Work Text:
Dudley Dursley wasn't entirely sure why, but he was pretty sure that all his problems were Harry Potter's fault.
He was also pretty sure that his parents were going to get a divorce.
"–YOUR BLOODY SIDE OF THE FAMILY!"
"IT'S NOT LIKE I HAD A CHOICE!"
It was an argument that Dudley had heard a lot over the past few months. At first he'd only caught snatches of it, his parents careful to keep their voices low and hushed, but the volume increased as time went on, like they'd forgotten that they were supposed to hide this kind of thing from him.
The argument, Dudley had figured out, always started about something boring and grown-up. Usually money, or Dad's job. Once, bizarrely enough, it had started over a flier Dudley had brought home from school about a school trip, asking for chaperones.
It's all Harry's fault, Dudley thought sullenly, listening to the yelling from his seat at the top of the stairs. Things only got weird after he left.
Dudley had been over the moon when that happened, just over a year ago. Finally, no more sharing his house with the freak! No more awkward conversations with his mates about why the weirdo lived with him! Mum and Dad had complained all the time about what a burden Harry was, about how he cost so much money to house and feed and stuff. Dudley had assumed that without him around to be such a drain, it would mean more money for cool stuff that Dudley wanted. He envisioned being able to get all his clothes designer, instead of just a few things. He daydreamed about bigger family holidays, going to places like America or Fiji instead of boring old Spain. Maybe they'd move into a bigger house, and Dudley could have a cinema room in his house, like he saw on a TV program that toured celebrity homes.
None of that had happened. Weirdly enough, Dudley seemed to get less now that Harry wasn't around. When Dudley ripped a massive hole in his jeans, Mum had pursed her lips and gotten out her little sewing kit, instead of just buying him a new pair. He still got a mountain of presents at Christmas a few months after Harry had left, but for the first time ever he didn't get everything he wrote down on his list. Instead of going to a Spain or France during the summer, they ended up going to Cornwall.
Cornwall.
The trip was rubbish and Dudley sulked pretty much the whole time. Piers got to go to Nice. It wasn't fair.
It wasn't just life at home that Harry leaving had ruined. School was rubbish too. It had always been a bit naff, with people on at him all the time to do boring things like reading and maths, but break times had always been a laugh, mucking around with his friends, and P.E was always good fun.
It had been a shame to lose their games of Harry Hunting, and everyone had grumbled that regular old tag just wasn't the same. Dudley had quite agreed, and thought that the obvious solution was that they just pick some weedy little nerd to be the new Harry. It wasn't like Harry was special, he'd just been the most obvious choice for the game. They all eagerly surveyed the playground and picked out their replacement.
It was Piers that pointed out Kevin Clarke. He was perfect, really. Skinny and quick, just like Harry, which meant that he'd make for a good chase. He was a swot who didn't really have any other friends – he spent most breaks reading on his own. He didn't wear glasses, which was disappointing – stealing Harry's glasses and watching him stumble around like an idiot was always a great part of the game. He did, however, usually have a book to grab, and he cried when they threw it around and refused to give it back.
Dudley patted himself on the back for fixing things. Who needed the freak? They could still have loads of fun without him there.
Kevin Hunting lasted all the way through to March. Then the little twerp tripped one day while running away and broke his arm. Mr Clarke stormed into school the very next day and demanded a meeting with Mrs Roemmele. Kevin had snitched.
All of them ended up in a very boring meeting that lasted all afternoon, with all their parents called into the school to attend. Dudley hadn't been that worried. It wasn't like they'd done anything that bad to Kevin. He broke his arm all on his own by falling over! That wasn't Dudley's fault! Besides, no one had ever cared when they chased Harry all over, so it must not be that bad.
They all got suspended for three days.
When Mrs Roemmele explained what that meant, at first Dudley was confused. Three days off school? That was supposed to be a punishment? He grinned as he followed Mum and Dad back to the car, already plotting out how he was going to spend those days. His parents ranted all the way home about how unfair the school had been, punishing him for harmless playground roughhousing.
"Wishy-washy nancies are taking over the education system!" Dad fumed, moustache twitching, "You wouldn't get this nonsense in my day! Bullying – ha! That Clarke boy is just too sensitive!"
Dudley had a great three days. He played with his toys and watched all the television programs that he normally couldn't watch because they were on while he was at school. His mum cooked up great big lunches for him, and even let him have ice cream for his afternoon snack.
It wasn't until his little 'punishment' was over the Dudley realised that there were other consequences to swotty little Kevin's snitching.
His teacher seemed to be watching him. Her eyes made him itch and scowl. From that point on she had it in for him. Every time he elbowed someone out of the way to get to lunch faster, or threw a ball of paper at some know-it-all, she'd somehow see, and she'd hold him back to lecture him. She'd already been getting meaner, because ever since Harry left Dudley didn't have anyone to bully into doing his homework anymore, so she'd lecture him about that too.
She was just a stupid teacher though, and Dad said that no one cared about primary school marks anyway. He could ignore her.
What actually bothered him was his friends. Ever since the suspension they all went… weird.
Tommy didn't play with him anymore. He basically refused to speak to him at all. He was in a different class to Dudley this year, so Dudley didn't care too much, but it was still annoying. Dudley cornered him one day and the other boy had told him, rather red-faced, that his parents had told him that he wasn't allowed to be friends with Dudley anymore, because Dudley was a 'bad influence'.
"Whatever," Dudley sneered at him, "I don't want to be friends with you anymore either."
It wasn't only Tommy. Dennis was avoiding Dudley too, darting off to play on the monkey bars with another group of kids nearly every break. The one time that Dudley had tried to follow him and join in the other kids had all pretended that there wasn't enough room for him to play. Dudley didn't care. Monkey bars were stupid anyway. He could never hold on for long enough and kept falling off.
Piers, Gordon and Malcolm still played with him. The suspension turned them weird too though, because they were too scared to even play regular games of tag, let alone revive the hunting game for a third time. Piers turned into a right little suck-up, following all the rules to the letter and volunteering for extra chores to score points with the teachers. Gordon and Malcolm weren't so bad, but they got twitchy if they ever got too close to Kevin Clarke at break times, like they were scared of the little nerd.
It was all so stupid, and Dudley reckoned it was all Harry's fault. If he hadn't run off, then they wouldn't have had to change from Harry Hunting to Kevin Hunting, and the suspension never would have happened. Everyone would still be having fun and Dudley would still have all his best mates.
Dudley huffed and let his chin drop into his hands. He was sitting at the top of the stairs, listening to his parents yell at each other in the living room. He scowled as he realised that the argument had, as predicted, shifted into a fight about money again.
"–LET HIM GOAD YOU INTO GETTING A LAWYER WE CAN'T EVEN AFFORD!"
"THIS ISN'T THE KIND OF THING THAT YOU CAN SKINT ON, PETUNIA! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND MONEY!"
"YOU WERE THE ONE WHO GOT US INTO THIS MESS TO BEGIN WITH! YOU READ THE PAPERS AND PROMISED ME THAT ALL WE HAD TO DO WAS TRANSFER THE MONEY! THAT NO ONE WOULD BE ABLE TO PROVE ANYTHING IF WE JUST TRANSFERRED EVERYTHING!"
"THAT'S – THAT'S NOT– IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH! AND IT WILL BE! OUR LAWYER WILL GET THIS CASE THROWN OUT – YOU'LL SEE! WORTH EVERY PENNY!"
"I'M NOT STUPID! I'VE BEEN READING THE DOCUMENTS HE'S SENT US! BLACK HIRED A FORENSIC ACCOUNTANT! I LOOKED IT UP! THOSE ARE PEOPLE WHO TRACK MAFIA MONEY FOR THE POLICE! DO YOU REALLY THINK WE CAN FOOL SOMEONE LIKE THAT?!"
The argument went on and on and on. Dudley sat at the top of the stairs and tried to ignore the fact that there were tears running down his cheeks. He wasn't a baby. It was just a bit of yelling.
Dudley sniffed loudly and got to his feet. Maybe if he went to his room and stuck his head under his pillow he wouldn't be able to hear them anymore.
There was deadly silence in the car as they drove home. Vernon had his hands gripped on the steering wheel so tightly that the skin around his knuckles was bone white. Petunia looked away to stare out the window, her jaw clenched so tightly it was starting to hurt.
She honestly did not know what she was supposed to do now. She'd hinged the last of her hopes on the lawyer that Vernon had been so confident in. Highly recommended, Vernon had said with a glint of triumph in his eye, He's done work for Mr Mitchell personally!
It had all seemed so reassuring. Vernon's boss' lawyer! Getting Mr Pyrite involved had been very pricey, and Petunia had winced at the invoices that they got in the mail, but Vernon had been so sure that snagging the man as their representation was their golden ticket out of this mess.
How laughably wrong they had been.
Both Vernon and Mr Pyrite had assured her that the fancy forensic accountant that Black had employed was nothing to worry about. A party trick, to scare them into agreeing to settle.
"No one spends that amount of money just to get back pennies," Mr Pyrite said with a confident wave of his hand. "I bet you anything that this 'forensic accountant' is just someone they paid for a ten-minute review of the files so that they could legally add his name to the list of witnesses. He won't have done any actual investigation – his services would cost Black almost as much as he could hope to recover from you in the first place!"
Mr Pyrite was wrong though. The forensic accountant was a real witness, and he'd done a very real investigation into all the accounts involved. The polished older gentleman that had sat in that courtroom and explained his findings had ruined any hope they had of getting the case thrown out. He knew things about Petunia's accounts that even she didn't know, or never bothered to understand.
Vernon had been red-faced and furious at the recess, turning to Mr Pyrite for an explanation. Mr Pyrite had been rather pale, no longer the picture of easy confidence he had been in all their previous meetings.
"I don't understand," he said to them, voice shaking a little. "Black must have spent a fortune! He's playing this like a massive corporate case, instead of a family dispute!" He turned an almost accusing look on Vernon, "Who is this man?"
There wasn't enough time to try and come up with something to say. Petunia very well could not tell their lawyer that their opponent was a bloody wizard! She bleated out something weak about her freak sister getting a special scholarship to go to private boarding school and making friends with strange people.
Mr Pyrite looked at her for a long moment, something like horror growing in his expression. "So this man…" he said slowly, "… comes from a family that paid for him to go to an elite boarding school? One that's invitation only?"
Bitterness soured Petunia's mouth as she realised the assumption that Pyrite had jumped to. She couldn't tell him that the criteria for entry into Hogwarts was having magical powers, not belonging to some British cult of wealthy elite.
Then again, Petunia thought as she stared blankly out of the car window. Pyrite's assumption might have more truth to it than not. She'd always known that James Potter had money. Lily had certainly enjoyed flaunting the gifts her boyfriend had showered her with – delicate gold jewellery, clothes from fancy tailors, and enough repulsive textbooks to start her own library in her little room in their childhood home. Petunia had been so triumphant when she arrived at her sister's wedding to find a tiny venue and barely any guests – nothing like the lovely big wedding that Vernon had given her – but then Lily had stepped out, smile radiant and wearing a dress with thousands of tiny crystals stitched into the fabric. Emeralds dangled from her ears, and delicate gold chains were woven into her lovely red hair. Petunia fumed at the sight, suddenly feeling very shabby with her tasteful pink dress and sensible pearls.
She'd never known for sure how much James Potter had. She didn't want to know. She told herself that even if Vernon didn't have the same family money that the Potter boy did, at least he was hardworking. He was going places, unlike Lily's boy, who seemed content to sit on his hands and spend his inheritance without thought. Petunia had consoled herself at the wedding by imagining life ten years on, picturing Lily living hand to mouth because they'd never bothered to save a penny, while Petunia lived in a nice house with her highly respected executive husband.
When Petunia went to the meeting at the bank, barely two weeks after the boy had been dumped on her doorstep, she'd been a tiny bit excited. She was finally going to find out exactly how much Lily's fancy rich boyfriend was worth. Or, at least, she was going to find out how much the rich boy was worth now. She highly doubted there was much left – neither her sister or her husband had jobs. They had to have been bleeding funds by the end there, especially with a baby to take care of.
To her intense disappointment, the bank did not have complete documentation of the boy's inheritance for her to poke her nose through. She still had no way of knowing how much money James Potter had. How much money her new 'foster son' had, however… well, Petunia had a much better idea there.
"A thousand a month?" Petunia had stared at the account manager blankly, "Are… are you certain? It's monthly, not annual?"
The bland looking man across the table from her nodded happily, "Oh yes, quite a generous amount really. Little Harry Potter has been set up quite nicely by his mum and dad. His account here is connected to his larger trust fund, which is under the care of another bank, but we have some documents here that show the health of that larger account here–"
He showed her the numbers, laid out in black and white. The boy's trust fund was worth a fortune. A truly unfair amount of money! And according to the bank manager this trust account was something that the boy's father had set up before his death. This money was entirely separate from whatever funds the Potters had been living on. The boy had to have a huge inheritance waiting for him when he turned eighteen!
Petunia sat in that meeting room, anger bubbling hot under her skin. She thought about her own son. Vernon had opened a trust account for him when he was born too. They had eighteen years to build it up to a little nest egg for him to use for university, or perhaps his first home. By his first birthday, the little account had accumulated nearly five hundred pounds, and Petunia had thought that quite respectable.
She thought about the other toddler she had at home. He was loud. Needy. It had only been two weeks, but Petunia was exhausted. The boy didn't sleep through the night, not like her Dudders. He threw perfectly good food to the floor when she tried to feed him. When she took him out shopping with Dudders the other day people had stopped and stared, frowning at the extra child that so obviously did not look like her. She knew they thought that the boy might be an affair child, that Vernon had cheated on her with some foreign floozy and brought the child back for her to raise.
That boy, who had ruined everything, he had a trust fund far bigger than they could ever hope to build for Dudley. He had magic too. Petunia wanted to explode from the injustice.
She signed the papers with numb fingers and took copies home to show Vernon. Her anger did not abate until Vernon read everything over with a critical eye and sat back, a smile twitching at his lips.
"This is excellent!" he said, "Pet! What a wonderful stroke of luck!"
She'd just stared at him blankly. "What are you talking about?" she said sourly, "It's hardly good luck for us – we've got to spend it all on the little wretch – that's what it says."
Vernon reached out to grab her hand, "Don't worry about that," he said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze, "I'll sort everything out. This kind of thing is easy to get around with a transfer or two. We just have to shuffle the money around a bit so they can't tell what's been spent where – no one will be able to prove we haven't spent the money on the boy." He gave a little snort of derision. "Not that anyone will look," he said, "No one ever checks up on things like this anyway – too much work."
Petunia looked down at the papers with new wonder. "We… we could start putting more into Dudley's account," she said, possibility making her feel warm. "Even things out a bit."
"An excellent idea!" Vernon crowed, "The boy won't even notice a difference anyway – a thousand pounds a month is barely a dent in what he has. It's fine!"
It had felt like justice, like the universe balancing the scales. Petunia had felt so proud each month as she watched the automatic transfers tick over. First a thousand pounds from the boy's account to hers, then a neat five hundred from her account to Dudley's trust. At the rate things were heading, Dudley would have enough for university and his first home. And it was all because of her. With this arrangement, they had more flexibility in spending Vernon's salary too. They could afford to put more into the mortgage each month. Their savings grew and grew, and things only got better when Vernon was promoted from junior executive to senior executive at Grunnings.
Lily may have snagged the richer husband, but it was Petunia who had come out on top.
It had all come crumbling down though, hadn't it? The boy's wretched godfather had seen to that.
It was only now, as she stared out the window of the car and wondered how it had all gone so badly wrong, that Petunia realised that she had underestimated Sirius Black. She had known, after all, that the Potters had serious money. Why had she never realised that someone close enough to James Potter to snag the spot as his son's godfather might not have similar means? Like befriended like, after all. She had seen the man's ripped jeans and hoodlum haircut though and made assumptions. He was a lot better at acting normal than the Potter boy had been, so she'd assumed that this man was more like Lily – a person from a normal family of normal means that had been sucked into that freakish world when he turned eleven.
It was clear to her now that Sirius Black was not like Lily. He had money. The expensive suit he had worn in that courtroom today had made that fact abundantly clear, as did the lawyer and ludicrous team of technical witnesses he had hired.
Petunia wondered how much money Black had wasted on this lawsuit. The boy's trust account had been locked to Petunia for the most part, only paying out that thousand pounds a month and no more. It had been the first thing established in court that day – the exact sum that Petunia and Vernon were being accused of stealing: Eighty-three thousand pounds.
He had no hope of taking that much money from them, Pyrite had assured them. They had fed, housed and clothed the boy for seven years. It was indisputable fact. Best case scenario, Black could only recover about half of that money, based on figures that Pyrite found on the average cost of providing for a child in a suburb like Little Whinging.
Why on earth would he shell out thousands of pounds to hire these people, just to wring this money out of them? It wasn't like he needed it himself, and the boy didn't need it either. Petunia had chanced a look over at Black as the witnesses droned on and on after the recess. The man's sharp eyes had caught hers, blazing silver. He looked at her like she was something rotten he needed to scrape off his shoe, and she'd flinched back, averting her gaze.
They lost. Badly.
Black had asked for forty thousand pounds, all of it to be deposited back into Harry's trust fund. The judge had granted this, shooting Petunia and Vernon a look of thinly veiled disgust that had her flinching back in her seat, shocked at the hostility. This was a case about money. Who was this trumped-up old judge to look at her like that? She did her best. She never wanted the boy, but she carved out room in her home for him anyway. She'd been charitable.
Petunia scowled out the window, angry all over again at the judge. It was probably the sob story tosh that Black had somehow convinced all of the boy's former teachers to write. They'd painted her as a terrible person, like they hadn't stood there and nodded their heads solemnly as she told them all about how the boy was a liar and a troublemaker. Black had probably paid them to exaggerate. The boy had never starved. He had clothes to wear, and plenty of school supplies. So what if the things weren’t brand new? It was hardly a crime to give a child second hand things!
Forty thousand pounds! Where were they going to get that money? Dudley's trust account was set up so that no one could take money out until he was eighteen, so they couldn't use that, even if there was just enough there to settle the court order. There wasn't enough in their savings account. Vernon would have to sell off some of the investments, or they'd have to take money out on their mortgage, setting them back years.
It wasn't fair.
Petunia's eyes drifted away from the window, back across to her husband. Vernon's fists were still tight on the steering wheel. His moustache was twitching as he muttered under his breath.
This is your fault, she thought miserably, thinking of his confidence all those years ago when he told her that it would be easy to redirect that money, but somehow I think that you're going to blame me for it anyway.
"I think…" Petunia swallowed hard, staring down at the papers littered all over her kitchen table, "Vernon, I think we're going to have to move."
They paid Black the damn money. It had taken the better part of a year, paying it out in instalments, but they did it. When the last payment had gone through, Petunia had breathed a sigh of relief, hopeful that things would finally go back to normal for their little family. They could forget all about Lily's wretched son and move on with their lives.
That was six months ago though, and Petunia was finally ready to admit that perhaps things were never going to be the same again.
Their savings were half of what they used to be, and it looked like it was going to take them much longer to pay off their mortgage than they originally planned. They weren't poor, God forbid, but there was writing on the wall that Petunia really did not like. Vernon had been passed over for promotion to vice president, even though a few years ago he'd been assured by Mr Mitchell that he was basically being groomed to take over the position when the current VP retired.
Both of them knew why. No one greeted Petunia at the grocery store these days. Several people working in Vernon's division at Grunnings had quietly put in for transfers. They hadn't been invited to dinner party with any of Vernon's colleagues in over a year. Petunia caught snatches of gossip with her sharp hearing before people spotted her and hastily changed the subject. Everyone in Little Whinging was still talking about Harry Potter, and they were saying that Petunia and Vernon had abused him.
Petunia had to grit her teeth with anger each time she heard it. They had no idea what they were talking about. Abuse! It was over-exaggerated nonsense! They'd never hit the boy. Never starved him. Those gossiping biddies just wanted something to tut about, someone to look down their noses at in judgement.
Vernon's eyes narrowed at her as he looked up from his own bundle of papers. "Why?" he said, bristling, "This is a perfectly good house! I won't have a bunch of judgemental busybodies drive us out! I won't!"
So even Vernon could see it. They were pariahs in Little Whinging, and nothing they could do could change that. Petunia set her mouth in a grim line.
"Maybe… maybe this is a good… opportunity." She winced even as she said it. Her son's expulsion from primary school was hardly an opportunity. It was a miscarriage of justice, and she'd cried herself to sleep over the unfairness of it all. To think that the community was even taking this out on her Dudders! Blaming him for things that weren't his fault and blowing things way out of proportion!
Vernon seemed to be thinking something similar. "We don't have to move. We can find another school for Dudley close by," he said stubbornly. "A much better one! That school was going to the dogs anyway – I had half a mind to pull him out even before all this happened."
They probably could find a school for Dudley reasonably close to their home in Little Whinging. It would be easy enough to find one that was on the route to Grunnings, so that Vernon could take Dudley to school as part of his daily commute. It wouldn't be for long anyway – Dudley would start secondary school in September.
Petunia looked at the papers around her, a mixture of school brochures and their own accounting paperwork. They'd been trying to figure out how to make this work within their budget for the past hour. They didn't want to send Dudley to one of the rougher state schools, but everywhere else in the area was full. Their only choice really was to send Dudley to an independent school, but the school fees were going to put a serious dent in their finances. The money they'd put aside for Dudley's schooling was meant for secondary, not primary, and they'd rather counted on the legacy discount that Smeltings gave to students who had alumni fathers. Well, that wasn't happening either. The school had sent them a polite letter rescinding Dudley's place when they heard about his expulsion from St Grogory's, much to Vernon's outrage.
"It would be better for Dudley," Petunia said, feeling teary as the honest words came tumbling out of her mouth. "Vernon – is our pride really worth making Dudders suffer?"
He deflated, and the papers fluttered out of his hands. Vernon put his head into his hands, looking utterly miserable. There was a long moment of gut-wrenching silence in the kitchen.
"You're right," he said quietly. "I'm sorry, Pet, but I think you're right."
Petunia burst into tears.
"I can't believe you're moving."
Dudley kicked idly at the grass, carefully not looking at Piers. The two of them were watching the movers carry cardboard boxes out to the massive truck that had pulled up outside Number Four. Dudley watched them work sullenly, wondering why Piers had even bothered to show up. He'd been avoiding Dudley ever since the expulsion, even though he only lived two streets away.
"Yeah," Dudley grunted, after the silence had stretched on long enough that he realised that Piers was waiting for him to say something.
"We can talk on the phone, I suppose," Piers said, jamming his hands in the pockets of his shorts, "Or maybe write letters."
Dudley snorted. If Piers honestly thought that Dudley would write him letters, then he didn't know him at all. Dudley also somewhat doubted that they'd talk all that much on the phone either. Piers didn't seem all that interested in staying friends with Dudley anymore. He was only saying that because that's what people were supposed to say when someone was moving away.
"Where are you going again?" Piers asked.
"Leeds," Dudley said, "Dad's got a new job. So Mum said it was good timing; I would have had to switch schools anyway."
Dudley did not tell his mother that he already knew that Dad had only started looking for a new job after Dudley had been expelled. His parents did not fight as much as they had last year, when he'd been so convinced that they were on the verge of divorce, but they still had not learned to keep their voices down enough to stop him from learning things like that.
He cried, late at night when he finally put all the pieces together and figured out that they were moving because of him. Dad had quit his job at Grunnings and taken something that paid less, just so they could move away from Little Whinging as soon as possible. Dudley heard Dad telling Aunt Marge all about it over the phone.
Dudley scuffed his trainers over the grass again. Normally Dad would get annoyed at him for kicking the grass, as he said it ruined the neat look of the lawn. It wasn't their lawn anymore though, so Dudley thought Dad wouldn't mind.
"Well…" Piers trailed off, looking uncomfortable, "See you later, Duds." He held out a hand for Dudley to shake.
No, you won't, Dudley thought. He reached out and shook Piers' hand, his chest feeling hot and tight. Piers had been his best mate since preschool. And he was probably never going to see him again.
"See you," he said.