When the Dursleys returned, fuming, to Number 4 Privet Drive, Harry had gone. Dad was still yelling about the disrespect, about being tricked, and mum was still alternatively sobbing and hugging Dudley, reassuring him that even if they hadn't actually won the All-England Best Kept Suburban Lawn Competition, anyone with sense would know they were beyond compare. Dudley, who did not give a fig about the front lawn, was therefore the only one who noticed the letter on the kitchen counter. As it was written on heavy parchment, sealed with wax, and written in a flourish of ink, there was no question what kind of people had written it. While mum consoled herself by pointing out the wilted look of Mrs Next-Door's runner beans, Dudley opened the letter.
Dear Mr and Mrs Dursley,
Don't worry about Harry. Your nephew is safe and will see you again next summer.
Sincerely,
Professor Remus Lupin
"Harry's gone," Dudley said.
"Probably took the first chance he had to sneak out and cause trouble," dad said with a sneer before he noticed the letter in Dudley's hand. "What's that?" he barked.
Mum gave a quiet shriek at the sight of her darling son holding a wizard's letter, and sagged against the counter.
"It's from a professor," Dudley said. "They've taken Harry with him. He won't be back till next summer."
Dad grunted. "Is that so."
"Yeah," Dudley said. He handed the letter to dad, who skimmed it and grunted.
"Well, good riddance," dad said. He tossed the letter onto the kitchen table.
Dudley opened his mouth, then closed it again. He could hardly have expected a different reaction from his parents. "Are we sure he's all right?" he asked timidly. "Usually they at least bother to call ahead."
"I couldn't care less if the boy's all right," dad said. "He's out of our hair and that's what matters."
"I wouldn't worry, Diddums," mum said, smiling at Dudley tremulously. "He's done this before and he's never come to any harm." Before the dementors, Dudley would've keeled over to hear her say such a thing, but for the past three days mum had been trying to make up for her unaccustomed outburst by being attentive to his feelings. As neither Dudley nor mum was sure what Dudley's feelings were, this was having only a marginal amount of success.
"I know," Dudley said slowly, "but that was before that Lord-You-Know-Thingy came back."
Mum's smile seemed to shiver. She opened her mouth, but evidently had no consolation to give.
"Forget about the blasted boy!" dad burst out. "He's gone. Making a namby-pamby fuss about it won't change that."
/
Dudley went back to Smeltings. He was no better at his classes than before, but in boxing he excelled. Every day he lifted dumbbells and watched with increasing satisfaction as his arms padded out with muscle and his legs became a little steadier. He did not think about Harry much, or the dementors, but something of their shadow followed him. He had, Dudley thought, a debt.
/
"What are you planning to do in London?" Sajhid asked. Everyone in their year had been in a tizzy of excitement all afternoon; plans were talked about loudly and quietly, talked over, refined, and changed again—the Smeltings boys were going on a school trip.
"Haven't decided," Dudley said.
"Well, if you want to join us at the bars, you're welcome to," Sajhid said.
"I might take you up on it," Dudley smiled.
/
It hadn't been a conscious decision to walk London on his own. Despite what he told Sajhid, Dudley had no great interest in going to bars. Smoking was his choice of vice; he had seen too much of dad and Aunt Marge after one glass too many to find the thought of drink appealing. And Piers, whom he might have joined, was going to Soho in the hopes of running into a handsome stranger. So for one glorious weekend Dudley was on his own. He took the train wherever he wanted, eating in dingy foreign shops with dishes Dudley couldn't pronounce. He marvelled at the brightness of London at night, and in the morning, under a rainy sky, ducked into a huge bookstore whose windows were piled full, cover to cover, with books. It wasn't the kind of place Dudley felt at home. He could not help the way he shifted nervously, afraid that every passing browser would realize he didn't belong, that he had never once read his way through a novel, let alone a hefty encyclopedia. But after a long time of screwing up his nerve, Dudley made his way to the front desk.
"Can I help you?"
"Er," Dudley said. He looked down at the floor and mumbled.
"What was that?"
"I said, does there, er, does there happen to be a book of origami here."
"Origami?"
For a minute Dudley thought the shop-boy was going to laugh at him. Shame made his face red.
"I think we might, down that way." The answer, when it came, was brisk and painless.
"Uh," said Dudley. Somehow he had never considered what might happen if he managed to get this far. He followed the shop-boy's pointing finger. "Thanks." He edged his way down the aisles, keeping his eyes peeled.
The origami section was not large, but six books was more books on the subject than Dudley had seen in his life. He hesitated before pulling one out and paging through: the book was full of instructions and pictures for paper folding. Dudley grabbed the lot and glanced toward a nearby table that seemed to be unused, and with a furtive look round he edged himself into the seat and spread each book out in front of him. He wasn't going to get all six, so he'd better find the best one.
An hour later, Dudley had whittled his selection of books down to two and decided it was as good as he was going to get. He hefted the books under his arm and walked back to the front desk, letting them fall to the desk with a thud. "I'll have these," he said abruptly.
"Right you are," said the shop-boy without a second glance, as if Dudley was the kind of person who bought books every day. The shop-boy rang up the amount and a minute later Dudley was deposited onto the street, blinking and clutching a brown paper bag between his fists. The rain had let up.
/
Dudley had every intention of making an apology when Harry came back, but he wasn't sure how to start. It didn't help that Harry took the first chance he got to disappear into his room, and did not, as far as Dudley could tell, come back down again at all except for meals. There was of course no possibility of talking to Harry then, in front of mum's furrowed brow and dad's thundering frown.
Despite Harry's usual disappearing acts, Dudley still expected to have most of the summer to catch his cousin alone. If he had realized he'd get a mere fortnight, he would have stationed himself in front of Harry's door to catch him when he stepped out to use the loo.
Tomorrow, Dudley thought instead. And when tomorrow came, Perhaps in a day or so.
It was pitch black out when the doorbell rang.
"Who the blazes is calling at this time of night?" Dad shouted from the living room where he and Dudley had been sitting. He lumbered to his feet and yanked open the front door.
"Good evening," said an old, clear voice. "You must be Mr Dursley. I daresay Harry has told you I would be coming for him?"
As Harry clattered down the stairs, Dudley stood up and edged toward the hall, not quite brave enough to peer round the living room door.
"Judging by your look of stunned disbelief, Harry did not warn you that I was coming," the owner of the voice said pleasantly. "However, let us assume that you have invited me warmly into your house. It is unwise to linger overlong on doorsteps in these troubled times." There was the sound of a pair of tall boots stepping smartly over the threshold, and the door shutting with a definitive click. "It is a long time since my last visit. I must say, your agapanthus are flourishing."
Dad, being in no state to register the compliment, only breathed out harshly.
"Ah, good evening Harry," said the wizard, not at all bothered by the way he had invited himself into the hall. "Excellent, excellent."
"I don't mean to be rude—" dad blustered.
"—yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often. Best to say nothing at all, my dear man. Ah, and this must be Petunia."
The kitchen door had opened, and mum, wearing rubber gloves and a housecoat over her nightdress, was staring at the unseen wizard in shock.
"Albus Dumbledore," said Dumbledore to mum. "We have corresponded, of course." Then he turned, as though he'd noticed the very moment Dudley had allowed himself a glimpse into the hall, and looked at Dudley with bright, sparkling blue eyes hidden behind half-moon spectacles. Albus Dumbledore was an ancient man with a long, white beard tucked into his beaded belt, but he held himself in such a sprightly way that he looked decades younger than he should. His pointed wizard's hat and his robe was blue and embellished with so many gems, sequins, and sparkling mirrors that his every movement seemed to send rainbows down the Dursleys' bland walls.
"And this must be your son, Dudley?" Dumbledore asked.
Although no one said a thing, Dumbledore continued the conversation unperturbed. "Shall we assume that you have invited me into your sitting room?"
Dudley scrambled out of the way as Dumbledore passed him. Dumbledore, he recognized, was another friend of Harry's, and was perhaps more powerful than even the giant.
Harry, clutching his telescope and trainers, jumped the last few stairs and followed Dumbledore with an anxious look, as the old man settled himself in the armchair nearest the fire and took in his surroundings wilh an expression of benign interest. The wizard looked quite extraordinarily out of place—or rather, he looked precisely where he ought to be, only the Dursley's house didn't.
"Aren't—aren't we leaving, sir?" Harry asked with a kind of deference in his voice that Dudley had never heard before.
"Yes, indeed we are, but there are a few matters we need to discuss first," said Dumbledore. "And I would prefer not to do so in the open. We shall trespass upon your aunt and uncle's hospitality only a little longer."
"You will, will you?" dad said loudly at the wizard as he entered the room, mum following him with her eyes fixed on Dumbledore.
"Yes," said Dumbledore simply, "I shall."
He drew his wand so rapidly that Dudley barely saw it; with a casual flick, the sofa zoomed forward and knocked the knees out from under all three of the Dursleys so that they collapsed upon it in a heap. Another flick of the wand and the sofa zoomed back to its original position.
"We may as well be comfortable," said Dumbledore pleasantly.
Dudley realized at once why the giant had held Dumbledore enough regard to curse anyone who spoke against him: they both found taunting those weaker than them to be a marvellous sport. Only unlike the giant, Dumbledore did so with such a composed manner that no one could accuse him of doing anything of the sort.
As the old man replaced his wand in his pocket, Harry blurted out, "Sir—what happened to your—?"
And following Harry's gaze, Dudley saw that one of the wizard's hands was shriveled with more than age; it was blackened so badly it looked as though his flesh had been burned away.
"Later, Harry," said Dumbledore. "Please sit down."
Harry took the remaining armchair at once.
No one else dared to speak; and Dudley watched Harry with growing alarm. Never once in his life had he seen Harry obey anyone with such promptness. Even his cousin's usually-unquestioning capitulation to mum's demands were accompanied by a certain pause, a certain sigh or slouch of his shoulders that seemed to say he was only doing what she said because he pleased—that, indeed, he was condescending to clean the floors, or the windows, or weed the garden out of his own personal interest in the matter.
"I would assume that you were going to offer me refreshment," Dumbledore said, "but the evidence so far suggests that that would be optimistic to the point of foolishness." A third twitch of the wand, and a dusty bottle and five glasses appeared in midair. The bottle tipped and poured a generous measure of honey-colored liquid into each of the glasses, which then floated to each person in the room.
"Madam Rosmerta's finest oak-matured mead," said Dumbledore, raising his glass to Harry, who caught hold of his own and sipped, with evident intention, in the same manner that Dumbledore did.
At the same time, the glasses that had reached the Dursleys had begun to nudge them gently on the sides of their heads. Dudley did not need anyone to tell him that trying anything this wizard gave him would be tantamount to hurling himself off a cliff under the impression he could fly.
"Well, Harry," said Dumbledore, turning toward Harry collegially, "a difficulty has arisen which I hope you will be able to solve for us. By us, I mean the Order of the Phoenix. But first of all I must tell you that Sirius's will was discovered a week ago and that he left you everything he owned."
"Oh," said Harry. "Right."
Dudley could never have forgotten about Sirius Black, the unrepentant murderer who was Harry's godfather; but he had not known that Sirius had died.
"This is, in the main, fairly straightforward," Dumbledore went on. "You add a reasonable amount of gold to your account at Gringotts, and you inherit all of Sirius's personal possessions. The slightly problematic part of the legacy—"
"His godfather's dead?" said dad loudly from his spot on the sofa. Dumbledore and Harry both turned to look at him in the same mirrored motion; Dudley thought that Harry had never looked quite so much a wizard as he did right then.
The glass of mead was now knocking quite insistently on the side of dad's head; he attempted to beat it away. "He's dead? His godfather?"
"Yes," said Dumbledore. Turning back to Harry as though dad was nothing but an unruly fly, the old man continued, "Our problem is that Sirius also left you number twelve, Grimmauld Place."
"He's been left a house?" said dad greedily.
"You can keep using it as headquarters," said Harry. "I don't care. You can have it, I don't really want it."
Who, thought Dudley, was this Dumbledore, that Harry would so nonchalantly throw away land and inheritance from a godfather he'd seemed to treasure? Harry, who jealously guarded every scrap of food he was given, every book in his school trunk, and who polished the gleaming wood of his flying broomstick with the same care mum gave to her flowerbeds?
"That is generous," said Dumbledore. "We have, however, vacated the building temporarily."
"Why?" Harry said.
"Well," said Dumbledore, ignoring dad's muttering, though he had to be aware of the way the Dursleys were now being rapped smartly over the head by the persistent glasses of mead, "Black family tradition decreed that the house was handed down the direct line, to the next male with the name of 'Black.' Sirius was the very last of the line as his younger brother, Regulus, predeceased him and both were childless. While his will makes it perfectly plain that he wants you to have the house, it is nevertheless possible that some spell or enchantment has been set upon the place to ensure that it cannot be owned by anyone other than a pure-blood."
"I bet there has," Harry said.
"Quite," said Dumbledore. "And if such an enchantment exists, then the ownership of the house is most likely to pass to the eldest of Sirius's living relatives, which would mean his cousin, Bellatrix Lestrange."
Harry sprang to his feet. The telescope and trainers he'd been holding in his lap rolled to the floor; but Dudley's cousin didn't even seem to notice.
"No," Harry said harshly.
"Well, obviously we would prefer that she didn't get it either," said Dumbledore calmly. "The situation is fraught with complications. We do not know whether the enchantments we ourselves have placed upon it, for example, making it Unplottable, will hold now that ownership has passed from Sirius's hands. It might be that Bellatrix will arrive on the doorstep at any moment. Naturally we had to move out until such time as we have clarified the position."
"But how are you going to find out if I'm allowed to own it?" Harry insisted.
"Fortunately," said Dumbledore, "there is a simple test."
He placed his empty glass on a small table beside his chair, but before he could do anything else, dad shouted, "Will you get these ruddy things off us?"
While the wizards had been speaking, the glasses had taken their chance, and now all three of the Dursleys were cowering with their arms over their heads as their glasses bounced up and down on their skulls, their contents flying everywhere.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Dumbledore politely, as though he hadn't enchanted the glasses himself, and he raised his wand again. All three glasses vanished. "But it would have been better manners to drink it, you know."
It looked as though dad was bursting with any number of unpleasant retorts, but he merely shrank back into the cushions and said nothing, keeping his eyes on Dumbledore's wand.
"You see," Dumbledore said, turning back to Harry and again speaking as though dad had not uttered, "if you have indeed inherited the house, you have also inherited—"
He flicked his wand for a fifth time. There was a loud crack, and in the same moment a small, twisted creature with a snout for a nose, giant bat's ears, and enormous bloodshot eyes was crouching on the Dursleys' shag carpet, covered in nothing but grimy rags.
Mum let out a hair-raising shriek; nothing this filthy had entered her house in living memory. Dudley drew his bare feet off the floor, afraid the thing might take a lunge at his exposed ankles in the way Aunt Marge's bulldogs had always enjoyed. And dad bellowed, "What the hell is that?"
"Kreacher," finished Dumbledore.
It was a minute before Dudley realized that Dumbledore was naming the thing on the carpet instead of simply stating the creature's existence. It wasn't till the thing started speaking that Dudley put it together, because it didn't sound like a name at all. You might as well name someone 'boy.'
"Kreacher won't, Kreacher won't, Kreacher won't!" croaked the unhappy-looking thing, in a voice quite as loud as dad, stamping his long, gnarled feet and pulling his ears. "Kreacher belongs to Miss Bellatrix, oh yes, Kreacher belongs to the Blacks, Kreacher wants his new mistress, Kreacher won't go to the Potter brat, Kreacher won't, won't, won't—"
"As you can see, Harry," said Dumbledore loudly, over Kreacher's continued croaks of "won't, won't, won't," "Kreacher is showing a certain reluctance to pass into your ownership."
"I don't care," said Harry again, looking with disgust at the writhing, stamping thing in front of him. "I don't want him."
And Dudley suddenly remembered a conversation he'd had with Harry, ages and ages ago, when he'd asked what had possessed Harry to ruin dad's deal with the Masons. "It wasn't me," Harry had said. "It was something called a house elf. He had to punish himself whenever he spoke badly of his masters."
"What, really?" Dudley had asked, twelve and incredulous.
"He was a slave," Harry had replied, just as young and innocent.
In all the years since, it had never quite hit Dudley that wizards kept slaves.
"Won't, won't, won't, won't—" Kreacher was wailing.
The disgust on Harry's face hadn't lessened; he was looking at the house elf in the same way mum might look at a clod of dirt that had stuck to her shoe.
"You would prefer him to pass into the ownership of Bellatrix Lestrange?" Dumbledore asked. "Bearing in mind that he has lived at the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix for the past year?"
"Won't, won't, won't, won't—" Kreacher was wailing horribly, pulling at his long, grimy ears.
Harry stared at Dumbledore.
"Give him an order," said Dumbledore. "If he has passed into your ownership, he will have to obey. If not, then we shall have to think of some other means of keeping him from his rightful mistress."
"Won't, won't, won't, WON'T!" Kreacher shrieked.
"Kreacher, shut up!" Harry barked.
It looked for a moment as though Kreacher was going to choke. He grabbed his throat, his mouth still working furiously, his eyes bulging. After a few seconds of frantic gulping, the house elf threw himself face forward onto the carpet and beat the floor with his hands and feet, as anguished as ever but suddenly, entirely, silent.
Dudley felt sick.
"Well, that simplifies matters," said Dumbledore cheerfully. "It means that Sirius knew what he was doing. You are the rightful owner of number twelve, Grimmauld Place and of Kreacher."
"Do I—do I have to keep him with me?" Harry asked.
"Not if you don't want to," said Dumbledore. "If I might make a suggestion, you could send him to Hogwarts to work in the kitchen there. In that way, the other house elves could keep an eye on him."
"Yeah," said Harry. "Yeah, I'll do that. Er—Kreacher—I want you to go to Hogwarts and work in the kitchens there with the other house elves."
Kreacher, who was now lying flat on his back with his arms and legs in the air, gave Harry one upside-down look of deepest loathing and, with another loud crack, vanished.
"Good," said Dumbledore. "There is also the matter of the hippogriff, Buckbeak. Hagrid has been looking after him since Sirius died, but Buckbeak is yours now, so if you would prefer to make different arrangements—"
"No," said Harry at once, "he can stay with Hagrid. I think Buckbeak would prefer that."
"Hagrid will be delighted," said Dumbledore, smiling. "He was thrilled to see Buckbeak again. Incidentally, we have decided, in the interests of Buckbeak's safety, to rechristen him 'Witherwings' for the time being, though I doubt that the Ministry would ever guess he is the hippogriff they once sentenced to death. Now, Harry, is your trunk packed?"
"Erm…"
The wizards had moved on from the house elf without another apparent thought, as though the house elf's passing off from one owner to another was nothing but an item on a to-do list.
"Doubtful that I would turn up?" Dumbledore suggested shrewdly.
"I'll just go and—er—finish off," said Harry hastily, hurrying to pick up his fallen telescope and trainers. He excused himself from the living room and the Dursleys could hear him running quickly up the stairs, and then the clatter of his things being thrown together.
Dumbledore began to hum tunelessly. He was well-pleased with the whole situation, and Harry's promptness was no more than he expected.
No one said a word.
It was ten minutes before Harry returned, heaving his trunk down the stairs and ducking back into the living room to say an awkward, "Professor—I'm ready now."
"Good," said Dumbledore. "Just one last thing, then." And he turned to speak to the Dursleys once more.
"As you will no doubt be aware, Harry comes of age in a year's time—"
"No," said Aunt Petunia, speaking for the first time since Dumbledore's arrival.
"I'm sorry?" said Dumbledore politely.
"No, he doesn't. He's a month younger than Dudley, and Dudders doesn't turn eighteen until the year after next."
"Ah," said Dumbledore pleasantly, "but in the Wizarding world, we come of age at seventeen."
"Preposterous," dad muttered, but Dumbledore ignored him. Not so much as though dad were a fly, Dudley realized suddenly, but as though dad were… were another house elf, something that could walk and talk but which was unquestionably beneath him.
"Now, as you already know, the wizard called Lord Voldemort has returned to this country. The Wizarding community is currently in a state of open warfare. Harry, whom Lord Voldemort has already attempted to kill on a number of occasions, is in even greater danger now than the day when I left him upon your doorstep fifteen years ago, with a letter explaining about his parents' murder and expressing the hope that you would care for him as though he were your own."
Dumbledore paused, and although his voice remained light and calm, and he gave no obvious sign of anger, there was a sudden chill emanating from him. It was not quite as bad a chill as a dementor's, but something about it was just as icy.
"You did not do as I asked," Dumbledore said. "You have never treated Harry as a son. He has known nothing but neglect and often cruelty at your hands. The best that can be said is that he has at least escaped the appalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy sitting between you."
Mum and dad looked around instinctively, as though expecting to see someone other than Dudley squeezed between them.
"Us—mistreat Dudders? What d'you—?" began dad furiously, but Dumbledore raised his finger for silence, a silence which fell over dad as though he had struck him dumb.
"The magic I evoked fifteen years ago means that Harry has powerful protection while he can still call this house 'home.' However miserable he has been here, however unwelcome, however badly treated, you have at least, grudgingly, allowed him houseroom. This magic will cease to operate the moment that Harry turns seventeen; in other words, at the moment he becomes a man. I ask only this: that you allow Harry to return, once more, to this house, before his seventeenth birthday, which will ensure that the protection continues until that time."
None of the Dursleys dared to say a word. Dudley frowned down at his hands. A thought was struggling to the surface of his brain. He could not pretend that he didn't understand what Dumbledore meant by "appalling damage." He had long since realized that despite their protestations, the Dursleys were not the kind of family anyone would envy; and that, though Harry had taken the brunt of the abuse, Dudley's lot had its own kind of misery. But he wondered from what high tower Dumbledore meant to speak, a wizard who used his own power in the same way. That Dudley was the Dursley's favoured son was in no doubt; it had strangled him as well as a noose.
Harry was in some similar way Dumbledore's favorite. And Dudley wondered about the shape of Harry's own noose, and if he prized it as much as Dudley had once prized his own.
.
.
.