Work Text:
Family Secrets
"I need to tell you about my cousin."
Charlotte cocked her head to the side, dark brown hair falling into her face at the movement. "Your cousin. I didn't know you had a cousin. Surely Marge doesn't have any children?" She did her best not to wrinkle her nose at the idea.
"Hell, no. Thank god for that." Dudley slumped back onto the sofa beside her, his large body—not obese like the pictures she'd seen of him as a child, but still much larger than her delicate frame—took up much of the sofa. His hazel eyes peeked out at her from where dark-blond fringe fell over his face, something hiding in their depths. Sadness? Nerves? Fear?
What could he be afraid of?
"So, you have a cousin," she urged, as he didn't appear to be continuing anytime soon. He was a lovely boyfriend, sometimes a little rude and often obnoxious when around his friends, but he was purposefully kind to those around him and always tried to do the right thing. He'd told her he'd been a bully in his childhood, and as difficult as she found that to believe, it explained why he tried so hard now.
"Yeah," he finally said. "Harry. He's my mother's sister's son, but his parents are both dead. Died when he was a baby."
For some reason, Charlotte found herself holding her breath as if he were about to drop some major bomb on her. Which was silly, right?
"He's only a few months younger than me, and we grew up in the same house."
Charlotte sat up straight and stared at the fire across the room, suddenly poring through her memories of all the stories Dudley and his parents had told her in the six months they'd been dating. Photo albums and framed family pictures, childhood drawings and scrapbooks, none of them that she could remember had any hint of another child.
"Why…" She stopped herself and turned back to Dudley, only one possibility making sense. "Did something happen to him? Did he die, too?"
"No. He's still alive. Lives in London, I think." Dudley's tone was dull, matter-of-fact, which was completely out of character. He was usually loud and full of life. It was one of the things she liked most about him.
"But why haven't I heard of him before? He's basically your brother, then, right? If your parents raised him with you?"
Dudley dropped his chin and looked away. "That's what I wanted to tell you about. You need to understand what kind of people I come from. How I was raised."
"You've said that before, but Dudley, it wasn't that bad. Lots of kids are spoiled and—"
"Stop. Please. Let me get this out. I feel like I'm lying to you if I don't explain this."
She closed her mouth and placed her hands on her lap. He needed her to listen, and so she would.
"Harry was…different. I can't really go into why right now, but let's just say that my parents were prejudiced against him for something he couldn't control."
Well, that wasn't surprising. She'd heard the racial slurs that slipped from Vernon's mouth when he'd been drinking, and she'd seen the way Petunia had watched that nice, young gay couple that lived in the flat downstairs from Dudley. Thankfully, Dudley wasn't like them, so she tried to ignore it.
"From as early as I can remember, they made it clear that Harry was bad and I was good. He didn't deserve a bedroom, or Christmas presents, or new clothes, even though I got all those things. I like to think that I didn't know better, and at first, I'm sure I didn't. But eventually, I did, and I didn't say anything. I didn't do anything. I didn't tell anyone or try to help. Hell, I actually made it worse by bullying him and telling the teacher lies about things Harry did or said. I thought it was funny."
Charlotte tried to picture everything Dudley was telling her. It was like something out of a book she'd read in college, one she'd never forgot, where the little boy was chained to a toilet and fed food on the floor like a dog. And Dudley had lived there, lived through something like that. Suddenly, she felt her gorge rise and she stood, hurrying to the bathroom.
She stared at the mirror, breathing deep, trying to calm herself so she wouldn't be sick. Charlotte concentrated on her reflection, calming herself. Brown eyes, brown curls, sharp nose. All the parts of herself she knew. She was okay. This was something that happened long in the past. It was over.
There was a knock on the doorframe, and she turned to Dudley. "How could somebody be like that? Your parents, they're… How?"
"I don't know. When I was fifteen, something happened, and I started to see things differently after that."
"What—?"
He grinned his crooked little grin that she loved so much. "That's a story for another time, okay?"
She nodded, thankful to see him closer to his normal self.
"I wanted you to know what I came from. And if we keep seeing each other—and I want to keep seeing you—you needed to know."
She wrapped her arms around his waist. "Thank you. But you're not like them, you know that right?"
He just hugged her back and sighed.
Finis