The Adventure of Dudley Dursley

Chapter Five: Dinner and an Unexpected Development

Hannah had initially been unsure as to whether or not Dudley could be a really help to her. To be honest, he wasn't a wizard, and he didn't know anything about the magical world. However, she had been so lonely hiding her powers that she found it refreshing to have a friend who accepted her and wasn't actually out to get her. Plus, there was the added bonus that Dudley sincerely wanted to help. He was willing to dig through ancient texts, and was more of an outdoorsman then Hannah, and therefore was much better with the maps and clues then she was. They quickly settled into a routine, whereby they would obviously hang out with one another at school, and then in the afternoons, Dudley would work on his homework at Langford's house while Hannah did hers at her own.

By a lucky coincidence, the two homes weren't that far apart and as such they were able to usually meet outside one house or the other and get to work. They both agreed that it probably wasn't wise to tell anyone what they were working on, but instead worked in the forest, weather permitting. If it was not, they would instead meet at Hannah's house and sit over cups of hot apple cider or tea, depending on their mood. Hannah's father was glad that she at least seemed to be in a better place now that she had a friend, although he was a little worried that their friendship was moving along too quickly. However, he treasured his daughter a little too much to interrupt her happiness this soon.

The Dursley family also approved of the friendship. Vernon had settled in quickly as a successful head of the hardware store, and had managed to increase profits quite well. Because of this, the village seemed to accept the family more easily then was typical, as this was a place where generations lived and died, and newcomers weren't a common occurrence. That isn't to say that all people immediately threw the family a welcoming party, but the town did see the hard work put in by Vernon and Petunia running the store and their home, and how much Dudley had helped "poor old Mr. Baldwin." Thus, the family was quite happy, and the fact that Dudley was getting along well with his schoolwork and had made a new best friend thrilled his parents. Hestia and Dedalus were less then overjoyed. Both guardians feared that the fact that Dudley had a new friend was frightening, because that person could be Imperioused or a Death Eater in disguise looking to verify the boy's identity. Thus, they always questioned Dudley about his time spent with "Susan."

One evening after working over another set of old documents that Hannah had somehow procured Dudley made a decision. He interrupted Hannah as she was in the process of putting away their materials, satisfied that they had made some progress but frustrated that they did not yet know the location of the hidden ax and said, "Hannah, I was thinking that you might like to have dinner at my house tomorrow night."

Hannah was startled and missed placing their books into her bag, spilling several of their notes onto the leaf covered ground. "Dinner at your house? But I thought you didn't want me to come because you didn't want Mr. Diggle and Mrs. Jones to see me and realize that I'm a witch."

Dudley realized that this was a critical moment for him with Hannah. He said, "No, I have always wanted you to come over, because I'm proud to have you as my friend. My parents have been dying for me to ask you 'round for dinner, but I haven't done it because I was afraid that they'd be rude to you if they found out that you were a witch. I've told you how biased they are, even if they are a little bit better now. No, this is a great opportunity because we'll be able to have another place to meet."

Hannah smiled at this, knowing that there might be another reason that Dudley wanted his parents to meet her, but allowed Dudley to continue.

Dudley said, "Also, I think that Hestia and Dedalus should meet you. They're lonely here too, and although they don't know that you're a witch, they're always asking questions about you, to make sure that you aren't a Death Eater or anything like that. I figure that we can have dinner, and then afterwards you can talk to those two. I mean, they are members of The Order of The Phoenix, and Hestia does know a lot about Goodmanham. So I'll tell them that you're a witch, and not mention that we're doing something, but just that we're friends and we'll go from there. I just want you to be able to be welcome in my house too."

The look on Hannah's face told Dudley that she had been waiting for him to do this, but was touched none the less. She smiled and said, "My dad will have to be ok with being lonely for one dinner, I guess. I'll be there!"

That evening at dinner, Dudley told his parents that "Susan" would be coming over the next evening for supper, and would that be ok. Of course, Petunia began fussing about cleaning the house (and as a show of how far they had come from their initial experiences with magic, she even allowed Hestia to help using some neat cleaning charms to save time, although she did look nervously out the windows as the actual magic was occurring. Dudley's father was thrilled to be able to finally meet this mystery girl that his son had been visiting with so frequently, and clapped him on the shoulder when he heard she was coming.

Knowing that Hestia and Dedalus would be having a different reaction, Dudley had first approached them. He had gone to their side of the house, which was decidedly more magical then the other, and informed them about his friendship with "Susan." At first the two were angry that they hadn't been immediately told that Susan, née Hannah, was a witch and also on the run. However, when they heard that there had been Snatchers in the village and that Dudley had helped drive them off, they were impressed against their will that he had been able to help, and decided to wait to make any judgments until the next night when they met her. That being said, Dedalus confessed to Hestia once Dudley had left the room that he was planning on keeping his wand up his sleeve throughout the meal, just in case Hannah made an attempt on any of the Dursleys' lives.

The next day, which was a Saturday, Dudley met early with Langford, where he helped by cleaning out his friend's refrigerator. Possibly because the machine was quite old, or maybe from not being cleaned frequently, there was quite a layer of crud built up in the machine. As he worked, Langford sat on a wooden chair at the nearby table, and asked about his plans for the night in-between their discussion of the latest books they had been reading (including works of philosophy, history, and religion). Dudley informed Langford about his plans to have his friend meet the family.

Langford answered, "Well, I'd like to meet this girlfriend of your too. She sounds really nice."

Dudley blushed and said, "Well, she isn't my girlfriend, she is just a really good friend, but I'll make sure to have her stop in some evening when we're here." Dudley then said goodnight to his friend, and walked out the door into the dark evening.

As the crisp, chill wind rattled the remaining leaves around his feet, Dudley pointed himself towards Hannah's house so that he could walk her to his own home. As he walked, he considered his feelings for his friend. For the past month, he and Hannah had grown quite close, as they sat near each other in school, ate lunches together, and then worked in the evenings on the texts and clues that Hannah had scrounged up in their search for the ax. Thus far they had not really had much success, but despite this, the two of them enjoyed each other's company and Dudley, for the first time, found that he had a friend of his own age who accepted him for who he was and valued him for his actions, and not just because he could beat up smaller people. He couldn't deny, even to himself, that he found Hannah attractive, but this was different then the other sorts of girls that he had fancied. In those cases, the infatuation had always been physical, but with Hannah he really felt that he had found someone who "got" him and who he enjoyed talking to.

Dudley realized that he had no idea what to do about how he felt. All of his old instincts told him that the only way to impress a girl was doing something stupid, like beating someone up, or being cheeky with a teacher. Of course, he knew that the girls who had been impressed when he did things like that in the past weren't like Hannah. He knew that she seemed to like him for who he was now, which was a kinder and gentler version of his old self. He resolved to just continue treating her nicely, and hope that he had an opportunity to see where things went.

Dudley suddenly looked up and realized that in his musings, he had wandered right past Hannah's house and come upon the ancient, derelict-looking ruins of a church. He and Hannah had often sat on the ruined stone wall that ran alongside the building in the crisp autumn air and talked about the search they were undertaking. Tonight there seemed to be and odd shimmering light coming out from the remains of a window, but Dudley was already late and chalked it up to fireflies or something like that. He quickly reversed direction and headed back towards Hannah's door, where he was pleased to see her smiling at her and holding a small present. Answering Dudley's look with a grin, she said, "It's for your parents. Got to make a good impression, right?"

The two walked to Dudley's house, chatting about classes that day and their hopes of finding the missing ax. They still didn't know what special hidden powers this ax was supposed to possess, but given its age and the legend surrounding it, clearly it was worth the search.

At this point, the pair had arrived at the door to the Dursley house. Dudley knocked and opened the door. They walked into the hall, removing their coats and hanging them on wrought iron hangers which were hung from the wall. At this point, Petunia entered and introduced herself. She was quite flustered by the present, which turned out to be a set of scented candles which smelled like lilac and apples. The dinner was smooth sailing after that, as "Susan" impressed both Vernon and Petunia who both seemed to take to her. After dinner, the group removed themselves to the living room where the casual chatting continued into the night. Finally, Dudley said that they better get going, and that he was going to walk his friend home. They ducked out the door and walked down the lane before doubling back and meeting in the back yard where Hannah was to meet Dedalus and Hestia. As they arrived in the backyard, they couldn't see anything, so Hannah pulled out her wand and whispered, "Lumos."

With a flash Hannah's wand was suddenly flying through the air, being caught by Hestia. "Nothing personal girly, but we have NO idea who you are, and there isn't any way we're going to let you have a wand around this boy until we verify your story."

Dudley was furious that his friends would treat him and Hannah like this, but to his surprise, Hannah smiled. She asked, "Do you have any veritaserum?"

Dudley didn't know what she as talking about, so in response to his questioning look, Hannah said, "Dudley, veritaserum is a truth potion which forces the drinker to tell the truth."

He didn't like the sound of that, but the fact that Hannah seemed to be willing to take it had mollified Dedalus. Hestia, however, was not convinced, and said, "As a matter of fact, I do have some, in case you were bluffing." She withdrew a small bottle, and showed it to Hannah before producing an eyedropper and taking out several drops of the clear potion.

Hannah stuck out her tongue, adding, "I've got nothing to hide." With that, she swallowed, then grinned and said, "So what did you want to know." What followed was a rapid interrogation that revealed the accuracy of Hannah's story, and a return of her wand, which she took and returned to her pocket.

The basics established, Hannah told the pair what she and Dudley were searching for and what they had achieved thus far (which only was to find many mentions of the story as well as descriptions of the people involved in the destruction of the ax, but not many hints they could discern without a starting place). Dedalus merely laughed and said that they were wasting their time, but Hestia again impressed them all by mentioning that there was a famed collection of a large number of stories written by a long forgotten scribe which should be in the collection of some local academic that focused on the ax. Now that Hannah had been cleared, the two Order members wished the young pair a good night, and Apparated back to their quarters.

Dudley's jaw dropped as the pair vanished with a pop, but Hannah merely laughed at the look on his face and explained how the process worked as they walked back towards her home. Dudley was again struck by how little he really knew about this world. As they walked in the moonlight, Dudley paused and said, "Pretty night tonight, don't you think?"

Hannah smiled and said, "It's very romantic." She suddenly clasped her hangs over her mouth, suddenly remembering that she had taken a truth potion. She laughed and figured, "what the hell' and extended her hand to Dudley. The pair walked back to Hannah's house, arm in arm, before hugging each other goodnight. Dudley would often think of that walk home in his later life, and marvel as to how it seemed that his feet didn't even seem to touch the ground.