Chapter Text
Dudley Dursley hadn’t seen Harry Potter in nearly twenty years — not since that night, awkward and fumbling, when he’d muttered, "I don't think you're a waste of space."
He hadn’t meant for it to be some grand reconciliation. Just... the truth, finally said aloud.
Now, two decades later, Dudley was married to Clara Gillason — now Dursley — a sharp, kind woman he’d met not long after leaving the safehouse with his parents. They’d built something good together. Comfortable. Normal. Safe.
They had two children. Daisy, their eldest, was turning eleven today.
She was a lovely girl. Tall like Clara and Petunia, but with her father’s dark hair and his soft, uncertain eyes. Daisy had a sweetness in her Dudley couldn’t quite explain. She collected ladybugs in jars, tried to pet bees, and once tearfully begged to keep a limping pigeon as a pet. Stray kittens always seemed to follow her, like she radiated some invisible thread of gentleness. Of course, Dudley always said no. Not because he didn’t want her to have them, but because he was afraid of what if.
Donald, on the other hand, was six, loud, and absolute chaos. He had Clara’s sharp brown eyes, but Dudley’s broad frame — and none of Daisy’s softness. He chased the cats instead of petting them, stomped on bugs instead of collecting them. He was wild and messy and full of opinions.
Today, though, was about Daisy.
Her birthday.
Her eleventh birthday.
And no matter how many years passed, Dudley had dreaded this one.
He remembered that birthday — Harry’s birthday — the one where the letters had come flying down the chimney, where owls were everywhere, and everything he thought was true about the world had shattered like a dropped glass. He remembered how quickly everything had changed. How the word magic had taken on an entirely new meaning.
He told himself Daisy was different. She was normal. She didn’t make weird things happen when she was upset, not really — sure, one time all the spoons in the kitchen had bent when she cried about a squashed ladybug, and yeah, there was that day when the neighbor’s dog had mysteriously floated up onto the trampoline... but that was just... coincidence. Right?
He clung to the hope that it was.
Until the post arrived.
It was late afternoon. Daisy was outside in the backyard, wearing a daisy-patterned dress her grandmother had sewn. Donald was half-covered in mud, screaming about a worm war. Dudley was clearing up the remains of cake when the doorbell rang.
"Clara, can you get—?" he started, but his wife was already scooping up Donald and wiping his face with a towel.
So Dudley answered it.
No one was there.
Just a single envelope on the mat.
Heavy parchment. Emerald green ink. A wax seal, deep red.
His stomach dropped.
He didn’t need to read the name to know what it was.
But he did anyway.
Miss Daisy Dursley
Second bedroom on the left
12 Bluebell Grove
Little Whinging
His hands began to shake.
“What is it, Dad?” Daisy asked brightly, appearing at his side. Her cheeks were rosy from the sun, her dress a little wrinkled, her smile impossibly pure.
He couldn’t lie.
So he handed it to her, still silent.
She opened it eagerly — thinking it a birthday surprise. Maybe a treasure hunt. Maybe a mystery game.
Her eyes scanned the parchment, brow furrowing, mouth parting.
And then she looked up at him with wonder.
"What's Hogwarts, Daddy?"
Dudley nearly dropped the cake plate.
He stumbled back into the kitchen, heart racing, the air around him suddenly too thin.
Clara followed, worry etched across her face. “Dudley? What is it? What’s Hogwarts?”
He didn’t answer her.
Instead, he yanked open the junk drawer, scattering pens, batteries, and receipts until he found the yellowing envelope he'd hidden there for years.
It was addressed in Harry’s familiar handwriting:
Dudley — if she ever gets a letter.
He stared at it like it was radioactive.
Clara was still asking questions. Daisy was still holding the Hogwarts envelope, glowing with curiosity.
But Dudley had tunnel vision now.
He pulled out his old phone, the one he kept tucked away in his bedside drawer.
And dialed the number.
It rang once. Twice. Three times.
Then—
"Hello?"
Dudley swallowed.
“...Harry?”
A pause. Then a voice, familiar and hesitant.
"Dudley?"