The uses of a Bonnie Tyler and Meatloaf album

If two human beings on this Earth had detested each other since they were children, it was Dudley Dursley and Harry Potter. Born in the same year, they had grown up together, in circumstances that virtually insured that they would come to hate each other. Dudley was the son of the house; Harry, the orphaned son of his mother's sister. Dudley's father, a narrow and unsympathetic man, took his line from his wife, who had hated her younger sister Lily since childhood with the kind of hatred only possible when someone makes us feel our own inadequacies, every day, without even thinking. When she was murdered, her sister took in the child out of some sort of obscure reflex; but her hatred did not die. She did everything that she could do to make the child feel unwelcome, and to make her menfolk do the same.

Harry grew up suffering and hating; and of all the hate he felt, he felt most for his cousin - whose tyranny was the most arbitrary, the most violent, the most unexpected. His uncle and aunt fed him badly and made him sleep in a closet; they shouted at him and gave him absurd tasks; they excluded him from anything pleasant that might be going on. Yes, they did all this, but then what they did was predictable; it was, in a sense, expected; and therefore Harry could ready himself for it and bear it. It was when his cousin, out of sheer devilment, started chasing him around the neighbourhood with gangs of his friends; when he found out that a neighbouring shop had barred him for no reason, because Dudley had been spreading stories about him; when he felt something wet crack and drip on his head, and found that Dudley had broken an egg on his head - and that he had to hurriedly clean up before his aunt came in, on pains of being blamed for the dirty mess and punished - that Harry felt the depth of fury. The capricious, random, out-of-the-blue nature of these attacks were what made it so impossible to tolerate them; and Harry would long, if he only could, have trashed his cousin into the ground.

As for Dudley, he hated Harry for a cruel and stupid, but intensely human reason: because he had done him wrong in the first place. Brought up to despise and ill-treat his cousin, he had had to form a reason to dislike him; and he had done that all too easily, with the uncomplicated cruelty of children. Dudley, in fact, had suffered from a disastrous education. His mother's unspoken sense of inadequacy had been poured on him, spoiling him atrociously. Nothing ever was denied him: and therefore he became fat and flaccid. Far from having the happy childhood his mother fondly imagined she was providing him, Dudley resented, at some level, his own flabbiness, which reflected in everything he did or tried to do; there was always this sense of being hampered, unable to make a breakthrough, held in one place. Looking back decades later, he realized that he had basically spent much of his childhood in a state of semi-permanent indigestion. Anyone who ever had to work with an over-full stomach, sapping vitality and imagination, must understand why Dudley always carried such a load of anger and sullenness; his parents were the only ones not to notice, or at least not to worry, since his anger always expressed itself in a way they approved - in aggression against Harry.

Things began to change when, on Harry's eleventh birthday, he was wrenched from his uncle and aunt's guardianship and taken to a school to learn magic. That was what had lain at the back of his aunt's enduring jealous hate of his dead mother, Harry found out; that from childhood, Petunia had known that Lily was prettier and cleverer, but that she had soon found out that she also had powers...powers that left poor Petunia earthbound and lonely, ignored even among her own family. All this had come out in a whirl of hate, in the presence of Petunia's husband, of Harry, of a giant named Hagrid, and of Dudley himself - who was quivering, and could not have told you, half an hour later, what his mother had said. The impression it left was subconscious.

From then on, Harry, the family's traditional punching-bag, was absent for most of the year; and, while when he was there he still drew hatred and a certain amount of violence, the family were no longer quite as happy to abuse him as and when they felt like. The pressure of the magical world felt like a slowly increasing grip: even when they found out that Harry was not permitted by law to use magic in the holidays, they also found that it was not safe to push him too far - for Harry was a boy who only cared so much for rules and regulations. In fact, if they had taken the least interest in his school life, they might have found out that he was building quite a reputation for dangerous escapades and headstrong rule-breaking - all, of course, for the best of reasons, he would have said.

But Harry's long absences were, if anything, more important than his presence. The family found itself without its designated scapegoat; and Dudley, himself dispatched to another boarding school, found himself, for the first time in his life, far from the protective hands of his mother.

For years, things failed to change; an outside visitor to the Dursley household might have noticed little change between Dudley and Harry's eleventh year, and their sixteenth, except perhaps that they harassed Harry less and ignored him more. The shifting of the tectonic plates of personality and experience did not take place in places where occasional alien eyes could so easily see it happen.

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The first indication of a radical change was the sudden flare-up of Dudley's passion for boxing. Harry, who himself had been growing a respectable set of muscles thanks to years of practice in a witching sport called Quidditch, just came home one summer (after suffering a terrible personal loss) and found his cousin transformed: still big, still beefy, but in an advanced state of shedding his fifteen years of blubber and replacing them with massive and active muscles. Harry, of course, immediately ascribed this to his cousin's passion for bullying; and he was, perhaps, at least partly right. A boy whose main contact with others has been through a basically violent mode of dominate or submit, force your will on others (such as his mother) or have it forced on him (the teachers in his boarding school), would and did understand, at once and unconditionally, the idea of focusing your personality in your fists.

But there was something else at work. For the first time in his life, Dudley Dursley had met with discipline. In his boarding school, he had mainly felt authority and pressure; he had done such work as he had, largely because he was forced to. But in the gym, there was nothing to force him to do anything - except himself.

He met with discipline - and he liked it. To nine men out of ten, discipline is the opposite of liberty; but Dudley Dursley was the tenth. It released him from the unconscious chains of flab and flaccidity that had defined him for so long. The feeling that mind and body were connected, that he could think of one thing and his body would do it - that he could punch that hard, for that long, and just do it without collapsing - that his mind was clear and sharp, without the unconscious oppression that had followed him around for as long as he could remember - was, in his mind, instinctively associated with his time in the gym, with the hard and punishing workouts, with the miles run under the sun. He threw himself into work with a passion, and had to be quite firmly warned against overtraining.

He still hated Harry, both out of sheer habit, and because Harry had grown no easier to bear with the increase in his magical powers. In point of fact, both boys had become, in their different ways, hard as nails; not that this did anything to bring them together. Even the fact that Harry, that summer, saved Dudley from some of the most terrible predators of the magical world did not warm things between them; since to have to be grateful to someone you detest in the first place does not make you like them any better. Besides, when Harry left the home for the rest of the summer, it was through a humiliating trick that left Dudley's parents apoplectic with fury. Dudley himself stifled his own inclination to snigger until he was safe home and in his own bed (with, as he had shrewdly expected, no Harry to wait for them). Really, parents are too absurd. Who else would have left the house like that for a message that claimed that they had been shortlisted for a competition about garden lawns? At moments like these, Dudley found Harry and "his lot" almost lovable in their sheer lack of shame.

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One year later, summer was here again - and so was Harry. But something had changed. For the first several weeks, the young man vanished at regular intervals, without Father and Mother doing anything to stop him - or to prevent him coming back. Dudley guessed that this had something to do with something-or-other called the Order, with which Harry was apparently involved; and he began to take seriously the fact that Harry was involved in some sort of serious trouble. When at home, he was even more uncommunicative than usual, and Dudley perceived, for the first time, an intense sadness about him. He was also training hard - Dudley was by now an expert on training - and evidently used this focus to escape unpleasant thoughts. Once or twice, Dudley was tempted to tell him to take it easy, that he was overtraining, but he suspected the advice would not have been well received.

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Harry liked music, but he had never had much time to find out about groups and styles. However, he had several times heard songs he particularly liked; and just recently, he had paid enough attention to the radio DJs to identify two names - Bonnie Tyler, and someone called Meatloaf. He liked the big, bold statements they both made, the drama and intensity of the music, the brashly handsome tunes; he was, after all, only seventeen, and had not developed the perception that more mature minds have, of the incongruity of some of their statements, where caddish or outrageous behaviour is presented in an all but heroic light - as in Paradise by the dashboard light or Two out of three ain't bad; or of the sheer absurdity of one or two - Holding out for a hero, or Faster than the speed of night. Of some, he did not even know what they were about; but they reminded him of the struggle in his life - yet they somehow managed to transfigure a thing that was mostly fear, grit and cruelty, and partly shame and disgrace, into something impressive and attractive. Once he had got the names right, of course he was going to buy a CD; he did not have a hi-fi, but to one who knew the uokemdona spell this did not matter.

As Harry went out that morning to train (and noticed with the corner of his eye that Dudley was already gone and probably pounding asphalt in turn), he made a note in his mind to go to the Little Whinging record store and investigate these two names. He ordinarily avoided the centre of the village, a poor place to do any running; but he wanted a CD, he wanted to find out more about the two singers.

He got there; he found the right rack; and to his great delight, he found that there was one CD - called, typically, Heaven and Hell - that had songs by both, including some that he knew. What he had not expected was to hear a familiar voice say, behind him - "What, do you like that?"

He turned and saw the giant figure of his cousin with some CDs in his hand, two of which were - unmistakeably - Meatloaf. With equal astonishment, he answered, "Do you like that?"

Before they knew it, they were deep in conversation, comparing favourite songs and telling how each of them had first encountered them and how they had reacted. They started jogging home together; at first, more slowly than each of them would do on a training run, and then altogether at a walk, because jogging and conversation do not go together - even for two quite fit people - and at that moment, without even realizing it, they both wanted conversation more than anything else. They had never communicated except in the language of insults; this was absolutely the first time that they had found a common ground where they could meet, not as objects of hatred or contempt, but as people. They explored in passionate and somewhat comical detail the philosophical significance of Jim Steinman's lyrics, compared favourites and "blecch" moments, and found themselves, incidentally, relating a lot more of their respective lives than they ever had before. Harry was unselfconsciously surprised and impressed to find out that his cousin was already national level and would soon be fighting European fighters; and Dudley found out, for the first time, that Harry really had serious, heavy-duty enemies, and was under obligation to fight, not, like Dudley, for his name, but for his life and the life of those he loved. Later he was to hear of Sirius, and realize why Harry had been so sad and withdrawn all that summer.

When they got home, Dudley showed him the reason why he had had to go to the shop in the first place - several music cassettes smashed to bits because he had clumsily stepped on them, that morning, as he was waking up. Harry got out his wand. "Don't tell anyone I'm doing this. It's supposed to be illegal till I'm 18," whispered Harry, and, pointing the wand at the smashed cassettes, said "Reparo!" The shattered bit of plastic and tape flew back together, and there, suddenly, were Dudley's precious tapes, good as new.

"That's a clever little stick you've got there, Potty," said Dudley, repeating (without meaning to) Harry's least favourite Hogwarts nickname. "Why don't you use to rob a record store?"

"That's a clever little computer you've got upstairs, Dudley Duddikins," said Harry with an ironic imitation of his cousin's irony. "Why don't you use it to call up some more songs from far away?"

"What do you mean?" asked Dudley.

"Download them via Napster or Morpheus, you twit!" said Harry; and Dudley, who, only yesterday, would probably have pounced on him for this expression, just slapped himself heavily on the forehead, turned, and dashed upstairs.

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For the rest of the summer, Harry and Dudley kept each other's company a lot. They exchanged tips on training, and Dudley taught Harry some good boxing fighting techniques - as he said, "I don't care how magical those Death Chewers are, one good jab to the side of the head will slow anyone down". He found out, to his surprise and slightly modified interest, that his cousin trained not only to fight, but also because he was committed to a wizarding sport he had never heard of, Quidditch; and that, to his even greater surprise, he was quite good at it. Dudley had never really realized that he had a cousin before now. Of course, all this annoyed his mother Petunia greatly; but she could do nothing to affect it any more, and once or twice Dudley dropped heavy hints that she herself would be much happier if she only "let it go". Ever since this boxing thing had started, she had felt that Dudley was growing away from her. She felt old and past her prime, and, for the first time in her life, found herself wishing for Iris back.

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Battle was coming. Hogwarts was isolated and surrounded by the enemy host, and everyone knew that, come morning, they would attack. Harry had come to an isolated portion of the battlements, to listen to his music in peace and look at the stars - the great golden stars, sailing so peacefully across the heavens, unconcerned with the horrors down below. Harry felt a peace coming from them; their battle, he felt, the battle of cosmic order, had been won long ago. He used the uokemdona spell to give voice to the CD he had carried with him.

Baby you're the only thing in this whole world that's true and good and right

And wherever you are and wherever you go there's always gonna be some light

But I've gotta get out I've gotta break it up now before the final crack of dawn -

So we've gotta make the most of our one night together

When it's over you know

We'll both be so

Alone...

Although Harry had, at present, no girlfriend - unlucky episodes with Cho Chang and Luna Lovegood notwithstanding - he found it easy to identify with the hero of the song, looking up at a woman he loved even as he is about to go down into a valley of death and corruption, into dirty world, to fight one last desperate battle. He found it easy to imagine that one beautiful, clean, innocent person, a reason to fight and to die even while the rest of the world hardly seemed worth more than a curse. He wished he had Sirius' old bike, to blast out of the castle gates in the morning in the style of Meatloaf's hero.

Like a baddaddaHell I'll be gone when the morning comes

Oh when the night is over like a baddaddaHell I'll be gone gone gone

Like a baddaddaHell I'll be gone when the morning comes -

But when the day is done and the sun goes down and the moon comes shining through,

Then like a sinner before the gates of Heaven I'll come crawling on back to you...

Among the letters he wrote on that last night before the battle there was one to Dudley.

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Talkin' about

Rock and roll mercenaries,

Soldiers of fortune

By some other name,

The two curtains moved aside and the challenger's theme song struck up, throbbing and dramatic. Among a fire-storm of flashes and lights, Dudley Dursley entered the arena, his trunk-like arms swinging pugnaciously, his stride broad and confident, as ten thousand mouths shouted or hissed. Breathing in deeply, focused, inwardly ferocious, he moved forwards, disregarding the crowd. He only saw one thing: the ugly little roped-off space at the centre, the people inside... the coaches, the referee, and the champion: the tall, hulking, black Belgian from whom he was going to tear the European crown today.

We're talkin' about

Rock and roll mercenaries -

Money is power,

And power is FAME!

"It's got to be Kay-O, Big D," the coach said for the third time. "The jury are on his side. You're not going to get a points decision. It's got to be a clean count of ten."

Dudley said nothing. Already he was focussed only on the champ; already there was nothing else before his eyes.

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In the middle of a raging battle, on a field where many armies were clashing, Harry Potter was walking in a straight line, straight ahead, his wand in his hand. There was something terrible about that unchecked forward motion that seemed to take no heed of the horrors taking place ahead, behind and either side of him; he barely moved to dodge a bolt of lightning here, a Stunning Spell there, as they fell unchecked near his path.

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The Belgian was good. His reach was superior, and he knew how to use it. Dudley had been on the offensive for most of the early rounds, but he had not managed to inflict serious damage; certainly not worse, he thought, than what he had taken himself. He was bruised in several places, and he had cuts over his short ribs and on his left cheek - nothing bad, but the champ was strong, and his defence and reactions were better than Dudley had ever met. Dudley's jaw set grimly; the bell rang; he bit down on his teeth guard, and jumped out of his corner, to attack again.

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Harry's one goal was now almost in sight. It had been easy to pursue, for his goal was the eye of the storm - the evil mind that was moving power upon power in the sky and the ground and beneath the earth, facing each threat in turn, determined and able to defeat every threat that wizards, gods and powers of the underworld bore against him.

He had been thinking of Harry Potter for years - much more, indeed, than Harry had thought about him. Harry had been his peculiar obsession, his hatred, his fear. Many plans he had conceived to destroy him; some he had never enacted, others had miscarried; and ever, in the middle of every other action, the image of the boy with the scar was at the back of his mind, as the one chief thing that needed to be destroyed. But that day, as he drove that storm, his mind on armies and flights of dragons, he forgot about Harry Potter for the first time in years; standing tall and free in the middle of slaughter, driving legions of slaves, hatching plans nearly on the spot to deal with unexpected emergencies - and succeeding - he had forgotten the one soldier in the enemy host. The powers he was facing were immense, greater than he had ever expected to face; but he was turning them to bay, and soon some of the frontlines would crack and break, and his hosts would pour through. He felt the progression of victory beginning to take place, one crack after another, one collapse after another...

...the corner of his eye caught him coming to a stop within fifty paces of him. Hatred and fear exploded within him; and even as he turned to strike, he knew it was too late. Avada Kedavra, said Harry Potter calmly; and as Lord Voldemort's corpse tottered and spun, consumed by the energies that his death was releasing, his soul was already sinking, still devoured by hatred and anger, into a darkness without end.

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It was not strength that did it; it was skill, and knowledge of the game. It took Dudley eleven punishing rounds to understand and familiarize himself with the Belgian's defensive technique; the twelfth would pay for all. He exploded into action, feinting with a jab to the lower left, then smashing into the champ's right-hand short ribs with all his weight behind the punch. The guard instinctively relaxed under the pain of the blow, and Dudley followed up with a vicious attack to the head, the punches connecting again and again. A hush fell upon the hall as it became clear that the champ had lost control. Dudley kept hitting and hitting, never breaking off until the champ hugged him - practically fell into him - and the ref had to part them. This gave the champ time to restore his defence.

But Dudley was not to be denied. He knew that it was now or never, and that he had only a little more than a minute to force those precious ten seconds of helplessness that meant victory. He ignored his exhaustion and the pain in his arms and his ribs, and attacked again; and the crowd started roaring, sensing an upset in the making. As a boxer, Dudley had one great and rare advantage: he was wholly ambidextrous, with no favourite or lead arm, and therefore could attack from either side or switch as he pleased. That is what he did; and the champ, under a flurry of blows, was literally driven back across the ring until he fell on the ropes. Still the ref would not count him out; so Dudley drew back, gave him space to move - and then let fly with a savage jab and uppercut combination that caught him on the side of the head and sent him reeling to the ropes and to the ground. The referee had finally to start counting; his voice was drowned by the rhythmical roar of the crowd -

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

TE-E-E-E-EN!

"The winner, and new heavyweight Champion of Europe - Dudley Dursley!"

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"It was easy," said Harry later, as the battlefield was slowly being cleared and everywhere the signs of the enemy's flight were becoming clear. "I had been tormenting myself for years about the fact that I would have to kill him, to be a murderer... But when I saw what was actually being done - all the people and beings being driven, being killed, falling on the field, wounded, screaming, all the good and the bad, all because of him --- one life for so many, and so many lives for one selfish monster..."

"It was easy," he concluded.

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"Good fight," said the champ, in a heavily accented English, slightly distorted by the swelling of his face in the fight. "Good fight, kid, you deserved win. You goin' places, I tell you that."

"Thanks," said Dudley, and shook his hand, "you fought brilliantly - gave me a real hard time." Then, impulsively: "I'll give you a return match if you want."

"Thanks, kid, but I'm... uh... retiring. No more fight. I've had my time. This your time now."

"Thanks, champ," said Dudley with a broad smile, as a man stepped into the ring with a Lonsdale belt and the crowd got ready to applaud.