was a bit of a ruffian when he was here, and now he is law enforcement," Mrs. Shea continued as he made his way to the front. She gave him the same clap she did for Dudley and the students followed suit.

Harry faltered a bit at that introduction.

'Ruffian', was he? He might have been a bit of a hot-head when he was younger but he'd learned a thing or two working at the Ministry for the last few years, namely that carefully chosen words held a bite to them and the more calmly they were spoken the more impact they had.

"Hello all," he greeted them as he came to stand at the front of the class. "Like Mrs. Shea told you, I am in law enforcement, and she has apparently classified me as a ruffian while I was here. However, as you just heard from Mr. Dursley, who outright told you he was a bully, the reason I was considered a troublemaker was because I was constantly trying to get away from those looking to use me as a punching bag." He said this with his thumbs hooked in his belt loops, a wide stance, and decidedly not looking at Mrs. Shea. "See, I was an orphan. I was forced to wear my cousins hand-me-downs that were twice the size of me, didn't ever have anyone to tuck me in at night, no one to help me with my homework, and barely had enough to eat."

He was saying all this to them in a tone suitable for children their age, trying to be engaging and pleasant while telling them the horrors of his childhood. He kept the corners of his mouth upturned and did the best to look like he was the host of a children's variety show and not some psycho getting revenge on his former teacher that had irked him just before he started speaking.

"I'll wager the lot of you have been told about how important it is for children your age to get the proper nutrition? Well, I didn't. And I was very small for my age. In fact, the first time I'd ever gotten a candy, do you know who it was from?" He paused for a moment, they didn't look shocked or surprised, just interested. "It was the school nurse. She had to patch up a cut I'd gotten from another student while the teachers back was turned. I was the one to get in trouble for that too. And I've gotten a few scars over the years." He pointed to his head, "I got this one when I was one-year old, the night my parents died. There is one on my leg from when I was seven and my aunt and uncle let a ladies dog bite me. There's a big cut on my shoulder from when I was fourteen and there was no one to stop a bad man from doing it. I've got another big scar on my chest from when I was seventeen.

"See, when I was growing up, I didn't have anyone that I could turn to for help. No one at home cared, no one at school cared. I was twelve before I'd visited a house that was filled with love and other children who worried for me. But by then I'd been so beat down that it took me a long time to figure out that grown ups don't always know what's right." He did turn then and gave a look to Mrs. Shea then, who was looking appropriately horrified.

The expression on her face made him feel vindicated.

He turned back to the students.

"I've had some really great teachers over the years, and some truly terrible ones. It was the great ones that I chose to pay attention to, because of that my life has completely turned around and I decided to go into law enforcement so I can try and make a difference. My hope is that my contribution to society is that kids like you don't have to suffer through what I did. Most of the time, that means trying to stop the bad guys, sometimes though, like right now, I get to talk to kids like you and let you know that you have a lot of growing up to do still and it is your choices that make the biggest impact in your life. You can choose to be nice, you can choose to tell someone if there is someone else hurting you, and you can choose to really focus on being the best person you can be.

"Any questions for me?"

One kid near the front raised his hand and Harry nodded at him.

"Do you get to carry a gun?"

Harry laughed at that.

Of course that would be a ten-year-old's question for a police man.

"No. I do have a baton though," he had brought a Muggle baton as a prop and pulled it out, waving it so it extended. "They are very strong and can break glass." He thrust it down on the ground in order to retract it and there was a resounding 'ooh' from the kids over how loud it was.

Harry saw the little girl in the back of the room that clearly knew who he really was, and how she seemed to be itching to ask him a few questions.

"Have you ever caught a really bad guy?" another boy near the front asked, almost in a challenging way.

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but the little witch in the back gave a loud scoff. "Of course he has! I can't believe you don't even know who he is!"

Harry cleared his throat to cut her off and gently reminder her about the statute of secrecy with a raised eyebrow. She, thankfully, took the hint and closed her mouth.

"There was a man that I caught a while back that had been deemed a terrorist. I am surprised you heard about it Miss-" he waited for her to give her name.

"Amelia Jenkins!" she said eagerly. "I'm so excited to meet you! You're my hero!"

The other kids exchanged looks with each other and started laughing. Harry was a bit stuck on what to say, then saw Ginny get up discretely and walk around to Amelia's desk and lean down to whisper something in her ear.

"Yes," Harry carried on. "The bad man that I put away did a lot of bad things. No doubt you overheard the not very publicized story of it from your parents," He said to Amelia before looking around again. "Any more questions? No. Okay. If I can leave you with one more thing; don't go looking for trouble, it will find you more than you'd like all on its own."

He went over and sat back down in his seat beside Dudley and Ginny came and sat down beside him as well.

"What did you say to her?" Harry asked his wife.

"That she could send you an owl and you'd reply to it personally if she didn't talk anymore about it."

"Playing publicist?" he smirked.

"I was a ten-year-old girl completely awe-struck by you once. I know what it's like," she smirked right back at him.

"You were in love with him when you were ten?" Dudley leaned over him to ask her.

She leaned towards him, "completely. I can't believe you didn't hear about it at the wedding! I couldn't even look at him without blushing until I was fifteen." It sounded like she was going to tell him the story of her crush right then and there, but Mrs. Shea cleared her throat and Dudley and Ginny both sat back up straight.

"L-Let's give them one more round of applause before our guests leave," she told the students, and they all started clapping.

The three of them took that as their cue to go and headed out into the hallway.

"Feeling vindicated?" Ginny asked Harry in that proud and sarcastic tone of hers, the one that told him she approved.

"Yeah," he smirked. "Still think I'm selfish, and wrong, and right. I swear I'm right. And that I knew it all along."

Dudley chuckled and chimed in. "I still think you're flawed, but you're cleaning up so well."

"I'm seeing in me now the things she swore she saw herself," Harry adding with a grin and inclining his head towards his wife.

Dudley outright laughed at that while Ginny clearly didn't know the song they were referencing; The last time he and Dudley had met up they went to the cinema and saw a superhero movie with that on the soundtrack. It was catchy and they were humming it all through drinks at the pub after.

Harry did feel better having gotten that off his chest to one of the teachers he'd had that had turned a blind eye to him when he'd been so young and in need of someone to care for him. He hoped she would share that with the other teachers at the school too so they would all know what he'd been through.

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