Author's Note: I've been told there's been some trouble accessing recent chapters on an on-and-off basis as of late- for those with any issues accessing them, I'll just mention that this fic is cross-posted to AO3. Hopefully that helps, and thanks for reading!

THE STARS ARE DIFFERENT HERE

Chapter Ten: A Highly Irregular Christmas

October slid into November, and life continued on. Harry attended his classes, receiving good marks without much effort. He and Hermione continued to revise together, spending long afternoons in the library together in the process. It wasn't how Harry would necessarily choose to spend his time, but he'd already lost Ron to this world, and he wasn't about to lose her as well.

Sometimes other Ravenclaw students joined them. Harry was pleased to see that while Hermione was hardly the most popular girl around, she had an easier time making friends in her new house than she had in Gryffindor. That being said, even the most studious Ravenclaw's eyes could occasionally be seen glazing over when Hermione found herself on a particularly passionate ramble about a new piece of fascinating information she'd just discovered in Hogwarts: A History.

When he wasn't in the library, Harry continued to explore the castle with Theo and the other first-year Slytherin boys. Blaise Zabini didn't say much, but he was decent enough company. Crabbe and Goyle were thicker than treacle tart, but they meant well, and Harry had slowly come to realise they hadn't had very many friends at all before coming to Hogwarts. Both were only children who came from estates which, by reading between the lines, Harry suspected were past their respective peaks, and neither seemed to have much to say about their parents.

"They latched onto Malfoy last time around," Harry mused aloud as he sat in Professor McGonagall's office one evening after dinner. "This time they haven't latched onto anyone, besides maybe each other."

They hadn't called Hermione a Mudblood again, not since Harry had snapped at them. He hadn't heard them use the term at all, actually. He thought back to some of the Slytherins he'd known the first time he'd attended Hogwarts, and he wondered at which point they'd stopped simply parroting their parents and instead began to truly stand by the things they said.

"You can't save them," Professor McGonagall reminded him when he brought this up. "But you can certainly be a good example."

The last thing Harry wanted was to be a good example. He just wanted to be a regular Hogwarts student, and to play Quidditch. Despite the former being an impossibility even in his old life, he'd at least had that second option.

"For God's sake, Potter, you'll wait until you're a second year." Professor McGonagall rolled her eyes when he brought this up for the dozenth time, even as she pushed the tin of biscuits on her desk toward him. "It's not a lifetime ban."

Harry internally cringed at this, remembering the actual lifetime ban that had been placed upon him by Umbridge. He'd verified through Professor McGonagall that Dolores Umbridge did, in fact, exist in this world, and worked at the Ministry. This version, however, held a middling rank in the Ministerial Wizarding Register Department, not Undersecretary to the Minister for Magic. According to Professor McGonagall, she hardly seemed as ambitious nor notable as the woman Harry had described, though he still had no desire to approach her in any capacity.

Umbridge and her lifetime Quidditch ban no longer holding any power aside, Harry doubted he'd be able to play next year, at least not as a Seeker. He'd learned with horror after Quidditch tryouts took place that Draco Malfoy had taken that role, likely due to his father's promise to buy the entire team a new fleet of top-of-the-line brooms. It was mortifying, puttering about the grounds on one of Madam Hooch's Shooting Stars while the Slytherin team raced around the pitch on Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones.

Slytherin trounced Gryffindor at their first match of the year, but Harry couldn't find it in himself to celebrate with the rest of his house. He still felt a loyalty to Gryffindor, even if it wasn't his house anymore. Besides, the last thing he wanted to do was congratulate Draco-bleeding-Malfoy for having caught the Snitch. He did, at least, manage to force a small nod that evening in the common room when they inadvertently locked eyes amidst the Slytherin celebration.

"Bet you wouldn't mind having a Nimbus Two Thousand One, wouldn't you, Potter?" Malfoy smirked as he sprawled across a nearby couch, soaking in his victory. "But I suppose your Muggle relatives wouldn't know what a broomstick was, even if they could afford one."

Harry was jealous, but he also couldn't help but see Malfoy as exactly what he was- a twelve-year-old boy who, this time around, didn't even have his lackeys following him about, hanging onto his every word.

He shrugged. "I'm a first year. Couldn't have a broom either way. Maybe next year."

And with that, he turned and walked away from Malfoy, though not so quickly that he didn't see the sour look emerge across his face.

Harry stared at the note he'd received that morning. He'd read it multiple times, but it still made little sense. Like most letters from the Dursleys, it arrived in a stamped Muggle-style envelope via a post owl, and he recognised the stationery inside as coming from a pad that usually sat beside the telephone at 4 Privet Drive.

As Professor Snape watched from across his desk, Harry read it again, trying to wrap his mind around the short message.

Dear Harry,

We trust all is well by you.

When should we expect you for the Christmas holidays?

Yours sincerely,
Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon

"I take it you didn't spend many holidays with your family," Professor Snape said at last. "Before, that is."

"I didn't spend any holidays with them, sir, not since I started coming to Hogwarts." Harry leaned back in his chair. "Except for summer, but that was only because they had to take me."

"Hm. I'd take that as an improvement from one world to the next, then."

"Yeah, but..." Harry trailed off, shaking his head. "I'd rather spend Christmas at Hogwarts than at Privet Drive."

"Poor Potter. I can hardly imagine your immense burden, having relatives who care to spend time with you."

Harry glared, but he couldn't muster any genuine irritation, not when Professor Snape's lip had twitched just the slightest bit.

"You were friends with my mum, sir. Did you ever meet the Dursleys?"

"I knew your aunt as a child." Professor Snape thought over his words for a moment. "I can't speak for who she is now, but she held very firm opinions on what was acceptable and what wasn't."

Harry nodded. "She was even worse the first time around. She hated magic. She still doesn't like it, and neither does my uncle, but... I think they're willing to at least try to come to terms with it, sir."

"I'd go, if I were you," Sirius advised from the mirror that night. "It's an entirely new chance to have a relationship with them. If my parents were still alive here..."

He didn't finish the sentence. Harry nodded, drawing the curtains around his bed even more tightly shut. Snape, as promised, had taught him the muffling spell he'd used the night Sirius was discovered (along with a stern warning of the fate that awaited him were he to use it for other, unsanctioned purposes).

"I suppose I'll go." Harry curled up on his side. "Are you any closer to finding Voldemort?"

"A bit. I know I'm not far. The animals haven't led me astray yet." Sirius looked tired, but in better health than when they'd last met. "Snape's treating you well?"

"He's fine. He's not my best mate or anything, but he isn't an outright prick." He paused. "He actually asked me to tell him about my friendship with Ron the other night. Can you believe that? I mean, I figure he just wants to know everything he can about our original world, but it felt eerie sitting with him and talking about summers at the Burrow."

As eerie as it felt, it continued all the same. November gave way to December, and the night before the Hogwarts Express was due to take most of the castle's inhabitants back to London, Harry found himself in Snape's office, presumably serving yet another detention, this time joined by Professor McGonagall, along with Sirius via the mirror.

"I feel like an idiot," Harry acknowledged, nodding at the mirror. "I keep thinking that if I'd only opened the package, I would have been able to contact you, and none of this would have happened."

"I told you not to dwell on that," Sirius said gently. "Harry, it happened, but there's nothing you can do about it now."

"We're in an entirely different universe because of me. Ron doesn't exist anymore- or he does, and he thinks I'm dead."

"Enough," Snape cut in. "It was a foolish mistake, but acknowledging and learning from it is one thing, while obsessively dwelling on it is another."

Harry couldn't help but shoot him an exasperated look. "You- I know you're probably right, sir, but I don't think you understand."

"Don't I?" Professor Snape arched an eyebrow. "Not on a one-to-one level, certainly not. But, Potter, if you stopped wallowing for a moment, you might recall that others present know what it's like to lose a friend due to a reckless decision made in the heat of the moment." He looked at him sharply. "Would you hold that against them the way you're holding it against yourself?"

Harry paused. Then, reluctantly, he shook his head.

"Besides," Professor McGonagall spoke up from the corner in which she'd been observing this exchange. "This doesn't at all negate what you've lost, Mr. Potter, but have you considered that this world, and everyone in it, exists solely because of you and Sirius Black?"

"I remember thinking that when you brought me here from the Dursleys." It didn't make Harry feel better, not exactly, but noting Snape's disgusted expression, he couldn't help but add, "I suppose, by that logic, we're sort of deities here, aren't we?"

"You're hardly a deity," she assured him. "And if I hear you refer to yourself as such again..."

"I won't," Harry said quickly. "I'm not. I know I'm not, Professor."

"Thank Merlin," Professor Snape said dryly. "I'd have to hex you otherwise."

"Does that mean I can get away with saying it?" Sirius asked. "You're too far away to reach me."

Professor Snape ignored him, instead jerking his head in Harry's direction. "We'll need to find a new reason for you to be here every week after the holidays."

"Can't you just keep assigning me detentions?"

"Every week for the rest of the year? When you haven't done something noticeable to deserve such a fate?"

"I could do something noticeable, if you'd like. I could swear at you in class- would that be enough?" Harry suggested, perhaps a bit too eagerly. At Snape's expression, he shrugged. "You are right, though. Theo and Daphne have started asking what I've said to you to keep landing myself here."

"And?"

"I don't think I should repeat what I told them, sir," he admitted.

Professor McGonagall chuckled lightly, earning herself a glare from Professor Snape.

The journey to London was mundane, which was something Harry didn't mind in the slightest. After endless games of Exploding Snap with Theo, and entirely too many sweets from the trolley, they found themselves pulling up to platform nine and three-quarters.

"Well." Harry got to his feet once the train lurched to a halt. "Have a happy Christmas then, yeah?"

"You too." Theo was already waving through the window at a small group of people who looked vaguely like him- the cousins who'd helped raise him, Harry imagined.

Uncle Vernon waited just past the barrier, studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone dressed even the slightest bit oddly.

"Well," he said as Harry approached. "You're back."

"I am."

They studied each other for a moment, then Uncle Vernon said, "School's been all right?"

Harry nodded, recognising this was not an invitation to go into detail. "Yeah. It's been fine."

"Good. Good."

And with that stimulating conversation complete, they started toward the car park.

It didn't take long to realise something was wrong at Privet Drive, but it took far longer for Harry to put his finger on what it was. His new dynamic with the Dursleys was difficult enough to parse without anything additional being off.

With a lack of anything better to do, Harry busied himself with his holiday homework. Given it was intended for first years, he finished it in its entirety by the end of his second day back. He spent as much time as he could stand in his bedroom, occasionally wandering around the house, which felt strangely silent after so many months spent hurrying through the bustling corridors of Hogwarts.

Only once did Aunt Petunia ask, in a hushed, strained voice, if he was coping all right with the funny business they'd dealt with over the summer.

"Yeah," Harry murmured back, keeping his voice low as well, though Uncle Vernon and Dudley weren't anywhere within earshot. "It's... things have been all right, I think."

"Good," Aunt Petunia said with a nod, and they didn't discuss it any further.

Each night Harry found himself lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what was so damn strange about this visit. It wasn't just the fact that the Dursleys didn't outright despise him. It was something more, and Harry knew he wouldn't sleep well until he understood exactly what was different from his time here over the summer. It was difficult to remember much of that time; he'd spent much of it in a literal haze, one that only began to fade once he'd revealed to Aunt Petunia who he was and where he was from. Even then, there'd been so much to take in- he'd been far more focused on the changes to the magical world than whatever was happening here.

Despite having invited him back, the Dursleys gave him a wide berth. It was too cold to wander very far, meaning Harry wasn't able to spend most of his time away from the house as he had the summer before his fifth year. With a lack of anything else to do, Harry spent long afternoons in the living room, watching Muggle television. Dudley, who typically spent entire days and weeks doing just this, seemed to appreciate avoiding Harry more than he did watching The Great Humberto.

It was during one of these endless afternoons in front of the television that Uncle Vernon shuffled in, not quite meeting Harry's eyes as he sat heavily in an armchair opposite Harry. They nodded at one another, but didn't speak until at least ten minutes had passed.

"Have you spent the money we gave you?" Uncle Vernon asked at last, attention seemingly fixated on an advertisement for laundry detergent.

"Erm." Harry had spent it, after ignoring it for much of the term. After finding an older student to exchange the Muggle banknotes for wizarding Galleons at the tiny Gringotts outpost in Hogsmeade (while, of course, keeping a cut for themselves for having gone through the trouble), Harry had ordered the most boring, Muggle-like items he could find to bring home as token Christmas gifts for the Dursleys. "I did, yeah."

He paused, thinking of the oven mitts and packets of shoelaces at the bottom of his trunk. He'd managed to adhere to Uncle Vernon's request the money be used to purchase something normal after all.

"Good." Uncle Vernon still didn't look at him, gazing directly at the television set. "Your marks are good?"

"Yeah." Harry didn't tell him he was very nearly top of his class, and that he would be if he didn't go out of his way to ensure otherwise. "They're good enough."

Uncle Vernon grunted. On the television, tasteful music accompanied an announcer informing the general public of a Boxing Day sale on diamond rings.

"Tell me about it, then," Uncle Vernon said after a moment. "About your school."

"What?" Harry stared at him.

"I should know about where you go most of the year, shouldn't I?" Uncle Vernon asked, looking as though he'd very much like to stand up and leave the room, all while pretending he hadn't asked a thing. "Well, get on with it, boy. We haven't got all day."

Harry thought over his next words very carefully. Finally, he said, "The school is in a castle."

"A castle." Uncle Vernon shook his head, then mumbled, "That's traditional, at least. Better than the architecture those ruddy modernists come up with."

"I like it," Harry admitted. "A lot. It's a beautiful castle. It can be hard to find your way around at first," he went on, not mentioning the staircases that seemed to lead to somewhere else depending on which day it was, "But you get used to it pretty quickly."

"Are there sports?

Harry nodded, not mentioning Quidditch in particular. "I want to try out for my house team next year."

"Hm. And the instructors?"

"They're all right." Harry suspected he knew what Uncle Vernon wanted to hear, and he answered truthfully. "They're, you know, strict. Stricter than my old teachers. But they aren't awful or anything like that. My housemaster is probably the toughest professor in the entire school. He's fair, though."

Uncle Vernon made a noise that might have resembled something along the lines of approval. "Good. Coddling is the worst thing for a growing boy."

Harry thought of Dudley, but didn't speak. Uncle Vernon didn't speak either, and before long he stood up with a grunt and disappeared upstairs.

Later, when Aunt Petunia stuck her head in the room to summon Harry for dinner, he tore his eyes away from the current programme and asked, "This is a new television, isn't it?"

Aunt Petunia stiffened before returning to the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she said, "Don't ask questions."

It was Christmas Eve when Harry finally put two and two together. The Dursleys had always let him be, but now they were ignoring each other. Aside from meals, Harry couldn't remember the last time they'd all been in the same room together. Aunt Petunia typically spent holidays hovering over Dudley, doting on him even more intensely than usual, while Uncle Vernon took him on constant trips to the cinema and the funfair one town over, but everyone seemed to be scurrying about on their own private schedule.

Harry had hardly seen Dudley since he'd come home. He'd been avoiding his cousin, but now he realised the feeling might be mutual. He'd hardly thought of it as odd until now, given Dudley was petrified of him in his original timeline. But Dudley wasn't afraid of him here; as far as Harry knew, he didn't even know he was a wizard. The days before leaving for Hogwarts had been filled with great hilarity for Dudley as he gloated about Harry attending what he assumed, based on Professor McGonagall's appearance, was a school for hippies. Even upon being forbidden from saying the word hippie by Aunt Petunia, who shuddered at the very thought of unwashed rabblerousers, Dudley continued to be in fine spirits at the very idea.

Perhaps it was nothing, Harry thought, curling up on his side and trying to fall asleep. Perhaps Dudley was just under the weather. That's what Aunt Petunia had said earlier that day when Piers Polkiss turned up to see if Dudley wanted to go sledding down the big hill at the park.

Something still felt off. Dudley being ill was usually a matter of great importance in the Dursley house. Even the slightest cold had Aunt Petunia in a frenzy as she kept a constant vigil over the ailing boy's bed.

They're different here, Harry reminded himself as he got up to use the toilet. Who cares if Dudley spends more time in his room this time around? He's probably just playing computer games.

That, and Dudley was a year younger than Harry this go-around, meaning he hadn't gone off to Smeltings yet. This holiday wasn't a glorious, long-awaited reunion between parent and child.

Last time around Aunt Petunia cried and hugged Dudley because she missed him so much after not seeing him for three hours, Harry reminded himself.

This wasn't last time around, though.

It was on his way back from the toilet that he heard his aunt and uncle speaking downstairs. Their voices were low, but Uncle Vernon's inevitably rose whenever he was particularly agitated. He lowered it once more after a sharp Shh! from Aunt Petunia.

Harry edged closer to the top of the stairs, straining his ears as best he could. It sounded as though they were adding a few last-minute Christmas gifts to the pile under the tree, talking to one another all the while.

"-can't ignore it any longer, Vernon. You know we can't."

"We haven't ignored it." A heavy sigh. "If there's any chance the boy-"

"No." Aunt Petunia's voice was tight. "If there's anyone to blame, it's me. I think we both know it's me."

A long silence. Then, gruffly, Uncle Vernon mumbled, "I don't blame you."

Nothing more was said, and when their footsteps started toward the stairs, Harry hurried back to his bedroom and shut the door as quietly as he could.

Harry rose early on Christmas Day. Hedwig was rapping on his window with her beak, bearing gifts from his friends at school. Harry smiled as he opened Hermione's present- a large box of Chocolate Frogs, the same as she'd given him their original first year at Hogwarts. There was no Weasley jumper, and Harry did his best, with only partial success, not to think too hard about it. There was no flute from Hagrid, either. Harry always smiled and waved to him when they crossed paths, but the friendship that they'd forged upon his rescue from the Dursleys hadn't taken root this time around. He reminded himself to find a casual way to rekindle that bond once he was back at school. He missed Hagrid.

There was a pile of presents from his housemates, consisting of various sweets, a deck of Exploding Snap cards, and voucher with a small line of credit for Quality Quidditch Supplies (For your broomstick next year! Theo had written). Harry smiled, giving Hedwig extra owl treats before making his way downstairs.

Dudley was awake and had already made his way through several large presents. The wrapping paper had been pushed to the side, along with the gifts themselves. Harry flopped onto the sofa, not commenting on his cousin's apparent inability to wait for his parents. Dudley grunted at him.

"Yeah, happy Christmas to you too," Harry said. "Anything good this year?"

Dudley grunted again, gesturing at the opened gifts, which thus far consisted of several new computer games, a car that transformed into a robot (and vice versa), and a small television set Harry imagined was intended for Dudley's bedroom.

"Nice." Harry stretched out his legs, silently wondering if he could, through sheer willpower, force the start of term to come more quickly than it normally would.

"Aren't you going to open yours?" Dudley finally spoke as he reached for yet another gift.

Ah. It hadn't even occurred to Harry that there'd be gifts for him, but this time around he supposed it only made sense. As thick as the fog he'd spent the previous summer was, he vaguely remembered being presented with some sensible new clothes on his birthday, along with a few Muggle sweets Dudley had promptly stolen from him.

His gifts were much of the same this time around. There were new shirts and trousers he doubted he'd ever wear, along with a small sampling of chocolate bars Harry suspected Aunt Petunia had bought at the till while paying for her groceries. Dudley's eyes drifted toward the latter, and Harry, thinking of the tastier, magical sweets he had upstairs, tossed them into his much larger pile.

There was a card as well, one with the most generic of messages, but Harry hardly noticed that, instead staring at what had been tucked inside. There was a small wad of banknotes, which added up to- well, Harry didn't think it was quite as much as Dudley's gifts totalled, but it was still more than all the gifts the Dursleys had previously given him put together. Thinking of the fifty-pence coin they'd sent him his first year at Hogwarts, Harry shoved the money back into envelope, and leaned back into the cushions of the sofa, stunned.

Finally, when he trusted himself to speak again, he turned to Dudley and said, "Did something happen here? I mean, did your parents get into a row?"

"What are you talking about?"

Harry shrugged. "Everyone seems to be avoiding one another. You're in your room all the time. Something's off, I just don't know what."

Dudley gave him a strange look he couldn't decipher before turning back to box in front of him, which was revealed to be a new VCR. After a moment, he said, "It's me, I think."

"What about you?"

Dudley shrugged. "There's been trouble. More than usual, I mean."

"What do you mean?"

"You know. The same as always." Dudley paused. "There's been a lot of trouble at school. I don't think I'm going to Smeltings next year."

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted by the sound of Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's bedroom door opening upstairs. He fell silent as two pairs of footsteps made their way downstairs. Aunt Petunia's face fell as she walked into the living room.

"You've already started opening them!" she moaned.

"Sorry," Harry said sheepishly as Dudley allowed her to smother him in hugs and kisses.

"Well, it's Christmas, after all," Uncle Vernon said gruffly, shaking Dudley's hand and thumping him on the back once Aunt Petunia retreated to an armchair. "Can't blame a boy for being excited on Christmas."

Harry collected his own small pile of gifts, glancing again at the envelope, turned to his aunt and uncle. "Erm. Thank you. For... you know."

Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon glanced at one another, then back at Harry, the former saying, "We weren't quite sure what you'd like."

"It was really generous," Harry reassured them.

Uncle Vernon started to speak, then stopped, before trying again, and failing again. He finally settled on a grunt and a nod, and Harry suspected the contents of the envelope were intended to say whatever it was.

Dudley's door was ajar. Harry hesitated before knocking against the doorjamb as he stuck his head inside.

"What do you want?" Dudley jerked his head up from where he sat on his bed, tossing the book in his lap under the bed.

"I was just- wait, are you reading?"

"No." Dudley glared at him, then said, "Well, so what if I am?"

"There's nothing wrong with it. I just don't think I've ever seen you read voluntarily."

"Well, you don't know everything about me," Dudley snapped. "It's just homework, anyway."

"I don't think I've ever seen you do homework voluntarily either. Besides, it's Christmas."

"So what if it is?"

Harry took a step inside, and when Dudley didn't protest, he stepped in further. "I wanted to know more about what you said this morning. About not going to Smeltings next year."

Dudley gave him a long, hard look, as though gauging whether or not he was to be trusted. Finally, he let out an annoyed sigh and said, "It's like I told you. There's been trouble at school."

"What sort of trouble?"

"You know the sort of trouble."

Harry searched his brain, but he came up with nothing. Dudley had always come home with school reports decrying his bullying, from both primary school and Smeltings, but this had never phased the Dursleys much. If anything, Uncle Vernon seemed to be proud that his son wasn't a namby-pamby sissy.

"Tell me what you did exactly."

"That's just it- I don't know, not exactly." Dudley crossed his arms across his chest. "And you know we're not supposed to talk about it."

Harry shifted in place, wondering just how much context he'd missed by only becoming self-aware in this world just before turning eleven. "I won't tell your parents. I promise."

"You can't tell anyone."

"I won't."

Dudley looked at him suspiciously, then seemed to deflate somewhat. "I think I'm like you."

Harry stared at him. "I- what do you mean, you're like me?"

"I told you," Dudley said with a groan. "I don't know. I don't know what's wrong with you beyond being- being weird."

"Tell me everything," Harry said firmly, taking a seat at the foot of Dudley's bed.

"I used to blame you," Dudley admitted in a low voice. "When strange things happened. Mum and Dad always blamed you, so I figured it had to be you. But they'd happen even when you weren't around, and I just... tried not to think about it."

"Tell me the sort of strange things that happened."

Dudley shrugged, unable to meet his eyes. "Vegetables vanishing from my plate. Exam papers shrinking so small no one could read them. Whenever something weird happened at home, Mum and Dad would look at you straight away. But it kept happening, even when you went away."

A sudden memory came back to Harry of a blackened, warped kitchen appliance. "Last summer, when I spent a night at- at my new school. When I came back, there was something from the kitchen... it had been ruined."

"The food processor, yeah."

"Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon wouldn't answer when I asked about it." Harry shook his head slowly. "I figured you shoved it in the oven, or something stupid like that."

"No one would tell me where you'd gone, or who the woman in the funny outfit was," Dudley muttered. "It made me angry, and..."

He didn't finish the sentence, but Harry nodded slowly. "It just happened, didn't it?"

"I think Mum and Dad already suspected it wasn't just you," Dudley said after a long moment. "But that's the first time I thought it too. I don't know, though. It's not like we talk about it."

Harry nodded again, just as slowly. "You said there's been trouble at school?"

"I lit a teacher's hair on fire," Dudley said glumly. "At least, I think I might have. She was having a go at me because I punched that stupid Harrison kid, and it wasn't even my fault. I just got so angry..." He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "I just don't know how I did it, though. You turned that teacher's hair blue once. How did you do it?"

Harry leaned backwards, so that his back was resting against the surface of the bed. "Oh, God."

"Don't try and pretend you don't know what I'm talking about." Dudley moved forward and peered down at Harry. "You know."

Harry stared up at his cousin.

"You don't go to St. Brutus's School for Boys. You go to..." Here Dudley lowered his voice to a whisper, one so soft that Harry barely heard the next word. "Hogwarts. Don't you?"

An icy feeling had settled in the pit of Harry's stomach. "Where'd you hear that name, Dudley?"

"Spied on my parents once, after I blew up the television. They were talking about your mum, and how she'd gone there. They said they don't want me to go there too. Dad said they could handle me on their own, that maybe they could force it out- whatever it is- but Mum said she wasn't so sure." Dudley bit his lip. "I know you go to the same school your parents did. Mum and Dad said so before you left. That's what it's really called, isn't it? Hogwarts?"

Harry closed his eyes, willing himself to wake up from whatever this terrible dream was. "Dudley, I, erm... I think you really need to talk with your parents about this."

"Are you insane?"

"Please," Harry said quietly. "Talk to your mum. She'll be a bit weird about it, but I think she'll be likelier to tell you what you need to know. Tell her what you heard them talking about. And don't tell her you spoke about it with me."

Another long silence, then Dudley flopped backwards onto the bed as well. "I don't want to be like you."

"Yeah, I know." Harry paused. "It's not so terrible, though."

"I don't care. I don't want to be a- a freak. I don't want to go to a school for hippies."

"Dudley," Harry said, opening his eyes. "I hate to say it, but I don't think you have much of a choice."

Harry paced the length of his room, which wasn't very much, turned around, and paced back the way he'd come.

This couldn't be happening. He'd already been forced to endure a frankly impossible number of changes. A guilty Sirius, a decent Snape, dead Dumbledore, no Ron, being sorted into Slytherin... it was all just about all he could take. Now he was expected to simply accept that Dudley might be a wizard?

The thought of his cousin at Hogwarts caused his stomach to churn so badly Harry thought he might be sick.

It wasn't possible, he kept repeating to himself. There had to be a mistake. He thought back to the first time he'd met Hagrid, back in his original world. Hagrid had said Harry's name had been down for Hogwarts since he'd been born. Surely Hogwarts knew who was magical and who wasn't- how else would they know who to send letters to? He vaguely remembered Hermione saying something about a quill at Hogwarts that recorded the name every magical baby born in Britain.

If Dudley was a wizard, Professor McGonagall would know all about it. She would have said something, especially having heard Harry's retelling of his original life.

His thoughts flitted back to the blackened food processor from the summer before, of his aunt and uncle's reaction to him asking about it, and of all the memories he might have of Dudley if he could remember anything further back than that time. He thought about this for a while, then threw open his trunk and pulled out his mirror. In a hushed voice, he said, "Sirius? Are you there?"

A pause, then Sirius appeared before him. "I'm here. Happy Christmas. That's today, isn't it?"

Harry nodded, reaching for an ink bottle and quill. "I'm writing a letter to Professor McGonagall now. There's something I need to tell you."

Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed this chapter! This one is deceptively important in the long run, and not just for the immediately obvious reasons. It took ten chapters, but the pieces have all slotted into place... which means a whole slew of chaos is about to ensue.