Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Pregnant?" repeated Dudley Dursley, for the third time. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, Dud, I'm positive," she said. "I went to the Doctor and everything."

"Right…" said Dudley thoughtfully, "That's great! It is great, isn't it?"

Dudley furrowed his brows and tried to figure out whether his girlfriend was happy or not, and also whether he was happy or not. They'd been dating for nearly 2 years, of course, and they did live together, but Dudley had always imagined that his wedding would come before his first child. His mum would be scandalized when she found out, and his students would have a field day with it. The other half of being a PE teacher was being a Health teacher, and he was clearly not following the abstinence-only model he taught.

His girlfriend looked at least as nervous as he felt, and he wished that he could identify the source of her anxiety, but he had never been particularly good at reading people.

“Do you…” began Dudley carefully, “Do you not want it?”

“No, I do!” she said quickly. “That’s not it. I mean, I was just getting used to the new job, but that can wait, right? And you’re making enough now…”

A teacher’s salary wasn’t much, but it would be enough. His house and car were more modest than what he’d grown up with, but at least they were his. He’d moved out here before his senior year of high school, when the magic people had set it up as a safe house while his cousin was on the run from some dark wizard. His parents had moved back to privet drive as soon as they got the all clear, but Dudley had come to love the quaint country life.

He tried not to think about the likely illegal methods that the wizards employed to obtain the house, and just enjoyed the fact that he was the sole owner, without even a mortgage to worry about. This would be a good place to raise a child. The house was small and definitely in need of some repairs , but there was a big yard and a nice sturdy tree that was just begging for the chance to become a treehouse.

“We’ll manage,” said Dudley, still a little uncertain. His girlfriend wasn’t smiling, and his own attempts at cheeriness kept faltering.

 “I know I haven’t exactly proposed yet,” said Dudley, “but we’ve talked about it, right? I mean… I do want to be with you forever. I love you, Cho. I can’t imagine a future without you.”

This was her cue to say, “I love you too, let’s get married and raise a baby together,” but she didn’t seem quite ready for that yet. She just stared vaguely out the window and chewed on her lower lip. It was a nervous habit of hers, whenever she was thinking deep thoughts. She usually didn’t like to be interrupted, but Dudley couldn’t stand waiting.

“What are you thinking?” Asked Dudley. “Talk to me. We can work it out together, Cho, like we always do…”

She sighed deeply but turned her gaze back to him. “There’s just so much you don’t know about me, Dud. I have all these secrets you couldn’t even imagine…”

Dudley couldn’t help thinking of his cousin then. This year’s Christmas card from Harry had announced the birth of his second child, who was sure to be as magically inclined as the rest of their lot. That was a pretty big secret to keep. “We all have secrets,” said Dudley. “If it’s really important, you’ll tell me. If not… well I can’t know everything about you anyway.”

“It is important,” insisted Cho, “but I wouldn’t know where to begin. You haven’t even met my parents yet! You haven’t seen the sort of place I grew up in.”

That was true. Dudley had introduced Cho to his parents early on, even knowing they wouldn’t approve. But Cho never even talked about her family or her childhood, unless she was very very drunk.

“So you can introduce me,” said Dudley, “that’s not a big deal, is it?”

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg, Dud,” said Cho with a touch of exasperation. “My parents are weirder than I can even begin to describe. And as for why I suddenly cut them off and moved out here to the middle of nowhere… I mean, you’ve never even asked about it. And with my family history… I don’t think you’re prepared for this baby, Dudley. I really don’t.”

Dudley was a little confused about these pronouncements, but he latched onto the important bit. “What family history?” Said Dudley. “Do you have some sort of genetic disease? Family in the Looney Bin? Because that sort of thing won’t stop me from loving this baby and taking care of it as best as I can.”

Dudley knew how to learn from his parents mistakes. It had taken him years of therapy to come to terms with the fact that Harry was abused by his parents for being a wizard. It was their job to take care of him, even if they never asked for it, and they had failed miserably at their task. Just because he was a little difficult, and different from what they’d expected. They’d ruthlessly suppressed his powers and forced him to deny his nature, but they couldn’t beat it out of him. Dudley decided years ago that if he ever had a child with autism or a disability or some abnormal sexuality, he wouldn’t let that turn him into his father. He’d accept it, without question, because that’s what a parent was supposed to do.

Dudley had never really been able to make amends for his own role in Harry’s troubled childhood. They sent each other Christmas cards, even though Dudley’s parents disapproved. But Harry had never offered to let Dudley meet the rest of his family. Dudley knew Ginny and the children only as photographs, tucked neatly away in the top drawer of his nightstand. Maybe someday he’d be able to bridge that gap, but he wasn’t sure he’d earned that privilege yet.

As he was questioning Cho about her family history, he remembered something that Mr. Diggle had said, a long time ago. Mr. Diggle was the little wizard who had set up the safe house and guarded the Dursleys intermittently during their year-long banishment. He’d mentioned that muggleborn witches like Dudley’s aunt Lily usually had some magical blood in them, way back. Oftentimes a magic-less child of magic parents would integrate themselves in the normal world, only to have the magic gene pop up again generations later. He’d said that Dudley likely carried that dormant gene too.

“It’s not a genetic disease,” answered Cho. “It’s… oh I don’t know how to describe it. But it will affect all of our lives.”

“I have something to tell you too,” said Dudley, making a split decision. He didn’t want to spend his life pretending that his cousin was some sort of deranged delinquent, as his parents still told the neighbors. If he was going to be with Cho, she needed to know the truth.

“I have my own… family history,” said Dudley carefully. “There’s a small chance it would actually affect our baby… but you should know, just in case. I had this aunt who… well she died before I met her, but she had this special, er, peculiarity. And my cousin, who was pretty much raised as my brother, had it too.”

Cho was obviously surprised by this. She had expected to be the only one with big dark secrets to divulge. Dudley exuded this extraordinarily normal energy. He had a perfect suburban upbringing, a fondness for watching football at the local pub, and a perfectly mundane job as a middle school PE teacher. Cho was always a bit more mysterious, with stunning good looks that should have put her way out of Dudley’s league, a cool confidence, and an aversion to speaking about her childhood. They were a strange match, but they balanced each other.

“What sort of peculiarity?” Asked Cho.

“Right…” said Dudley, trying to think of the best way to frame this. “This is going to sound really strange and totally made up, but I swear I’m being serious, so please don’t laugh. My cousin… is a wizard. And if I’m anything like my grandparents, there’s a chance my child could be too.”

Cho didn’t laugh but her jaw did drop. “You’re messing with me,” Said Cho. “Your cousin can’t be a wizard.”

“I know it sounds crazy,” said Dudley, “but I swear, Magic is real. I didn’t believe it at first either, but the evidence is hard to ignore…” he resisted the urge to feel for the scar on his backside where the pig tail had been removed.

Cho shook her head and covered her face with her hands. Dudley couldn’t quite tell if she was laughing or crying, but either way he didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t any manual on telling your girlfriend about your magical cousin.

“He can’t be a wizard,” Said Cho. “You’re such a muggle .”

That rang a bell for Dudley. Isn’t that what Harry had called him and his parents? “How do you know that word?” Asked Dudley.

“How do I know that word?” Asked Cho, uncovering her face. He could see now that she had been laughing, not crying. “I can’t believe I was so worried about telling you about magic, and you already know! I’m a witch, Dudley.”

It was Dudley’s turn for his jaw to drop. “ You’re a witch? Then when you were talking about family history… you meant magic?”

Cho nodded.

“If you’re a witch… then the baby…”

“Is definitely a witch - or wizard, I suppose.”

“Oh…” said Dudley, “my parents are going to kill me.”

“Your parents know about magic too? But they’re the biggest muggles I ever met! I would have never guessed.”

“Yeah, well they hate magic so that’s not really good news. Remember how I said we treated my cousin like shit growing up? That was all because he was a wizard.”

“But you don’t think that way anymore, right? I mean, you don't talk about him much, but you seemed to, I don't know, feel bad about how you acted as a kid?"

"I do," said Dudley quickly. "I do, but I don't think my parents do.”

“That’s fine. I’m marrying you, not your parents. As long as you’re fine with it -“

“Then you’re saying yes? You’ll marry me?”

Then Cho really was crying. She wrapped her arms around Dudley’s thick neck and kissed him deeply. “Yes, yes, I’m saying yes!”

There was a good deal more laughing and kissing and crying before they settled down enough to continue their conversation, but Dudley still had a thousand questions that needed answering, and expected that Cho had more than a few herself.

“So, if you’re a witch,” Dudley began, “what are you doing coaching field hockey in a little town like this? And how come I’ve never seen you do any magic?”

“I like it here,” said Cho, “it’s peaceful. After the war, I just had to get away… oh god, you do know about the war, don’t you? Muggles weren’t supposed to know about it, but if your cousin told you -“

“I know,” said Dudley, “not everything, but I know enough. All that rubbish about the evil wizard who came back from the dead. Voldy-thing or whatever.”

Cho flinched from the name but then laughed weakly, “No I see you don’t know everything. But you know there was a war.” She grew serious and said, “it was horrible, Dud. So much fear and danger. Never knowing who was on which side. And so many people died. My friends, my boyfriend… and the things I did too. In the Battle of Hogwarts, at the very end… it was life or death, Dud. Kill or be killed.”

“I’m sorry,” said Dudley, “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“I sort of lost my taste for magic after that,” said Cho quietly, “every time I picked up my wand I would see the faces of the Death Eaters I’d duelled. Some of them were wearing masks, but not all… I didn’t want to keep thinking about it. So I moved out here and locked my wand away and decided to live as a muggle for a while. It wasn’t supposed to be forever, just a little break to get myself together… but then I met you. And I joined all these muggle sports leagues, and made lots of muggle friends, and I got used to spending my Friday nights in muggle pubs… so I just never went back to the wizarding world.”

“Do you miss it? Magic? That whole world?”

“I still talk to some of my school friends, and my parents, so it’s not like I’ve totally disappeared… but yes, sometimes. Sometimes I miss magic.”

“I think I was jealous of my cousin. Mostly I was afraid of his power, because my parents taught me to fear it, but I was also jealous that he could do things that I could only dream of. I think my mum was jealous too. Magic sounds so wonderful. I’m sorry that the war ruined the wonder of it for you.”

“Me too, Dud, me too…”

“But what about our kid? Our baby? Won’t he want to be a part of all that?”

“Maybe it’s time I got my wand out again.”

Dudley’s eyes widened, “Can you show me? Real magic?”

“Your cousin didn’t show you? No, wait, of course he couldn’t, he was still underage when you moved out here without him, wasn’t he?”

“He did some accidental magic. My parents said it was on purpose, but my cousin said he couldn’t help it. Oh no - is our kid going to do that too?” Dudley had a sudden vision of his now quite elderly Aunt Marge blowing up like a great balloon. He didn’t think she’d survive the ordeal at her age.

“One of the challenges of raising a magical child, yes… they can’t control it when they’re young. My mum had to put a padlock on the cookie jar.”

“That’s not so bad,” said Dudley, “not nearly as bad as accidentally setting a giant snake loose at the zoo.” Dudley placed a big hand on Cho’s still-flat stomach and said, “we can handle it. We’ll figure it out together. I may not know much about this magic stuff, but I trust that you do.”

“You already know so much more than I expected,” Cho laughed, “this is not at all how I thought this conversation would go. You’re such a muggle, but you seem so unfazed by all this. Your cousin must have been a terror.”

“When he started talking to that snake, I nearly lost it. I don’t know what our kid could do to top that.”

Cho furrowed her brow and asked, “your cousin could talk to snakes?”

“Is that not normal for wizards? I mean, using the word normal for wizards at all seems strange to me, but since you’re a witch-“

“What was your cousin’s name again?” Cho interrupted, “I’m sure you’ve told me before, but I can’t seem to remember it just now…”

“Understandable,” said Dudley, “it’s a pretty forgettable name. Very common. His name is Harry.”

Cho’s eyes widened and she echoed, “Harry?”

“That’s right. Hang on, do you know him?” Asked Dudley. “I mean it would make sense if you knew him if you both went to that Wizard School. He’s only a year younger than us.”

“Dudley Dursley, are you telling me that your cousin is Harry Potter?”

“So you do know him! I thought you might.”

“Dudley, everyone knows him. Every wizard all over the world knows Harry Potter. He’s famous .”

Dudley had a hard time wrapping his head around this. Weren’t famous people supposed to be attractive? His scrawny bespectacled cousin didn’t look like much of a celebrity to him.

“I thought you knew something about the war!” Cho exclaimed.

“What do you mean?”

Cho explained. She told Dudley about the legend of the boy who lived, who was famous from the day he arrived on the Dursley’s doorstep. The child who overcame the dark lord again and again. The triwizard champion. The rebellious leader of an underground student army. The hero of the wizarding world who finally brought about the downfall of the worst wizard to ever live. The heroic auror keeping the wizarding world safe even now.

Dudley had known that this self titled lord Voldemort had wanted his cousin dead, but it had never quite sunk in that Harry was the keystone of the whole conflict. He had never thought of Harry as important. The guilt he felt for how he treated Harry doubled in an instant. No wonder Harry couldn’t forgive him yet. 

All of that surprise was dwarfed, however, by Cho’s next revelation.

“You what ?” Demanded Dudley.

“I dated him,” said Cho, “just for a little while. He wasn’t a very good boyfriend.”

Dudley sputtered incoherently. Hot waves of jealousy battered against stubborn walls of denial in his brain as he struggled to place Cho anywhere near Harry in a mental image.

“If you can’t believe it, imagine how I feel!” said Cho, “I uprooted my whole life to move to this little muggle village and get away from the memories of the wizarding war, and yet somehow the cousin of the wizard who was the center of the whole thing became my fiancé!”

And just like that all the jealousy boiled off and Dudley was grinning again. “Fiancé…” he echoed, enjoying the feel of the word in his mouth.

Seeing his smile, Cho’s dismay melted away. “Fiancé… we’ll be ok, won’t we, Dud?”

“We’ll be great,” replied Dudley, holding her hand. “We’ll figure it out together. The three of us.”

“I think it’s time I introduce you to my parents.”

“Past time,” said Dudley, “but I’ll take it. We’re going to need some help planning the wedding. And one more thing.”

“Hm?”

“It’s time I made things right with Harry too. We’re going to be a family.”

“A family,” Cho agreed, resting her head on Dudley’s broad, safe shoulder.

Chapter Text

Harry was sitting in the kitchen, trying to get Albus to finish his mushy breakfast, when Kreacher brought him the letter. 

"This came through the muggle post for you, Master," Kreacher croaked.

"You sure it's not for Ginny, then?" asked Harry. Ever since Arthur discovered that he could send letters to the Potters' home in Godric's Hollow via muggle post, he'd stopped using owls entirely. An owl would have been faster, but he liked stamps almost as much as spark plugs, so if he didn't have anything urgent to say, he'd send it by post.

"The letter is addressed to Master Harry!"

Wiping baby food off his hands, Harry asked who the letter was from.

"It's from Dudley Dursley, Master Harry."

"Dudley? But it's only October. What's he writing me for?"

"Kreacher doesn't open letters, sir! He only delivers them."

"Right, yeah. Thanks, Kreacher."

Kreacher handed over the letter with a bow and a flourish, then scurried out of the room.

While Harry opened the letter, Ginny walked into the kitchen with James and asked, "Did I hear that right? A letter from your cousin?"

"Looks like it. Give me a minute to read it."

Ginny removed little Albus from his high chair while Harry read, and placed him on her hip. James reached up with his pudgy little arms to give his brother a hug, and Ginny knelt down to oblige him.

"I don't believe this," said Harry.

"Believe what?"

"What!" said James loudly.

"Dudley wants to meet. Says there's something he wants to talk to me about."

"Something he couldn't put in a letter?" 

Ginny hadn't had to worry about a letter being intercepted by unfriendly eyes since the fall of Voldemort, but the thought of it gave her apprehension.

"No, he says here he could put it in a letter, if I really don't want to see him. Says he'd understand if I didn't want to. But he'd rather talk in person."

"Oh. That's very… mature of him, isn't it?"

"Yeah, that's what's worrying me."

"You don't want to talk to him?"

"I mean, I haven't seen him in years. Not since I left Privet Drive. I kind of thought we'd keep to the annual Christmas card tradition. It's been working for me, anyway."

"You don't have to go see him if you don't want to. It's your choice. After all he put you through, you don't owe him anything."

Harry smiled and kissed his wife gently on the forehead. "Thank you for saying that. I'm going to do it though."

"I thought you would."

"He used the M word."

"The what?"

"The M word," Harry repeated, "Magic."

James waved his little arms and shouted, "Magic!"

"That's right, little one," said Harry, "Magic. It was a forbidden word in the Dursley household. If Uncle Vernon even thought he heard it he would -" He glanced at James and Albus, so innocent of the world's terrors - "well, anyway, it wasn't allowed."

"But Dudley wrote it in the letter?"

"He said he wanted to meet somewhere we could freely discuss magic without muggles getting suspicious. Said his usual pubs weren't going to cut it." Harry frowned and checked the letter again. "That's strange, he used 'muggle' too. Another forbidden M Word. The Dursley's preferred term was always 'Normal'. I didn't think he'd even remember that word."

"That's good, right?"

"I dunno," said Harry, "but I guess I'll give him a chance."

———

The local pub in Godric's Hollow wasn't strictly speaking a Wizard's bar. The local muggles frequented it as much as the few magical families left in the town, but the owner was a squib, and he didn't object to the use of muffliato if you wanted to keep your conversation private.

Harry nursed his lukewarm beer as he exchanged smalltalk with his cousin, trying to figure out his motive. When last he'd seen Dudley, he was a thick, lumbering teenager, who didn't know how to express his gratitude to Harry for saving him from the Dementor's kiss. More than 10 years later, Dudley looked much the same. He was still huge, but Harry could tell that underneath the fat was a whole lot of muscle. 

He still had the same dull pig eyes, but there was more of that something he'd seen for a moment when Dudley had declared that he didn't think Harry was a waste of space. Harry thought it might have been remorse. Or possibly kindness.

It felt very strange to be discussing fatherhood with his childhood bully, but Dudley seemed genuinely interested in Harry's life with James, Albus, and Ginny. 

"It sounds real nice," said Dudley with a goofy smile that looked so out of place on a face where Harry had only ever seen malice, "life in Godric's Hollow."

"Well it's a hell of a lot better than life in Privet Drive ever was," said Harry, a little more bitterly than he'd intended.

That wiped the smile off Dudley's face. He took a long draught of beer and stared down at the scratched and sticky table. After a moment of contemplation, he said, "I'm sorry. I know it doesn't mean much, and I know it's too late to fix anything, but I am sorry. I was horrible to you. I was just a kid, and I was only doing what I was taught to do. I know that's not much of an excuse, but there it is. I want to apologize. And I hope you can forgive me."

Harry's anger flared. If Dudley was looking for forgiveness, it was too little too late. He'd tried to allow for civility at least, keeping Dudley in the loop on his life once a year, but asking forgiveness for everything was asking too much.

"Yeah, big D, it is too late," said Harry, knuckles whitening as he clenched his fist, "I was just a kid too, and I didn't deserve to be treated like a monster by you and your parents for being born a wizard."

"I know you didn't deserve it. I mean, I know that now -"

"Listen, if you just came here to beg for an apology, you're wasting your time."

"That's not why I came here. I mean, it is, but it's not all…"

"What do you really want, then? Get on with it."

"I'm getting married," Dudley announced, suddenly meeting Harry's eyes, "and I want you to come to the wedding."

Harry actually laughed at that, "Oh yeah that'll go over real well with the family. I'm sure your parents will be thrilled to see me. Almost as thrilled as Aunt Marge!"

"They're not coming," Dudley murmured. "They're not coming to my wedding."

That caught Harry off guard. Vernon and Petunia had always doted on their son. They ought to be throwing him a lavish wedding and cooing over how handsome their little boy looked stuffed into a tuxedo like a fat sausage. "What? Why not?"

"They don't approve of my fiance," said Dudley with a slight blush, "They don't want me to marry her."

Now that Harry could believe. It would not surprise him at all if they thought every girl unworthy of their son's hand in marriage. But still, wouldn't they concede to make him happy? "Why not?" Harry had to ask.

"Because," said Dudley with a sigh, "she's a witch."

Harry's jaw dropped. That was a twist he did not see coming. But it did explain how Vernon and Petunia could so suddenly and decisively turn against their son. They blamed magic for everything bad to ever happen to them.

Before Harry could gather his thoughts and reply, Dudley continued, "We were together for years before she told me. I only just found out myself. All our friends are muggles, so there won't be any magic at the wedding, but her family will be there and they're all wizards, and I'd like you to be there too. And Ginny and the kids, if you want. You don't have to forgive me for the past, but I want you to be a part of our family going forward, especially since mum and dad, well, they won't be anymore..."

"Blimey, Dudley, give me a moment to take it all in." Still slightly dazed, Harry asked, "When's the wedding?"

"Next week."

"A bit rushed isn't it?"

Blushing deeply, Dudley said, "We're pregnant."

If Harry hadn't been gaping before, his jaw would have dropped again. "Blimey… you're going to be a father. Congratulations. And your kid, they're gonna be…"

"A wizard, yeah. Like you. Like her."

Harry blinked stupidly. His cousin, notorious magic hater, was now well and truly a part of the wizarding world. He couldn't have predicted that in a million years.

"I won't be like my parents," Dudley said solemnly, "I won't do what they did to you. What I did to you. I promise."

"I know, Big D," said Harry, finally recognizing the earnest sincerity of the man in front of him. "I know you won't."

"One more thing," said Dudley, "she says she knows you."

"Not surprising, Dud, everyone knows me," replied Harry, not entirely jokingly. 

"No, I mean you know her. You knew each other. At Hogwarts."

Given their age, that shouldn't have surprised Harry, but somehow it still did. It surprised him almost as much as the word 'Hogwarts' coming out of his cousin's mouth. "Go on then, who's the lucky girl?"

"Cho Chang."

" You're kidding! " exclaimed Harry. But how could he be? How would Dudley even know that name otherwise?

"She said you wouldn't believe me."

Harry shook his head. Cho had all but disappeared after the war, and the last person he would have expected to hear about her from was Dudley Dursley, but the world was a strange place. "I guess I'll see the proof at the wedding."

"You'll come, then?"

"Yeah, I'll be there. I can't speak for Ginny, and Albus is still too young to sit through a whole ceremony, but I'll be there at least."

Dudley smiled with relief and said, "Thank you, Harry. Really. Thank you. It means a lot to me that you'll be there."

Harry blushed uncomfortably and said, "When did you learn how to say thank you like that? And how to say sorry. I know Petunia never taught you those words."

It was Dudley's turn to blush. "I got it from Cho, I suppose."

Harry raked his fingers through his messy hair and replied, "That's good. That's real good. And y'know what, Big D?"

"What?"

"I don't think you're a waste of space either."

Chapter Text

“It’s not too late to turn back, you know,” Cho said, “I can make up some excuse. Say I had morning sickness or something.”

“No, no, I’m alright,” said Dudley, “they invited us, so I should go. I can handle it - AGHHH!”

“What, what is it?” asked Cho, looking around for the source of Dudley’s alarm.

“What is that ?” squeaked Dudley, pointing a trembling finger into the shrubbery lining the little lane.

“It’s a gnome, Dud. It won’t hurt you,” said Cho placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Not unless you bother it. Best leave it alone, love, they do have a nasty bite.”

Dudley swayed and clutched at Cho’s hand as the gnome grinned evilly and dashed off into the bushes.

“Are you going to faint again?”

“No!” said Dudley, steadying himself, “it’s just a - just a little gn-gnome. Nothing strange about that. Right?”

“That’s right, love. Just a perfectly normal magical garden pest.”

“Right then. Let’s do this.”

Dudley steeled himself and closed the distance to the little garden gate, but then lost his confidence again. Was he supposed to just walk in? Or should he ring the rusty bell on the post by the gate? Or knock on the peeling wooden sign that declared in cheery cursive script that this strange toppling structure was called The Burrow?

He was saved from the decision by Ginny popping her head out of the back door and waving them over.

“Merry Christmas! I’m glad you could make it,” Ginny said, opening the door wide for them.

“Merry Christmas,” Dudley replied, “thank you for the invitation.”

“I hope you found the house alright. It’s supposed to be hard for muggles to find.”

“I took him by side along apparition most of the way,” Cho explained.

Ginny laughed and said, “how was that for you, Dudley? Harry hates apparating. Says it makes him ill.”

“I passed out,” Dudley admitted, gazing around the kitchen and trying very hard not to pass out again. There were dishes in the sink that appeared to be washing themselves, and an owl sitting above the cupboards staring at him with unsettlingly intelligent yellow eyes.

“Oh!” Cho exclaimed as they were ushered into the living room. Dudley echoed her sentiments internally, despite being too overwhelmed by vertigo to express them out loud.

The room was twice as big as the whole house had appeared from the outside, and the views from the windows didn’t seem to match up quite right. It was beautifully decorated with streamers and baubles, with a big tree scraping the ceiling that also seemed too high to be allowed.

“Hermione came over yesterday to put an extension charm on the room,” Ginny explained, “we wouldn’t all fit otherwise.”

Dudley was relieved to see that Cho was as impressed with that as he was. She might not be fazed by gnomes, but he was gratified to know that even a witch would be impressed by the TARDIS.

Ginny was right that there was no way all of the guests would have fit in an ordinary living room. Dudley didn’t think they’d arrived very late, but nearly every seat in the room was already occupied. It was a teeming sea of redheads. Among the press, Harry noticed them and extracted himself from a conversation with a lively looking old woman and a blue-haired boy to come and greet them.

Cradling Albus in one arm, Harry shook Dudley’s hand and welcomed him stiffly, but not unkindly. He then summoned a stout red-haired woman to introduce to him.

“Dudley, this is my mother-in-law, Molly Weasley,” said Harry, “this is her house, The Burrow. Molly, this is Dudley. I don’t believe you’ve met yet.”

“A pleasure,” said Molly with a somewhat forced smile, shaking Dudley’s hand.

“Thank you for having us, ma’am,” said Dudley, as earnestly as he could.

“And I’m sure you remember Cho,” said Harry, rather unsubtly avoiding Cho’s eyes himself.

Molly’s forced smile turned wooden. “Of course.”

Albus started fussing and crying, so Harry excused himself, followed quickly by Molly and Ginny, leaving Cho and Dudley to make their own introductions.

A familiar looking red-haired man extracted himself from a sofa, transferring a wriggly toddler to the lap of the pretty black woman sitting beside him.

“It’s been a while, but I remember you, Big D,” said George, “care for a toffee?”

Dudley glanced at the proffered box of sweets and instinctively brought his hands up to cover his mouth. He still distinctly remembered the way his tongue had felt after swallowing the dropped toffee back in his own childhood living room, the way it had swelled to fill his mouth until he could barely breathe, and then kept growing past his teeth and lips until it was a foot long at least. The pain of his mother trying to pull the whole thing out of his mouth. He thought he might be faint again.

“Learned your lesson then, have you?” Asked George with a smirk.

“Yes,” said Dudley, then remembering himself, he lowered his hands and repeated, “yes. I learned my lesson. I - I deserved it.”

George’s smirk transformed into a huge grin. “Well as long as you know it, no hard feelings!”

“Are Bill and Fleur not here yet?” Asked Cho.

“What, not enough Weasley’s here for you already?” Answered George. “Good to see you too, by the way. I haven’t forgotten about Marietta Edgecombe, but we can let bygones be bygones too.”

Dudley had met Cho’s friend Marietta at the wedding, but didn’t know what history they were referencing.

Cho looked irritated and not at all willing to let bygones be bygones, but she let the comment slide and instead said, “I was looking forward to seeing Fleur again. We’ve hardly spoken since the Triwizard tournament, but I always got on well with her.”

“That’s surprising, since I heard she was trying to get on well with Diggory at the time.”

“Stupid rumors,” Cho snapped, cheeks flushing, “powerful people always have to put up with stupid rumors, but you wouldn’t know about that.”

George looked like he was about to snap back, but Dudley interrupted by asking, “who’s Diggory?”

“You don’t know?” George asked incredulously, “she didn’t tell you about him?”

“Stop it. Just stop it,” said Cho, on the brink of tears.

Dudley put an arm around her and said gently, “we don’t have to talk about it right now. You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”

Looking uncomfortable with the sudden change in atmosphere, George explained, “Bill and Fleur are spending the holidays in France this year. They’re not coming.”

“Oh,” said Cho, “that’s too bad.”

“Is everyone here then?” Asked Dudley.

“Almost. Charlie’s still in Romania and Percy’s working, as usual, so they won’t be here. Dad’s working a bit today as well, but he should be home any minute. He’s the last one I think. You haven’t met any of the kids yet, have you?”

“Not yet,” said Cho, brightening up a bit.

“Fred! Teddy! Come meet Cousin Dudley and Cho.”

The blue haired boy jumped up and ran over to greet them, with a smaller boy trailing behind.

George patted the younger one on the head and said, “This one belongs to me and Angelina. Go on, tell them your name.”

“Fred...” said little Fred shyly.

“It’s nice to meet you, Fred. How old are you?” Asked Cho.

“...three,” he said quietly, “... and a half…”

Cho smiled indulgently and said, “wow, three and a half! And already so tall.”

“He gets that from me,” said Angelina, joining them. George was tall but Dudley could see that his wife was nearly the same height.

“And this one here is Teddy,” said George, introducing the older boy, “he’s Harry’s godson. The woman over there is his grandmother, Andromeda. She’s a more distant relative, not a Weasley, but a good family friend.”

Teddy looked to be just a little younger than Dudley’s youngest students, far too old for condescending comments on his age or height. Instead, Dudley greeted him with a nod and said, “cool hair.”

Teddy’s face lit up and he said, “blue is my favorite color! I can make my face blue too! Wanna see?”

Dudley expected him to hold his breath until his face turned blue, as kids sometimes did as a sort of temper tantrum, but when Teddy wrinkled up his face, it really did turn an alarming shade of electric blue almost right away.

Dudley gaped stupidly for a moment, once again caught off guard by magic, but gathered his thoughts enough to say, “er, cool! Blue suits you.”

Cho patted him sympathetically on the arm and said, “it’s ok to be shocked by that. Most wizards would be shocked too.”

“Teddy is medafish!” said Fred confidently, then less confidently, “Mette… meffy…”

“Metamorphagas,” said Teddy, not stumbling over the big word at all. “I can change how I look whenever I want. Watch this!”

Teddy screwed up his face in concentration and his hair transformed into a cascade of blue curls tumbling all the way to the floor. Dudley didn’t hide his shock this time, but he no longer felt like he was going to faint.

“You’d better put it back before Molly sees,” said Angelina, “you know how she feels about those wild colors.”

Teddy screwed up his face again and returned his skin to a normal hue and hair to a normal length. Then he turned his hair red, to match the rest of the Weasley clan.

"Red is my favorite color," Dudley blurted, before he could decide if it was a stupid comment or not.

"Are you a Gryffindor too?" asked Teddy. "My dad was a Gryffindor, and my godfather, and almost all the Weasleys. Not my mum though, she was a Hufflepuff. I think I'll be a Ravenclaw because I like blue."

"Gryffa… I'm sorry?" asked Dudley.

"Cousin Dudley doesn't have a Hogwarts house," said George, ruffling Teddy's newly red hair, "He's a muggle."

Teddy looked at least as shocked as Dudley had been moments before. "Whoa! I've never talked to a proper muggle before!"

"Go on and play with Fred and James for a bit so Dudley and Cho can meet the rest of the family," said George.

"I don't want to play with them! Three year olds are so boring," Teddy answered with a pout.

"Three and a half!" piped Fred indignantly.

"I want to play with the muggle!"

"He has a name, Teddy," Angelina admonished, "don't call him the muggle."

Teddy’s quiet apology was drowned out by a bang and clatter as Arthur Weasley stepped out of the swirling green flames of the fireplace and promptly knocked over a rack of firepokers and a pair of rickety wooden chairs.

“I told you to use the kitchen fire,” said Molly, rushing over and waving her wand to set the room to rights. “We had to rearrange everything in here for the party…”

“Sorry, dear, must have forgot…” said Arthur, dusting himself. Then, addressing the room at large, “Happy Christmas everyone!”

He was greeted with raised glasses and a discordant chorus of answering well-wishes. Dudley joined in as well, keeping his voice as quiet as he could, so he thought he would be drowned out by the more boisterous voices around him. However, Arthur scanned the room and immediately locked onto Dudley.

“Dudley Dursley!” Exclaimed Arthur, knocking over another chair and nearly knocking over Teddy in his haste to reach Dudley. Vigorously shaking Dudley’s entire arm, Arthur beamed and said, “what an honor! I can hardly believe it. A real live muggle in my house! Never thought I’d live to see the day.”

“Er, thank you for having me, Mr. Weasley,” said Dudley, who was finding himself outmatched in handshake strength for the first time in his life.

“Please, call me Arthur! With as many sons as I have, calling all of us Mr Weasley would get terribly confusing, don’t you think?”

“Right, er, thank you… Arthur.”

Cho cleared her throat quietly, forcing Arthur to stop cutting off Dudley’s circulation and greet his other guests.

With Arthur’s arrival, the party seemed to come alive. People were moving about and talking with different groups, playing with the kids, nibbling on cheese plates and sweets. Someone had enchanted the wine bottles to go around refilling glasses on their own, and Dudley soon found himself more than a little tipsy, whether from the alcohol or the magic or the novelty of a large family gathering, he couldn’t say.

He held tightly to Cho’s hand as they bounced around the room, swept along by the whims of some child more often than not. Some interactions were more awkward than anything else, but most were quite pleasant. Arthur was eager to extract anecdotes of their muggle life from Dudley at every opportunity, and the kids were delighted to tell him everything they knew about magic, since their knowledge far exceeded his own.

Every parent in the room congratulated Cho on her pregnancy, commencing on how well she looked, and offering advice and anecdotes of their own adventures in parenthood. Dudley felt like he ought to be taking notes, but he trusted Cho to remember it all. She was ten times smarter than him and wasn't likely to forget anything.

He was so wrapped up in each little conversation that an hour or more must have passed before he realized he’d failed to even introduce himself to one couple in the room.

“Have we spoken to them yet?” He asked Cho quietly, nodding to the pair who were happily chatting with Harry in the far corner.

"No, not yet," said Cho, leading them away from the pack so they could talk more privately, "I think they must be avoiding us."

"Who are they again?"

"Ron and Hermione Granger," Cho explained, "Harry's best friends from Hogwarts. I'm not sure if they're avoiding you or me though. We may have been on the same side of the war, but we were never friends."

"Why not?"

"We just never really got on. We were in different years and houses so we didn't see each other much outside of the DA. Hermione was pretentious and thought Quidditch was stupid. Ron only talked to me when Harry was around, and even then he was usually ragging on me for which Quidditch team I supported or something dumb like that. They're fine - I mean, they're good people, I think, but I don't think they are exactly excited to see me again."

"Oh," said Dudley, pretending he'd understood all of that, "Do you think they'll keep avoiding us all night?"

"Could be," said Cho, "I'm not going to be the one to approach them."

"Alright. I won't let it bother me then."

Ginny approached them and said, "we'll be serving dinner soon. You alright for drinks?"

"I think I've had too much already," said Dudley, "actually, could you point me to the restroom?"

"Sure," said Ginny, "through the kitchen, at the end of the hall, on your right."

"Thanks," said Dudley, not pulling Cho along with him for the first time that evening.

When Dudley emerged from the bathroom, he found himself face to face with Ron in the narrow hallway. Nervously, Dudley said, "Er, Hullo. I don't think we've met yet…"

"We met a long time ago, when my family and I came to get Harry from your place," said Ron, unsmiling, "He didn't want to stay there on account of you and your parents tormenting him, remember?"

"Right, yeah, I remember now." There had been three red-headed boys who'd burst through his fireplace in Privet drive back then, Dudley recalled. 

"Good. I was worried you'd forgotten, what with how you're chatting with my family like nothing ever happened."

"Er, sorry?" said Dudley, wishing he was back in the middle of the party and not backed into this corner out of earshot of the rest.

"Sorry isn't cutting it for me," Ron continued, "Harry might be willing to forgive you, but I haven't forgotten what you did to him. I haven't forgotten the way he flinched away from handshakes when I first met him, like he was afraid of being hit. I haven't forgotten that he was more scared of you than of fighting a dragon.

Dudley wanted to ask if that was some sort of wizard saying or if Harry had actually fought a dragon, but he didn't think that the time was right.

Ron continued, "You can apologize all you like, but it doesn't mean I have to forgive you."

"I never said you did," said Dudley puffing up a little. Ron hadn't given him a chance to apologize, let alone beg forgiveness. Dudley clenched his fists. Ron might have him backed into a corner, but at the end of the day Dudley was still a heavyweight boxing champion and he wasn't going to let himself be pushed around.

Ron reached into his robes and whipped out his wand, then jabbed Dudley in the chest with it. Dudley yelped and snapped back flat against the wall. It took him a moment to realize that Ron hadn't actually cast a spell, but that did nothing to slow his heart rate.

Ron snorted and poked Dudley's chest again, saying, "Harry is stronger than you ever were, but he couldn't fight back because the statute of secrecy and the ban on underage sorcery protected you. But he's not a kid anymore, and neither am I. And now that you've married a witch, the law won't treat you like a muggle anymore. No more alarms and ministry warnings if someone performs some sorcery around you… or on you."

Dudley gulped and felt a bead of sweat slide slowly down his forehead.

"If you ever even think about hurting Harry ever again," warned Ron, "remember who has the power now."

Ron withdrew his wand and retreated back to the party, while Dudley slid down the wall and sat there for a while trying to get his breathing under control. He felt very dizzy from all the wine and what felt startlingly like a near-death encounter. 

During the party, people had their wand out, making things float around or shooting sparks off to amuse the babies, and Dudley had begun to see them as innocuous things. But before Cho, he'd always thought of Harry's wand as a sort of gun, loaded and ready to go whenever Harry felt like pulling the trigger. It frightened him how quickly a wand could go from being a tool or instrument of lighthearted play to a deadly weapon. And yet in Dudley's hand it would only ever be a stick. Ron was right. Dudley didn't have the power anymore. He'd had power over Harry throughout all their years at Privet Drive, and he'd horribly misused it, at his parents' instigation. He could only hope that Harry wouldn't wield his power over him in the same way. And more to the point, he had to hope that Ron's desire for revenge was not as keen as Dudley's had been as a child.

After collecting himself a little bit, Dudley made his way back to the party and the safety that Cho provided. After meeting with such hostility from Ron, Dudley was surprised to find Cho and Hermione laughing together when he returned.

"And now the TV only gets the news channels and I have no idea how to fix it!" Cho was saying.

"What's the joke," asked Dudley, settling himself on the sofa as close to Cho as physically possible without sitting on top of her, seeking her warmth to drive out the chill of his previous encounter.

"We were just talking about the perils of using magic around electronics," Cho explained.

"Well now I know what to get you next Christmas," said Hermione, "a new Playstation."

"I was just using a little bit of magic, dusting, you know…" Cho said, giving Dudley an apologetic look.

"It's alright you didn't know it would explode like that," said Dudley, patting her hand. "I don't know what to tell the cable repairman though."

"Whatever you do, don't try to fix a broken TV with more magic," said Hermione, "Arthur tried it, and it worked for a little while, until it developed a will of its own and decided that it only wanted to be on between 2 and 4 am and the only acceptable volume was all the way up."

Dudley chuckled and said, "So you know about TVs and stuff? Cho said most witches don't, and I'm starting to see why, since magic makes them go all funny."

"My parents are muggles so I know more than most," Hermione explained, "I've tried to keep up with the latest technology trends by reading about them but since none of them will actually work in our house I think I've fallen behind. Then again, my parents are full muggles and they can't seem to keep up with them either."

"I know about as much about cell phones as I do about magic," Dudley admitted.

"My parents would be relieved to hear that," said Hermione, "maybe they'll come to the next family event. I'm sure they'd be happy to have another muggle to talk to."

"I'd like that," said Dudley, "I'd love to meet them."

"There isn't exactly a parenting book on how to raise a magical child as a muggle, said Cho, "I bet they'd have a lot of great advice for Duds."

"At least you have the advantage of knowing something about magic," Hermione said to Dudley, "my parents had to do it all completely blind."

"That must have been tough for them," said Cho, "and for you."

"It was," said Hermione, "the Hogwarts letter came as such a relief. They still would have killed for a parenting book though, even after McGonnagal explained everything."

"Maybe they should write the book," said Cho.

"If they do," Dudley added, "I'll be first in line to buy it."

Before long, Mrs Weasley roused the lot of them to replace the miscellaneous chairs and sofas with one long table so they could have their Christmas dinner. Dudley positioned himself as far away from Ron as he could, and proceeded to enjoy what was probably the best Christmas dinner of his life. It was loud and festive, and the number of kids in attendance meant that people were always getting up and moving around. The chaos of a Weasley Christmas was far more fun than what he'd enjoyed as a child.

Christmas at the Dursleys had always been about Dudley getting as many presents as possible and rubbing it in Harry's face. He couldn't for the life of him remember why he'd enjoyed that so much. It really couldn't compare to the entertainment of Harry encouraging Fred to dance on the table, or Mrs Weasley's mashed potatoes, or George's homemade crackers, which when pulled revealed a delightful assortment of impossible prizes from live doves to santa hats that made the wearer grow a fluffy white beard. Dudley subtly set aside any sweets he found though, just in case.

As tiring as the day had been, when Dudley lay down beside Cho that night, it took a long time for sleep to find him. His thoughts were whirring and digesting all the magic and wonder of the day. HE kept going over the dozens of drunken promises he'd received from various members of the Weasley clan to show him how Quidditch was played or give him a tour of St Mungo's before the baby arrived or introduce him to the brother who could take him to meet a real live dragon. Best of all, he had a half dozen experienced babysitters and one babysitter in training (Teddy was very eager). 

It wasn't all daisies and roses, of course. Not everyone was welcoming him and Cho with open arms, and Ron's threats still sat heavy on his mind. But drama was expected in any family. He'd thought he lost one family when he married Cho, but really his parents had been lost to him the day Dudley stopped blaming Harry for everything terrible that had happened in his life. Dudley had a new family now. A family in which his child could belong, as Harry never had.

With that thought in mind, he snuggled closer to Cho and finally drifted off to sleep, dreaming of the life they would build for their child.