6 October 1997
Dudley's days and hours blurred in a haze of music and chores.
Wake up. Click play. Work out. Shower. Feed the chickens with Hestia. Get breakfast ready with Remus. Clear the breakfast things with Remus. Knead bread with Mum. Switch discs. Wash the dishes with Dedalus. Note card practice with Tonks. Freshen the owls' water with Hestia. Switch discs. Make sure the disc doesn't have lyrics. Transcribe notes, with everyone in the sitting room. Switch discs. Help Mum with lunch, with Remus hovering. Get kicked out of the kitchen. Sit at the table with Remus and Dad, shifting in their seats and not looking at each other. Eat lunch. Switch discs. Clear the dishes with Dedalus. And, if there were no other chores going, transcribe, transcribe, transcribe.
Dudley could close his eyes and see the cramped, spiky letters on the back of his eyelids. Snape could have written a whole shelf of books, with all the scribbling he'd done in other people's works. But that wasn't the worst of it, Dudley thought.
He was never alone.
Always, a few steps behind on his walk with his parents, or on the next chair over, or outside the bedroom where he slept, there was a wakeful witch or a wizard.
Dudley hadn't minded at first.
Everything had been fuzzy anyway, and everyone was treating him rather nicely.
He got to listen to as much music as he wanted, even at the table.
Remus and Tonks were getting along better.
Finally.
But Dudley was used to having plenty of his own space. His own room with his own television and VCR. His own things. Even in boarding school, he'd found pockets of time that were his.
The bathroom was the only place he was left alone, now.
So that's where he was.
He was taking longer than he needed, just sitting on the floor with his back against the cupboard, eyes closed, music off. He was already getting tired of his CD collection.
Frantic tapping at the door. Tonks?
She used the loo far more often than anyone else.
"Dudders? Hurry up, please? Popkin?"
Dudley rolled his eyes and tapped the back of his head against the cupboard. "Almost done, Mum!"
He knew that just down the corridor, Tonks was waiting. She'd got bored watching him, and so they'd resumed boxing lessons. No sparring, of course.
It wasn't that Dudley minded giving Tonks lessons, even though she was probably the worst pupil he could imagine.
He was just tired of the whole thing. The thought of this routine stretching on and on, through months and seasons and years, depending on how long the War lasted, made him dizzy.
More frantic tapping at the door.
"Dudders? You alright in there?"
He knew that tone. He hauled himself to his feet and opened the door for his mother. Petunia rushed past him, not even reprimanding him for not washing his hands. He stepped out into the corridor, and the door closed with a firm click.
"Hi, Dudley!" Tonks called from his bedroom. "Ready for my lesson!"
She refused to call him Coach. She had terrible form. Poor coordination. She was slow. And lazy, Dudley thought.
"Right," he said. "So, its left-left-right-left."
She went at the bag too fast, and she had no rhythm.
"Slow it down. You can go slower."
She missed the bag entirely.
"Watch this!" She scrunched her face, and in a few seconds, her shoulders and arms had swollen and bulged to five times its usual strength. Veins nearly popping, she smacked the speed bag, then the punching bag. When she hit the heavy bag, she sent it spinning away. She also lost balance and stumbled into Dedalus' bed.
Dudley sighed. "You got to quit with that. Short cuts. You keep – you keep –" he searched his memory for words his Coach had said that he could use on a married, pregnant witch who was big on manners.
"It's like steroids," he said. "You got to quit with that."
She smacked the bag again, this time, crouching and keeping her balance as the bag lurched on its chain. "Don't be daft," she said. "I've been doing this since I was a baby. It's what I am. It's who I am."
Coach's anti-doping speech had gone into graphic detail about the effects of popular steroids on body acne and testicles. It didn't seem to apply here. Dudley was on his own.
"Yeah, well," he said. "How're you going to build your own strength if you keep faking it?"
"It is my strength, and it's not fake, Dudley. It's just temporary." Tonks seemed irritated he hadn't been impressed by her magic. She glared at him, crossing her huge arms across her chest, and falling over again. "It's just for fun, anyway. In a real fight, I'd use magic."
"Okay, well," he said, rather listlessly. "Give me ten uppercuts then. Left side first."
She complied but stumbled again.
The right vocabulary, at last. "It's your center of gravity. Keeps changing, with all that mess you like to do."
"All that mess, he says? I'll have you know this is a highly sought after, rare talent. Got me out of more trouble than I care to admit." She wasn't even breathing hard. "Got me into the Aurors, youngest recruit in years."
Dudley stared up at the ceiling. Why couldn't he be back at his all-boys school, doing training of his own, prepping for fights, winning tournaments?
He tried to picture how his Coach would respond. "Rope, NOW!" He tried barking the order the way his Coach had.
"Yeah, I'm thinking no." She patted her tummy protectively.
Dudley gritted his teeth. "Push-ups, then! Drop and give me 20."
She snorted. "I just want your help with boxing, Dudley. Not interested in all the other stuff."
Dudley checked his watch. How had so little time passed? He needed something, anything, to make this tolerable.
"Left jab right cross," he said. "10 times."
He stared out the window, but the world of rain and mud outside offered no relief.
"Slow down," he said. "There's no point you hitting so fast if you're going to be so sloppy. And you're over-extending."
His student was finally, finally, starting to breathe faster and sweat. She winced on the last three punches.
"It's stupid, what you're doing," Dudley said. "Cause you don't got the back muscles and pecs to deal with those heavy arms you gave yourself."
Tonks hit the bag harder, then scrunched her face. Her whole body enlarged, workout clothes straining.
Dudley wondered how big she could get. "How big can you get anyway?" he asked.
She grinned. "Last I checked? 6 foot 3 and 20 stone."
"20 stone? Bloody fat, you are!" Dudley jeered. "Coach'd haul you into the sweat room before you could blink. Wearing all your winter kit, no less."
"Coach sounds like a scary bloke, alright. Guess I'll call off my plans to run off to Smeltings and take your place on the team."
"You're lying, anyway. No way you could get that big." Dudley remembered the image of his aunt swelling to the size of a car, becoming lighter than air, and blowing away. Why had she flown away? Had Harry got helium into her somehow? He shook his head. "Nah, I don't believe it."
"Watch and see, twit." Tonks scrunched her face again, stretching up and out. Her face kept the same friendly smirk, but broadened, along with her neck muscles. She flexed.
"6 foot 3 inches, you say?" Dudley walked around her. "See, I'm only 6 foot 2, and you're shorter than me." He wanted to give her a little shove on the shoulder, but refrained.
"Yeah? So did your wrists always stick out of your sleeves like that? Face it, Dudders, you're still a growing boy. Maybe being around all this magic's been good for you."
Dudley realized she was right. He no longer knew how tall he actually was, now. There were a series of marks his father had made to track his growth, on the inside of a post in their garage at 4 Privet Drive. They weren't allowed to mark up the house. Dudley wondered if the marks were still there, or if the Death Eaters living there had erased them, or if they'd burned it all down already.
She'd called him Dudders, so he said, "Back to work, Nymphadora. Jab, jab, uppercut."
She overextended her shoulder, and she tripped and fell, of course.
Dudley had remembered another thing that bothered him about his pupil's work. He decided to try out his American accent.
"Surprise, surprise! You fell. Again. Cause you kept those tiny Cinderella feet and you raised your center of gravity and you made yourself top-heavy with those cheater muscles. What, you late to the ball, or something? Up you get, Nymphadora-rella."
Dudley didn't offer to help her up. He didn't want Remus to walk in and get the wrong idea again.
Tonks glared at him and rolled to her feet. "What the hell is that voice you're doing?"
"Sorry, I guess I forgot how to talk. I mean tawk."
"You're not the first person to tell me I'm throwing off my center of gravity. I can compensate for that, I just don't always think to."
"Jab, jab, uppercut, Nymphadora."
"Don't call me that! And have a better attitude."
"Sorry. Please, Mrs. Lupin, would you be so kind as to strike the bag with your fist like I uh …" Dudley paused trying to think of a clever word.
She was already hitting the bag.
Dudley let her go for a while, until she was good and winded. He knew it wouldn't take long, and it didn't. Cheat muscles, without the cardio to back them up. Hauling around extra weight cost energy. He stepped back, in case she spewed.
Scrunching her face again, she shrank down to her normal size. She started breathing more easily right away, and her face got less red.
Dudley wished he could have had it that easy.
"Back in a mo'," she said, and headed for the bathroom. "Try not to kill yourself in the next 30 seconds, arite?"
Dudley pushed idly at the bag. He felt empty inside, quiet. He tapped at the window, speeding up the droplets of rain streaking down the glass.
He heard the toilet flush, the sink run briefly, and two doors open. Tonks bounced back in. She hadn't even taken her gloves off. Remus had worked on them, devising a spell that would let her retrieve her wand even if she was wearing them. It had some unexpected side effects. If someone wearing them wanted to do something that required fingers, the gloves would melt away just enough to permit whatever motion was required. Dudley kept to his own, unmagical gloves, but he thought it would be convenient to have his hands protected, but free to tie a shoelace or pick up something.
As Dudley threw out some more combinations for Tonks, he wondered what his own team members were doing now. They hadn't had news from the Muggle world since early September, not that the Smeltings boxing team would make it into the newspapers anyway. In the summer, Dudley had made a point of keeping up with his cardio and endurance workouts. He'd placed high in his regional tournament two years running but lost early in the nationals. Coach said he needed more stamina. He hated cardio training, but he had to keep at it through the summer, so he'd gone for it. Then the Dursleys had got the news that his final year in school wasn't going to go as they'd hoped.
He hadn't gone for a good jog since he'd got to Meadowsweet Cottage in August. The place was either forest, long grass, or mud. "That's just an excuse," Coach growled in his head. Dudley hadn't jogged and hadn't sparred since June. He'd told himself that the rope was good enough cardio, but he could no longer pretend he was in the same shape he'd been in at the beginning of the summer. He'd grown, true, but his fitness hadn't.
Dudley didn't think it likely the war would end early enough for him to return to school. The Order – or Harry's side – as he thought of them, still had no idea how they were being tracked so effectively. They could pop away, end up anywhere in Britain – even Ireland – and the Death Eaters would show up shortly thereafter. They could shelter using the Fidelius Charm, but that neutralized them. To have any hope of stopping the Death Eaters, they had to be able to act.
Every day, Tonks stole into Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade under a different disguise to buy both the Prophet and the Quibbler. The news was always bad. The Quibbler had spread the word that only the Fidelius Charm could reliably hide people from the Snatchers and Death Eaters. It was also clear, through the Order network of Patronus messengers, that the Death Eaters weren't able to track many people outside the Order. The odd Muggle-born witch or wizard who'd gone on the run reported in occasionally to the Quibbler editor. While they went weeks without an encounter, people like Tonks and Remus kept running into trouble whenever Order members went about together outside the Fidelius network.
They'd scanned each other for the microchips Vernon had insisted must be planted under their skin and found nothing. Their current idea was that Snape might have drugged them during an Order meeting, or tagged their wands with some alternate version of the Trace.
In short, they were at sea.
Dudley's parents, meanwhile, were a puzzle to him.
Obviously, they weren't happy with Tonks. There'd been plenty of yelling. Petunia had stopped speaking to her. Dudley thought Tonks seemed more relaxed and cheerful. But Dudley's mind was clearing up, and Hestia and Dedalus had both stood up for him, and even Remus had thought Tonks acted too quickly. And she'd apologized.
As for himself, Dudley found being Befuddled rather enjoyable, once he was no longer dropping weights on his chest or releasing iron balls that flew about attacking him. It felt like being drunk, a sensation he'd been deprived of since the early summer.
He'd learned Remus was a werewolf, then temporarily been made to forget that fact, then learned it again. And now, he didn't have to go about pretending he didn't already know. Furthermore, his goal of gaining access to the Wizarding Wireless had been achieved. With no need to hide the constant reminders of Remus' nature, everyone in the house found it much more convenient to keep the Wireless on and set to the news.
His whole life, Dudley had been used to keeping secrets and pretending to be different sorts of boys. Dudley is frightened of his violent, disturbed cousin. Dudley just loves all the books you gave him for Christmas. Dudley is a studious boy – he just tests poorly. Dudley would never hurt anyone. He could pretend to be the kind of boy his parents described. Lately, Dudley wondered if he'd also been pretending to be cool. Surely, a truly cool bloke wouldn't look forward to talking with an old wizard, or making up silly nicknames with him? Surely, someone cool wouldn't be worried about the fate of the tinkly celesta in the attic, and whether he'd get to play it again?
He kept secrets from everyone, including his parents. And not just what he and the lads got up to in the neighborhood – the bullying, vandalism, and drinking.
Dudley was supposed to be scared of magic. He was scared of magic. For a long time. But he was also fascinated by it.
They'd been stuck out there, on the island, until the old man whose boat they'd borrowed turned up the next morning to look for them. He hadn't been happy about his gun being mangled, but he'd got them back to shore. They'd got home, and then Harry had turned up with a live owl and dragging a heavy trunk. And all the while, Dudley's tail twitched and coiled. He could feel it, right down to the tip. It wasn't just tacked on. It was a part of him, and he wondered if it would be a part of him forever. He lay awake at night, knowing the tail was there, wondering if the pig-ness would spread, if there would be a patch of bristly, rough skin above the tail, if the skin would spread over his body while his bones shrank and twisted, while his feet pulled back into hooves, while his face melted and sprouted a snout and pointy ears. The whole time, his parents didn't speak of it to him. He was relieved, when they took him to London for a special surgery. He was bandaged and sore on the drive to Smeltings later that week, but he felt relief and joy through the pain.
But before that surgery – before he knew that medicine could fix what magic had broken – Dudley had been afraid. He couldn't be as afraid of Harry as he was supposed to be. So, one night, he'd sneaked into Harry's room, opened the trunk – it wasn't locked – and filched out the magic books. He'd stayed up, all night, flipping through them in his bed with the flashlight, looking to find anything on humans turning into pigs.
There hadn't been much. Lots of big words in the Transfiguration textbook he didn't understand. A few things in the History of Magic book that indicated humans could be turned into animals, and that curses could be permanent. Nothing that helped him figure out anything useful.
Dudley had fallen asleep with the books under his blankets. He'd fallen asleep late at night and overslept the next day. His mother had come in to wake him for breakfast, and she'd found the books. Without a word, she'd gathered them all up, and put them back in Harry's trunk.
She never said a word about it.
When Harry came home that summer, Vernon locked all of the magic things (except the owl) away in the closet, and the owl had to stay in her cage.
"Well! Thanks for the workout, Dudley. Shower time for me, I think. Who's got you next? Dedalus?" Tonks mopped the sweat from her face and neck.
"I think I'm fine now," Dudley told her. "I don't need looking after. I'm not…"
"Befuddled," she said. "Well, you seemed more normal today. We can test your skills in a bit, but I'd like to give it til at least the end of the day."
"Hello, Tonks. Dudley," Hestia said from the corridor.
"Wotcher, Hestia. What will you and Dudley be doing this afternoon?"
"Wireless duty for both of us, I'm afraid," Hestia said, pulling a face. "Umbridge Hour. Sorry, Dud."
"You can listen to my CD player if you want. I could take the notes for you."
"Thanks, but I'd better keep an ear out just the same."
"Hestia?" Dudley asked while an advert played. "Your burn seems healed."
"Right, well, it's been a while, hasn't it?"
"Nasty burn, though," Dudley said. "Should have left a scar."
Hestia shrugged and ran a hand across her neck, which showed no sign of the battles from September. "Not cursed, though. Just the fire from Incendio in the house. I'm right as rain, I'm happy to report."
"My ribs were broken, right?"
She nodded an agreement, readying her quill for another round of note-taking.
"And my lung had been punctured, right? And my shoulder was broken, too?"
"That's right, Dudley," she said. "Your memory seems to be firming up. That's good."
Dolores Umbridge's voice filled the sitting room, and Dudley fell silent.
His mind drifted as Umbridge read a new Ministry Decree restricting the use of the Fidelius Charm, and requiring pre-registry, NEWT-level Charms mastery, and confirmation that all persons to be protected by the Fidelius Charm had wizarding blood.
There was no bruising on Dudley's chest, and no tightness when he drew in a breath. His shoulder and ribs had no pain. Hestia's skin had been ripped, raw, and filthy, and now it was smooth.
Dudley's scar from the surgery itched, sometimes. Sometimes, he still thought he felt the tail itself. He shifted in his seat.
"Does it only work if you do it right away?" he asked at the next break in Umbridge's announcements.
"What? Does what work?"
"Like your burn. If it had healed on its own, and then scarred, would Tonks have been able to fix it then?"
"It might have taken longer, maybe a full day, maybe longer with potions. I mostly know how to fix up owls."
If Tonks could fix his tail scar, Dudley wanted it gone.
He thought back to something Hestia had said, early on. That the Dursleys could have had Dumbledore remove the tail. He hadn't wanted anything to do with wizards, but in the end, wizards had visited the Dursleys anyway. Including Dumbledore.
"This is most unusual. There are very few cases of vestigial tails in the medical literature, and… they typically are simple extensions of adipose tissue and muscle – no vertebrae, you see. See here – in the X-ray – I've never seen anything like it. Would you consider letting me write this up in a medical report? Anonymized, of course."
"Absolutely not! And, if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut about this whole thing."
Lots of people had known, Dudley thought. The surgeon, the nurses, the X-ray technician. Lots of people. Did any of them still remember, or had they talked too much, and had a visit that would leave them confused for a few hours or days, with no clear memory?
The teacher's hair turned blue. And none of the kids except for Dudley could remember.
The custodian had to get Harry down off the school roof. He should have been a legend. But the next morning, when Dudley mentioned it to Piers, his friend had looked at him like he'd grown another head.
Dudley had learned not to talk about weird stuff with other people.
That's what confused him about his parents, he thought. Why wouldn't they get one person to fix the tail, instead of a whole team of people? It had been embarrassing, and it hurt. Why was magic so terrible that they had to always pretend it wasn't happening?
Or maybe, he thought, with a shiver, maybe the pain and embarrassment were the point. He'd never tried looking at Harry's school things again.
7 October 1997
Dudley had made up his mind, and he wanted to ask before he could change it.
Tonks had her gloves on, ready for the lesson of the day. "We might have to change our lesson time starting tomorrow," she said. "Since I'll need to start brewing Remus' potion, and it'll take up a good bit of my day."
"I have a weird scar," Dudley blurted out.
Tonks looked up, surprised.
"If you can't fix it, it's okay. It doesn't hurt that much, usually." He flexed his fingers and looked at the spot a few inches above her head. "But if you could fix it…"
"Can't hurt to take a look." She reached for her wand, and her boxing glove warped and melted around it.
"It's uh… it's near my uh…" Dudley pointed at his rear end. "I'm not trying to be rude."
Tonks made an impatient gesture. "Go on, then."
He showed her.
"What are those little dots for?" she asked.
"That's where the stiches went."
"Right, I've heard of that." She paused, concentrating. "Got it," she said, after a moment.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. Now, is it alright if we do our lessons later in the day tomorrow?"
Dudley didn't care. He was there all day, in any case.
He also didn't care if his parents found out that Tonks had healed his scar through magic. He wasn't going to bring it up, but if they found out – what could they do? What would it matter?
Dudley couldn't help but smile.