Dudley Dursley and the Knights of Walpurgis

Prologue

July 1, 1998

He'd never planned to come back here. He had no attachment to the things he'd left, and he certainly didn't have any attachment to the people. But they were still family, and they'd been in danger because of him. He needed to see them, confirm that they were okay. Then he'd be able to leave them behind, once and for all.

It was Dudley who opened the door to his knock. "Harry!" he said, his eyes wide. Then, looking over his shoulder, he jerked his chin toward the stairs. "Why don't you come up to my room, and we can talk."

"Who is it?" bellowed Uncle Vernon.

"A friend of mine," Dudley answered, "from school. We're going upstairs." Vernon grunted in reply.

As they walked upstairs, Harry could see the remains of the damage that had been done after they'd left last summer. "They did less damage than I'd expected," he said.

Dudley shrugged. "We've got most of it patched up. They broke some stuff, but it didn't look like they were trying to destroy things." He cleared a stack of things from a chair in his room. "We think they knew where you spent most of your time. It was your bedroom and your cupboard where it was worst." He pointed to Harry's trunk, sitting below his window. "I gathered everything they didn't destroy, but there's not much. Still, it's yours."

Harry nodded, touched. "Thanks, Dudley. I mostly came to make sure you were all right. Hestia and Dedalus said you were, but . . ."

"You wanted to see for yourself," Dudley said with a smile. "Thanks."

"How was it?" Harry asked. He hadn't had much time to think about them over the past year, but any time he had, he'd wondered how the Dursleys were doing.

"Mum and Dad hated it. There wasn't any electricity; it was all magic, so we needed help with just about everything." Dudley shrugged again. "I, once I got used to it, I found it kind of, well, interesting. Is that how you're going to be living?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. I'm comfortable in the Mug--, er, your world, but I'll be living in that one. It's where I belong. You won't have to worry; I won't be coming back. I just wanted to make sure you hadn't been hurt or anything."

"He's dead? That evil wizard that was after you?"

"Yeah. He's gone."

"Did you kill him?"

If Dudley had seemed excited by it, Harry wouldn't have answered, but he seemed worried. "Sort of," he finally answered. "His curse rebounded on him. Again."

"And you're okay?" Dudley pressed. "You look all right, but there's nothing . . . hidden? You're not going to die or anything?"

Dudley's worry was so unexpected that it took Harry a minute to be able to answer. "Well, I'm going to die, but we all will. I'm hoping it's a very long time from now."

Dudley's smile was pale and strained. "Did anyone you care about . . .?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah, I lost some friends." He closed his eyes for a minute. "It was war, Dudley; people died. My godson's an orphan, in fact. I, we, well, we'll mourn. And rebuild."

After a minute's silence, Dudley asked, "Your godson, he'll be with people who love him, yeah? He won't be with people . . ."

Hearing the unspoken "like us," Harry said, "Yeah, his grandmother's going to raise him, and she loves him so much. He's all she has left. And he'll have me, and his parents' other friends. He'll be okay."

Harry finally stood and said, "Yeah, I should get going. I don't want to make things tough for you."

Dudley stood as well, and put his hand on Harry's arm. "Look. I don't expect you to stick around, or even come back, but I don't want to lose you. We may not have much in common, but we're family, yeah?" He looked uncomfortable, as if expressing any kind of affection towards Harry was wrong. Which, Harry knew, his parents believed. Apparently Dudley no longer did.

Harry realized that, without knowing it, this was really why he had come back. "Yeah, I want to stay in touch." He picked a pen and paper off Dudley's desk and scrawled the address of the Burrow on it. "Here's where I'm staying right now. I'll let you know when I move. You, too. Let me know when you move, or get a new telephone number. For right now, you, and your parents, are the only family I have."

Dudley took the slip of paper and slipped it into an address book filled with similar bits of paper. "I will. Good luck"

Harry grinned, cast a Featherlight Charm on his trunk, and threw his Invisibility Cloak over him. "See you."

Dudley grinned and went down the stairs first to distract his parents. Harry could hear him telling them that his friend, "Harvey", had just left, being shy and very quiet. When he'd reached the corner, he set the trunk down and looked back at the house. After a minute, he shook his head, wondering at Dudley, and Apparated away.