Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dudley stared down at the fresh graves of his parents.

A car crash had taken both of them. The other driver had been drunk and smashed right into the driver side – killing his father immediately, Dudley had been told – and injuring his mother enough that she didn't make it to the hospital.

It was ironic, in a way, that this was the kind of accident he had believed had killed Harry's parents while growing up. He had tried to look into it when Harry had blown up over the incident with Aunt Marge, and had found no mention of any accident relating to any 'Potter' family.

That was the first time he had realised his parents' stories about Harry were coated in lies, but he hadn't wanted to look into it further.

He refused to. They were all happy with how things were, and nothing needed to change. How they lived was their normal. His parents were good people, and Dudley couldn't deny that Harry was strange. He was different, but Harry was also family.

It had taken that cold and unsettling experience two years later for Dudley to realise that. Harry had always been able to outrun Dudley. It was simply a fact of nature, but that didn't mean that Dudley would stop chasing Harry for it, yet Harry had slowed down and run at the same pace as him when that cold feeling settled around them. Harry had yanked and tugged at him until they had reached the underpass where he thought they were safe – from what, he didn't know to this day.

"How are you coping, Dudley?" Harry's voice interrupted his thoughts quietly. "I just got the news."

Dudley shrugged.

"I don't know. I don't think it's really sunk in yet. It just feels so unreal, like I could just go back afterwards and see Dad watching telly and Mom fussing around in the kitchen." Dudley looked up then, and noticed that Harry wasn't alone. There were a bunch of redheads with him, a few of whom looked somewhat familiar.

"These are the Weasleys. You've met Mr. Weasley, George, and Ron before—" Harry winced a little at the memory, but one of the redheads grinned and saluted, "— I didn't think you'd want to be alone right now. I mean, if you want to, that's perfectly fine too..."

"Look at the boy, Harry! Does he really look like someone who should be left alone right now? This is why I insisted on coming. You and Ron are exactly the same!" A matronly woman pushed through the group and reached out to Dudley. "Dudley dear, you may not feel it now, but you need people around you when everything finally sets in. Come stay with us for a few days."

The woman seemed to be the opposite of his own mother in every way. Her clothing was extremely old-fashioned and the woman herself seemed to be overbearing and quirky. Dudley was sure that if she were to go into the city, she would garner a lot of attention, but Dudley found himself unable to say no.

"Good," the woman smiled as she patted his arm. "Harry will hang around with you while you settle everything you have to and pack some clothes. Knight Bus, Harry."

Dudley almost felt like snorting when he saw Harry's meek nod at the woman's glare. It was something his mother had never managed with Harry, and she had tried her best.

"Am I really allowed to just stay with your friends? Isn't it against the law or something?" Dudley asked, after the Weasleys had slowly disappeared from the graveyard.

"Are you telling me you have absolutely no idea about the— about our world after all this time?" Harry raised a brow, and Dudley was reminded of how annoying his cousin really was.

When the Knight Bus came skidding to a stop in front of him with a loud bang, Dudley took a second to question his life's choices.

And the genius of the Wizarding World.

Harry spoke to the conductor quietly, and Dudley just followed his lead when Harry gestured for Dudley to enter the bus. His luggage was quickly stowed away, and Dudley uncertainly sat on one of the beds that filled the interior instead of seats.

"I'm going to cast a charm on you to keep you in your seat for the journey. Will you be okay with that?" Harry asked, looking both uncomfortable and strangely regretful at the same time. "I'm going to do the same for myself."

Dudley blinked. "I guess so?"

A discomforting feeling settled on him moments later. He wasn't able to adjust his position even minutely, and Dudley was just about to ask Harry to take the enchantment off when the Knight Bus shot forward. When his limbs flailed with every turn the bus made, he understood why the charm was needed, but also questioned the sanity of having a mode of transport like this.

Also, why didn't they just have seats with seatbelts?

When they stopped for the first time, Dudley noticed Harry's disgruntled expression. His clothing was also in disarray, and he was splayed out on the bed in a similar fashion to Dudley. He didn't know whether he should be glad or amused that Harry was faring no better than he was, despite it being Dudley's first time.

It was rather like a roller-coaster, really. Dudley rather enjoyed those whenever he went to amusement parks, but he guessed Harry wouldn't be as fond of them.

It was four stops later that Dudley was finally released from his bed. Harry looked like he was about to throw up, but still spelled Dudley's luggage down.

"I will never get used to the Knight Bus," Harry groaned. "C'mon, we've got a bit of a walk."

When Dudley picked his luggage up again, he realised it was much lighter than he remembered it being.

"I charmed your luggage to be lighter. Couldn't risk the magic in your apartment, sorry. Like I said, we have a bit of a walk. It will make it a little easier."

"Don't you have, I dunno, magic carpets and flying brooms? Why a magic bus?" Dudley questioned aloud.

"There are some countries still using magic carpets, but there were some issues with the magic carpets losing their enchantments halfway through a journey, I think, so Britain stopped creating them, really. Magic brooms need some magic from the rider, so we weren't sure if we'd be able to get it to work for you. In theory, we probably could, but no one has actually tested it," Harry replied. "It's more George's thing though. After... well, he got interested in magical transport not too long ago."

"I swear Great-Aunt Muriel walks faster than the pair of you! I was just about to go fetch something to snack on while I waited."

Dudley spotted a redhead similar to the one had saluted him earlier sitting on a rock, swishing his wand back and forth and making the grass in front of him change colours and settle in various patterns. He remembered two of them when they fetched Harry and gave him that awful sweet, so he couldn't be sure which it was.

"Says the wizard who just Apparated. I'd like to see you walk all the way here," Harry retorted with a grin.

"Why would I do something like that?" he grinned. "Come Dudley, let's key you into the wards. Stand right on the rock right here, and let me do the rest."

"Are you the one who came to the graveyard? I don't really remember your names, sorry, but I remember there were two of you," Dudley wondered.

The redhead's movements froze for a moment, before continuing like nothing happened.

He smiled tightly when he was done. "There's just me now."

The wizard disappeared in the next moment.

"We lost George's twin in the war," Harry explained. "As much as he'd like the rest of us to believe it, he hasn't quite moved on. It's a bit of a touchy subject for him, but he'll be back to normal in a few hours. Don't blame yourself, there's no way you would have known."

In a way, Dudley was glad to know that losing someone wasn't something where he would just get over it and move on. He was glad he would be able to hold onto his parents, even if it was painful and a constantly open wound.

Dudley tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position in the bunk bed, but every time he closed his eyes, he could see the still bodies of his parents when he went to identify them.

The blood he had prepared himself to see had been washed from their skin. They looked like they could have been sleeping and would wake at any moment, but Dudley knew neither was the type to joke. Neither was able to take a joke either.

Eventually, Dudley slipped out of the bed for some fresh air. The stairs creaked as he moved no matter how softly he tried to step on them. Thankfully the route from the stairs to the kitchen and outside was fairly simple. Getting back to his room was a problem he would think about later.

Despite not truly being asleep, the cool air woke him up. Dudley found a piece of wall to lean against not too far from the door.

The stars glittered, and the moon cast enough light for Dudley to see his surroundings fairly clearly.

Dudley heard the door open again a moment later.

"Ah, I see someone has beat me to stargazing tonight," George joked. "Mind if I join you on this fine night?"

"Of course not."

It didn't take long for Dudley to realise how experienced George was at this kind of 'stargazing'. The air immediately grew slightly warmer, and the slight shiver Dudley hadn't realised was coursing through his body subsided. George also pulled out a small bag of sweets from his pocket and laid it down between them once he was seated on the ground.

Slowly, Dudley sat on the ground as well, only to find it far warmer than he expected.

"Okay, now I'm impressed." Dudley patted the ground around him, and if he hadn't known better, he would expect the sun had been shining on the spot for hours.

"You seem to be fitting in fairly well, despite everything," George noted. "From Harry's few stories, you seemed to be very averse to magic."

"I doubt your mother would have left me alone if I didn't agree to come along," Dudley snorted. "But, I've also had many years to think about everything outside my parents' influence. I'm not very proud of what I did back then."

Dudley wanted to bring up what had happened earlier. He wanted to apologise, but he didn't want to break the comfortable atmosphere with the other male disappearing into the house again.

"I'm sorry about earlier," George said suddenly, gaze fixed on the sky. "There's no way you could have known."

"It's— there's no need to apologise. Harry explained it to me after you left. I shouldn't have just blurted it out like that."

"It's been eight years. I thought I'd be used to it by now, but..." George was silent for a long time. "I guess it's just something that I'm always going to carry."

"Isn't that better, though? I know I wouldn't want to forget my parents, if that means them weighing on me now and then, it's better than them being completely forgotten, I think?" Dudley paused. "I don't know, the fact that you're still feeling it is kind of relieving for me."

"You really think so?" George looked over.

"Yeah. I don't know a lot about your twin, but I know I'm the most terrified that eventually I'll move on and it will be like my parents never existed. They weren't the best people in the world, I think you know that already, and they were wrong about a lot of things, but I still hate the thought of the world still continuing without them in it. But it is, and I absolutely hate that."

George only hummed in reply.

They stared at the stars in silence until Dudley found keeping his eyes open too difficult. Somehow, he found his way back to the room he was staying in, and fell asleep.

Dudley woke to the distinct smell of baking.

It was a familiar smell and until the moment he opened his eyes, Dudley believed he was back home with his mother baking some cake she had found the recipe for.

The sound of something dropping heavily on the floor and the cursing that followed forced him to open his eyes.

"George?"

"Sorry, Dudley. I got used to sleeping on the lower bed above the shop. Forgot I didn't go back last night," George groaned from the floor. "Thankfully Mum still left the Cushioning Charm on the floor."

Dudley saw George spring up again a moment later. "Hurry up and get dressed. Mum's baked something. If we don't hurry the others will finish it before we get there. Although, you're a guest, so Mum will definitely save some for you."

He rushed to get dressed all the same, and thundered down the stairs after George. On the staircase, they met several other Weasleys in a similar rush to the kitchen. Had he not been surrounded by the bunch of redheads competing to get to the kitchen first, Dudley would have found the entire thing childish but instead it was exhilarating as they rushed over and against each other to get to the bottom, all without injuring anyone.

Dudley all but fell into a seat around the table. The scene was entirely unfamiliar, but comforting.

The cake that was placed on the table moments later was a little different, but extremely familiar. He glanced up at Mrs. Weasley in surprise.

"Harry was by earlier, dear. He said this was one of your mother's recipes that he remembered, and that he'd send the rest over when he had a moment to scribble them down. He thought you might like to have them too, if you wanted to try your hand at baking at some point."

Dudley hadn't thought Harry remembered much of his time at their home – or if he did remember, he would have wanted to forget all of it. It had been one of his chores, after all – trying out the recipes Petunia found, but he was never allowed to taste the cakes. Had that been Dudley, he knew he would never want to see a cake again.

"Thank you. I didn't think Harry would remember these."

"Harry's a bit more sentimental than you'd think," Mrs Weasley said over the joyous yells of 'More cake for us!'.

To see his mother's cake in the middle of such a strange kitchen, made by a witch, Dudley thought she would be fairly upset. His mother had been the one to painstakingly create this particular recipe, blaming Harry for missing an ingredient or step every time it didn't taste the way she had planned, and eventually it was the only one she was willing to bake.

But, it was also strangely fitting for a woman who had yearned for magic and eventually learned to disdain the Wizarding World.