Shadow Boxing

Shadow Boxing

~*~
If it's worth fighting for, it's worth fighting dirty for.
~*~

The alleyways behind Privet Drive are dark, but not as dark as the worlds Harry imagines when his eyes close and his mind drifts away from the brick walls and dumpsters and oil-stained pavement beneath his feet.

He sees Voldemort all the time now. He sees him standing in graveyards and drinking the blood of unicorns and holding softly glowing prophesies in his hands, prophesies that speak of dark marks rising up into the air and black smoke blotting the sun from the sky. And he doesn't care.

Ms. Figg isn't home to watch him. She's at Grimmauld Place, and he should be too, even if there's nothing he can do there except try not to look at anything that reminds him of Sirius and shout back at the portrait of Mrs. Black and feel very trapped, even if he doesn't want to go there ever again. But he knows he will. He knows what he wants doesn't really matter. So he doesn't put up a fight when Uncle Vernon grabs him by the crook of the arm and drags him to Dudley's Inter-School Boxing Championship.

The gym smells like sweat and thick dust, and the overhead lights are too bright, but they have nothing on the sparkle Aunt Petunia gets in her eyes when looking at her son. Beside him, Uncle Vernon puffs himself up so much that Harry has to move down a few seats to give him room. And shortly after the match begins, Harry decides that the only thing worse than having to see Dudley shirtless is having to see him beating up an equally fat, equally shirtless boy from Stonewall.

Harry briefly considers screaming for the other boy to knock Dudley in the snout, but he doesn't bother. Aunt Petunia is already happily pretending she doesn't know him, and Uncle Vernon is watching the match so intently he wouldn't even spare a glare if Harry took out his wand and started waving it around. So Harry holds his breath and tries to watch everything that's happening on the mat below for a few minutes, but seeing the stupid look Dudley gets on his face when he's pounding someone is hardly exciting, not compared to Quidditch.

Harry misses the feeling of seeking, of being up on his broom and worrying only about the snitch. He tries not to think that the last time he flew he had ridden on a thestral, and he glances back down at the mat just in time to see Dudley give the Stonewall boy a bloody nose. Eventually, the first round ends and another begins, and Harry thinks that he can hear Dudley's wheezing breaths all the way up in the stands.

It's long. He didn't expect even Dudley would have that much fight in him. Halfway through the second round he and the Stonewall boy are practically leaning forward against each other to stay upright and still raining down gloved fists and seeming to hit themselves at least as much as each other. There's no grace to it, no rhythm. The Stonewall boy's slow punches and Dudley's desperate jabs come one after the other until a whistle is blown and they both fall heavily back into the ropes.

Harry hears an announcer saying something about Dursley of Smeltings in the lead just before the third round starts, and he watches Uncle Vernon stand up and scream some meaningless cheer about Dudley having the match already won, and he watches Aunt Petunia wiping proud tears from her eyes. Harry thinks he might hate Dudley then far worse than he's ever hated Voldemort, and he hates Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia for looking at him like that. He doesn't want to have to see it. He doesn't want to have to see anything. He swallows hard, and something catches in his throat, and there's a sinking feeling in his stomach, and he doesn't want to think about why. But he doesn't have to, because right then everything goes dark.

People in the stands are shouting and hissing to each other, but the fight continues, and Harry can still see something of it with the lights out, even if he doesn't want to. He can see that Dudley has more energy now than he had before, and his movement is unusually fast and almost frantic. Within seconds, the Stonewall boy is struggling to stay standing and trying to run away, but Dudley takes off his gloves and keeps punching. Harry feels sick from watching it, but he can't force himself to look up at the dark ceiling lights or down at the floor. Soon the whistles start blowing, but Dudley doesn't stop. He isn't trying to win the match, not anymore. He's trying to kill someone or at least prove he can.

The other boy gives up eventually, flopping down onto the mat, and his choked screams rise above the noise of the crowd. Harry shuts his eyes and imagines he's back at Hogwarts, but younger. He imagines the quietness of the castle in the early morning and the stillness of the lake on windless days, and slowly, he feels a change come over the gym as, one at a time, the lights flicker back to life. There is silence, then, complete silence, save for a few stifled gasps of shock and Dudley's heavy breathing

Only a few minutes latter, Harry finds himself sitting on the hard, wooden floor outside a large office. He doesn't remember walking there or how he managed could have managed to make it through the large crowd, but he leans his head back and stares at the plain white wall in front of him, waiting as inside the headmaster of Smeltings screams, threatening Dudley with expulsion for cheating and breaking every rule there is, and the nurse quietly recommends intense counseling, and Uncle Vernon blusters and huffs and keeps arguing that Dudley never should have been disqualified from the match and that he's going to report them all to the proper authorities for the poor state of their lighting and electronics.

Nobody wins, that night. Nothing is resolved, but telephone numbers are exchanged, and more meetings are scheduled, and eventually, Dudley stumbles out of the office looking confused and very tired. The car ride back is quiet, and Harry wonders if Dudley thinks at all about the boy he sent to the hospital with three broken ribs or just of the medal he that he should have won so easily.

As soon as they arrive at 4 Privet Drive, Dudley gets out of the car and waddles into the house, and Harry stands there in the driveway looking at Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, as their eyes trace every step Dudley has taken until they see his window brighten when the lamp in his room is turned on, casting the only light on all the darkened street. And they're stupid and silly and shallow and they shouldn't really love anyone, least of all Dudley, who's nasty and greedy and just proved himself more foolish than Harry could ever imagine.

"Are you still proud of him?" he asks, and his voice is strange unfamiliar, even to his own ears, and he doesn't remember ever making the decision to speak, but hate burns in his chest, pure, simple hate, and it grows stronger when Uncle Vernon turns on him squaring his shoulders and when Aunt Petunia glares at him with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

And the answer is there, in their faces, even if they never speak it. 'Yes! Yes, more than anything!'


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There are no stars above Privet Drive, that summer, at least none that Harry can see staring out from his bedroom window. They're all hidden by the thin clouds of dust and the soot put into the air. He remembers something he heard on the news the summer before when he still cared about what was happening, something about icecaps melting and forests burning and deserts growing miles every year. Muggles will destroy the world with their smokestacks and their drill factories and all the garbage from the useless things they buy and with their own wars, but only if Voldemort doesn't get to it first. And Harry doesn't know why he should be bothered about any of it-- why he should care who wins in the end.

Hedwig seems trapped in her cage she's molting, and there's a tiredness in her eyes that wasn't there before. She tries to spread her wings, but the metal bars stop her, so she rolls her head around and tries again and again and again-- a quick, frenetic flapping, and then she goes still and turns her head down from the window. Eventually, Harry flips open the latch and lets her out and says, "I don't care if you come back." But she gives him a strange, sad look, and he knows she will.

On his way out the door, Harry passes Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia watching television in the lounge. They don't try to stop him from leaving, and he doesn't care whether it's because they're scared of him or because they didn't see him there or because they're hoping something horrible will happen to him while he's out. But that's only hope, and hope doesn't mean much these days. They know he'll come back. He always has before.

The air is colder than Harry remembers it and unnaturally still, and the night is so dark that he can hardly see more than a few meters in front of him. He passes a rusted dumpster that casts a twisted shadow on to the street below and an old wooden fence that has Big D written on it in spray paint and three of the houses that have been recently abandoned.

He walks so far he begins to wonder how he'll manage to find his way back and how difficult it will be since all the houses look exactly the same. It's not until he hears the hissing swish of something moving quickly through the air that he realizes how quiet it had been before. "What's that?" he whispers, suppressing a shiver, but he gets no answer. "Who's there?" he asks, louder than before and this time is rewarded by a few soft grunts. When he turns the corner, he sees Dudley standing with his back to him in front of a brick wall and punching someone pressed up against, but it's dark, and Dudley's far too wide for him to see around, so he can't make out who it is

"Stop it," Harry says, but Dudley keeps punching, and Harry doesn't take the time to wonder why his punches don't make even the smallest sound when they meet their target. "Stop it!" he shouts, grabbing Dudley by the shoulder and whipping him around to bring them face to face. "Get off . . ." he begins, but something catches in his throat, and his voice gets weaker before fading completely. There are a few crumpled newspapers lying still on the ground amidst the glass shards of a few shattered cola bottles and the remains of a broken flashlight. That's all. No Stonewall kids getting pounded for their pocket money, no ten-year-olds being punished for giving Dudley cheek-- no one. His hand is still on Dudley's shoulder, and for a few seconds, he feels so cold and weak and dizzy that he tightens his grip, as if it's the only thing he has left to hold on to.

Slowly, Harry's eyes regain their focus, and the moon peeks out from wherever it had been, sending the strange shadows away to hide, and the sounds of the world fill his ears until his head feels as if it might burst--cars speeding through the near-empty streets, birds calling overhead, dry grass blowing in the wind, the discordant chirping of crickets and something louder than all of that, a scream coming from right beside to his ear. "Get the hell off of me!"

He pulls his hand away fast and instantly feels like he might topple over. "What? What just happened?"

Dudley narrows his eyes and glares at Harry, really glares despite the darkness that makes it nearly impossible to see. "You really can't tell?" he asks, looking like he might injure himself from thinking to hard. "Are all freaks as stupid as you?

Harry takes a deep breath and glances back at the wall and the empty pavement below. "There's no one there," he says. "You were punching, but there's no one there."

"Yeah, so?" Dudley's not glaring at him anymore. Harry can't pinpoint the second when he stopped, but his eyes seem as clouded and dull as they always have. After a few moments, he turns back to the wall and starts punching again, harder than before, harder even than he had during his match. It's strange and wrong and the look on Dudley's face suggests he really is trying to tear the air apart with his fists, and for a fraction of a second, Harry thinks he just might.

"Stop it," he says again, but Dudley doesn't turn around. "Stop it! What are you doing?!"

He pulls his wand from his pocket, and as soon as it's out, Dudley snaps his head around to glare at him again. "You should listen to me, Dud. You won't like what happens if you don't." Harry doesn't know what he's doing or what Dudley's doing or why any of it matters. All he knows is that there are curses lingering on the tip of his tongue and he swallows hard to force them back down. Dudley shouldn't be loved or coddled. He shouldn't even be alive anymore, and he wouldn't be if not for Harry's Patronus charm, not really alive anyway. Dudley's soul probably isn't much to speak of--cluttered as his bedroom and dirty as the dumpster a few streets away and containing nothing of any real value, but Harry has some hold over it now, and he likes the feeling. He likes to see Dudley cowering away from him, or he would if that's what Dudley was doing.

"Y-you-- you think I'm s-scared of that thing?" Dudley asks, turning around fully. "You think you can tell me what to do?"

"Yeah," Harry says with a sneer, stepping forward and pressing the tip of his wand just below Dudley's chins, where his neck would be if he had one. "That's exactly what I think."

"I won't!" Dudley growls, batting his hand away and sending his wand flying down to the pavement. "You're just a freak! I'm better than you!"

Harry looks at his empty hand and sneers back at Dudley. He wants to hurt him-- to make him wake up and see what being hurt really means, but he doesn't. The anger and hate fade to disdain and then to indifference. And he pushes Dudley up against the wall, but he's not sure what to do with him once he's there, so he gives him a few awkward pats on the shoulders and says, "Shut up."

"I don't have to," Dudley whispers.

"Yeah?" Harry asks. "You think I need a wand to make magic happen?"

"I-I'm n-not scared of you," Dudley says, voice shaking. "Get your freaks hand off of me!"

"You think you can tell me what to do?" Harry says, mimicking Dudley's dull, arrogant tone. But Dudley only bites his lip and tenses his shoulders and stares up at the sky. For a moment, Harry's gaze follows, and he shivers slightly as clouds begin to wrap themselves around the moon. But he doesn't feel dizzy or lose his balance until Dudley punches him hard in the stomach and sends him crashing down to the pavement right beside his wand. It's darker, then, and the shadows are back, swirling around them, and Harry can hear only the faint sounds of cloth moving through air, but it can't be Dudley, because Dudley's standing over him very still with his fist clenched at his sides. And Harry starts to think he's going to end up just like the Stonewall boy, but then the moon returns and the noises return, and Dudley turns around and shuffles away to a different alley.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry can't tell if Dudley's getting bigger or if it just seems that way. He can be alone in his bedroom and somehow fill up the entire house, while Harry fights to make himself unnoticed as he steals an old radio from the garage. Sitting on his floor, he listens to the news but only because he knows how angry it would make Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, who now keep the television turned only to Dudley's police shows and action movies.

Twelve Muggles are killed in a subway station. Dozens are sick with food poisoning from a popular restaurant. Three children have gone missing from school playgrounds, and one man was found alone in an alleyway near London, still alive but unable to speak or move. No Doctors could explain beyond saying that when they looked into his eyes, they saw nothing there behind them, and his skin was far too cold.

Harry wants to care. He wants to care truly and passionately like Ron and Hermione still manage to, but all he gets is a vague, unsettling sense that this should matter to him. This should matter so much more than it does.

Some Dementors are free from Azkaban, now, just like so many of the Death Eaters still are. They float through Harry's dreams gently as a whisper, and without him becoming alarmed or even fully realizing it, they begin to take away what small shards of hope he had left-- a good score on his OWLS, a perfect Wronski feint, a sunny day, a victory in the end. And he rubs a tired hand through his hair, and he breathes slowly, and he continues to sleep. Nightmares don't wake him anymore, not even the ones about Voldemort, and they certainly don't make him call out.

Dudley notices.

"No more Cedric, then?" his cousin asks, waddling by Harry's room on his way back from the kitchen, and Harry is quick to hide his transfiguration book under the bed.

"What?"

"Did he dump you?" Dudley asks with a sneer, and Harry takes note of the dark brown crumbs around his mouth.

'Someone's been cheating on his diet,' he thinks to say, but instead rolls his eyes and concentrates on a few feathers on the floor that probably fell out of his pillow during the night.

"Did he?" Dudley asks again, and Harry tries not to think about how very pink Dudley's face is turning or the way his fat shakes when he talks.

"Cedric," he says to himself, as if pulling the name back from somewhere far away.

"Yeah," Dudley snorts. "The one you moaned about in your sleep all last summer." He runs a fat hand through his hair, smearing it with jam. "The one you got all weird when I mentioned."

Harry stands up and balls his fists at his sides and takes a deep breath. "Cedric Diggory was a boy at my school," he says. "We had a tournament against two other schools, and he was our champion-- our real champion. He should have won it all, but he was murdered. I was there. I saw it. I saw him die, and it was because he never-- I never expected anyone had been breaking the rules-- cheating the whole time to make it turn out a certain way."

Dudley shrugs and takes a step forward. "Too bad," he says, sounding like he almost means it.

"What?" Harry asks, knowing the shock must be apparent on his face.

"Too bad," Dudley repeats, grinning and punctuating each word with an elbow to Harry's ribs. "Too bad it wasn't you."

Anger is still building in Harry's chest and in his mind long after Dudley's fat legs have carried him to wherever it was he was going. And it's stupid, really, because no matter how he tries, he can't be properly angry at a Dark Lord who seeks to rule the world, and he can't be angry at the men who are slowly crushing it beneath their clumsy feet. But he can be angry at Dudley-- stupid, selfish Dudley. Harry hates him just for living in it and living like he owns it and living when he has no right to. And really, there's a lot of Dudley to hate.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

When Harry walks by Dudley's open door the next day, he's practicing punches in front of a long mirror, fists barely grazing the glass surface. "You're going to break it break it," Harry says, and Dudley doesn't bother to turn around.

"My control is fine," he mutters, and then, "Leave me alone."

"I meant because no mirror should be forced to look at you for so long," Harry says. "I'm sure it can only take so much." He steps uninvited into Dudley's room and looks into the mirror, eyes moving quickly past Dudley's large reflection and settling his own scar. For a second, he tries to press his fringe down to cover it, but only seems to ruffle his hair further, leaving it more exposed.

"Shove off," Dudley snaps, throwing another punch and ducking his head down instantly afterwards. "I'm not listening to you."

"You know, Dud," Harry says, watching his mouth twist into a smirk. "At Hogwarts-- I mean-- at my school, mirrors can talk."

"Mum!" Dudley shrieks. "Mum, Harry's talking about freak things!"

"Not listening, huh?" Harry tries to laugh, but it sounds forced and wrong. "Sometimes," he says, "mirrors can show you things that aren't really there or things that are only in your head."

"Help! He's going to do something!"

"Your mum's out shopping," Harry says, trying to laugh again and managing a bit this time. "Didn't she tell you? Apparently, someone ate the chocolate cake she made for Mr. Mason's retirement party and all the jam roly-polys she was saving for the neighborhood bake sale. Now she has to go buy more ingredients." And Harry stops laughing when he thinks of how he was the one blamed for it, even though there were dark crumbs around Dudley's mouth and jam smeared through his hair all day.

"Uh--oh I . . ." Dudley stutters and trails off. "G-get out of here," he says, starting to look angry rather than panicked. "Shouldn't you be out weeding or something?"

Harry shrugs and watches in the mirror as Dudley's face turns from pink to red. He wonders if Dudley heard Aunt Petunia screaming at him the night before that the lawn needed to be perfect by the time the neighbors got back from their summer holidays. For a few moments, he had thought about telling her where Ms. Figg really was and that the people who once lived in the three houses with boarded up windows and bolted doors probably aren't coming back at all, but he decided it wouldn't be worth it. His aunt and Uncle have been getting less rational. Harry can tell that they see what's happening to Dudley, and he can also tell how hard they try to pretend that they don't. Not much is worth doing these days, certainly not trying to make sense of Dudley's behavior, but still, he wonders. He wonders if Dudley knows that weeding is only part of his punishment for the treats that he ate. And Harry thinks of the stupid grin on Dudley's face the day before, and he wonders if Dudley might have known that when he took them. He's just beginning to wonder if he's giving Dudley far too much credit, when the sick crunch of Dudley's fist colliding with the mirror's glass surface shatters his thoughts.

"Stop staring at me!" Dudley shouts. "I know what you're thinking!" And Harry blinks and looks away, absently searching his pocket for his wand. Then his eyes trail back to Dudley's bleeding hand and the shards of glass on the floor.

"I told you, you were going to break it."

"Shut it!" Dudley clutches his hand to his chest, smearing blood across his shirtfront and bites his lip hard. "I can beat you," he says after a few moments, taking a step forward, and with his good hand, he grabs Harry's wand away from him. "Even with your wa-- even with this, I can still beat you."

"I was trying to fix the mess you made," Harry says, wondering if it might be true. "Give it back."

"No," Dudley hisses and throws it out the open window, "but maybe you'll find it while you're weeding."

Harry wants to shout back or punch Dudley or do something that will make him feel like he still has some power left, but instead, he watches Dudley sneer and smirk and shake a bag of crisps out of his pillowcase and start to eat with his mouth open, ignoring the fact that his hand is still dripping blood onto the floor. And Harry walks away to weed and to look for his wand, feeling like he's going to be sick.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry trudges up the stairs with bruises and beestings and sunburn on the back of his neck, but he has his wand in his pocket, and not even Aunt Petunia will be able to find fault with the state of her precious lawn. The first thing he notices in his room is Hedwig perched on the windowsill with a letter from Hermione and a letter from Ron, and hers is pages long and tells him nothing he really wants to know, and his is only six words-- 'You can come stay with us', but Harry throws them both into the rubbish bin beside his bed right before he notices the second thing-- Dudley standing in the doorway, watching him with a sneer on his fat face and then waddling back down the hall.

Harry doesn't get dinner that night. Aunt Petunia takes one look at Dudley's bandaged hand and blames him for it, even after Dudley says Harry's just a dumb, puny freak who couldn't hurt him if he tried, and just once, Harry tries to convince her and says that he knows better than to bother Dudley, especially after seeing what he's capable of at the match. But she and Uncle Vernon don't believe him or they just don't like him, and Harry doesn't blame them for that-- he blames Dudley, though. Because Dudley is a coward and always has been, and that's how he fights, cheating, breaking the rules, using everything he has and not stopping even for a second to think. But it's never him sent to the hospital broken in the end, and maybe that's as close to winning as anyone can come.

When Dudley walks out the door that night, Harry is only a few steps behind. He has his wand with him, and he tells himself that he'll only use it to scare Dudley rather than curse him, but he doesn't believe it as much as he should. In the end, it doesn't matter what his plans were, because his wand never leaves his pocket, and Dudley never knows he's there. He keeps following and watching, and he should find Dudley pathetic, really. His friends have grown up and left him behind. They've started to find their futures or at least found girls, who still consider Dudley far too gross and fat and immature to consider dating.

Harry watches as Dudley's turned away from Gordon's house and then from Malcolm's, and he watches as Dudley can't even find any stray kids to beat up. There are fewer out at night, now, and they're always too fast for him and make it safely inside before he gets near. So he throws his punches at mirrors and walls bright enough to make out in the faint light of the moon and the unseen stars, because none of the streetlamps seem to work anymore.

He follows Dudley until he goes in that night, and he follows him the next night and the night after that. And sometimes, he feels strange and dizzy and cold, but he stays focused enough to watch Dudley hide behind fences and trashcans, tensing his shoulders and balling his fists and holding his breath until the odd quietness passes. And it gets harder to hate him. Harry can still manage it in the mornings when he tries to stab his hands with his fork and steal his piece of dry toast or when it's very late and the electronic sounds of spaceships exploding from his video games keep him up until the sun's nearly risen. Maybe it's because Dudley's quiet at night when he wanders the empty streets or maybe because it's so dark, Harry can't see just how ugly and fat Dudley really is or maybe it's because Harry's tired and running out of energy to keep up hating him, just like he has for everything else. He doesn't want that to be true

"I know you're following me," Dudley calls out on the forth night. "I know you are now, and I know you have before."

The air's not so still, but Harry imagines Dudley's loud voice is ripping it to shreds and he wants to scream back and tell him to shut his stupid mouth, but instead he quietly sucks in a deep breath and ducks into the dark shadows behind a light post.

"Ruddy hell!" Dudley shouts. "Just give it up, will you. I know you're there, you freak . . . Harry?"

Harry rolls his eyes and walks a bit further up the sidewalk. "Yeah, it's me!"

Dudley turns to him and gives him a questioning look that he can barely make out. "What are you doing?" he asks, sounding like he really wants to know. "What do you want?"

Harry sighs and puts his hands in his pockets, pretending he's just trying to keep them warm while he reaches for his wand. He wants to be anywhere but the alley behind Magnolia Crescent. He wants sunlit fields instead of dark forests and clear skies instead of fog. He wants to fly on an airplane for once instead of a broomstick and to see the ocean before he dies. He wants to kiss someone who won't cry like Cho did in the Room of Requirement and Hermione looked like she would on the train platform. He wants his real family back-- his parents and his godfather, and he wants his friends to be able to look at him without wondering how long it will be before he breaks. He wants to be allowed to want things-- to be selfish for once like Dudley has all his life. But he knows that he would trade all of his hopes and dreams for the curses that can destroy Voldemort and for the chance to kill Bellatrix Lestrange with his bare hands, and he knows that, in the end, he probably will. He wants things to be different than that, but all he says to Dudley is, "Be quiet."

"Why?" Dudley asks, voice straining to rise above the cars and the crickets and to get just a bit louder so that Harry can't hear anything but his annoyed shouts and meaningless insults. "Why should I do anything a freak like you tells me?"

A part of Harry wants to scream back, matching every ounce of Dudley's spite and pettiness, and he glares, though he doubts Dudley can tell or is even really looking, and then his right hand wraps itself around the handle of his wand and magic softly tickles his fingers. "Just shut up," he says. "It's shouldn't be that hard." His glare sharpens, and his lips quirk slightly upwards. "Well, maybe it would be hard for someone who can't even close his mouth to chew."

Dudley sneers back, shaking a fat fist in front of Harry's face. "Don't think you can tell me what to do. I'll--"

"You won't," Harry says, cutting him off.

"I--" Dudley begins again, but Harry doesn't let him finish.

"You're not going to do anything," he says. "You're not going to do anything, because you're too scared. You pretend not to be, but I've never seen anybody as scared as you are. I'm just trying to figure out why."

"I'm not," Dudley mutters in a voice so soft Harry can barely hear it. He takes out a cigarette, fingers shaking, but it slips away and falls to the street below, and he leaves it there. "Shut up."

Harry smiles, and when Dudley starts walking away, he follows "What happened to you?"

"Nothing," Dudley grunts, not sounding at all sure of himself, and Harry forces back a rough laugh.

"What changed, Big D? I thought you were the toughest guy on the street."

"I still am. Shove off."

"Really?" Harry asks, and Dudley starts walking faster, but Harry lengthens his strides and keeps up with him easily. "Then what made you scared of your own shadow?"

"Not mine," Dudley whispers and then clears his throat and starts coughing, as if he's trying to pretend he hasn't said anything.

"What?"

Harry's hand is still on his wand, but his eyes don't leave Dudley, who takes a deep breath and clears his throat again. "Don't you know?" he asks staring back at Harry. "It was right here-- the cold, the stars blinking out, feeling-- feeling . . ."

"Like you're never going to be happy again," Harry whispers, and he feels something catch in his own throat.

"Yeah," Dudley says, "feeling like that."

Harry takes his hand out of his pocket, leaving his wand inside it. "That doesn't explain what you're doing out here now."

Dudley shrugs. "I'm getting used to it."

"Getting used to what?" Harry asks, feeling like he should be laughing, but instead, he looks down and drags his feet along the pavement. "Walking? Being outside?"

"Yes, ruddy all of it," Dudley says. "And it doesn't help when you're creeping around staring at me like you have been."

"Trust me," Harry says, managing to curl his lip. "I'm not enjoying the view."

"Yeah right," Dudley grunts, trying to look disgusted.

Harry blinks and sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. "You should go inside. Isn't there a cake somewhere you're supposed to be eating or birthday presents to break? What's the count up to this year, fifty? Sixty?"

"Shut your face." Dudley walks faster, trying to get away, but Harry doesn't let him.

"No."

"Leave me alone!"

"I won't," Harry says, "not until you go in."

Dudley stumbles over his own feet, but quickly corrects for his mistake and continues walking. He might be stupid, but he's been watching things all his life, pushing buttons on his computer and play station and on every person he's ever known. And he's learned to get reactions from all of them, not just his parents. Dudley's eyes are still dull, but Harry knows they've been getting sharper, and the question hangs unspoken between them. 'Why do you care?'

"It's not safe for you out here." Harry answers, wondering why it should matter to him if Dudley runs into a few stray Death Eaters, but it does. It matters, right now, more than anything else Harry can think of.

"I'm fine," Dudley says, but his voice trembles just as much as his hands and his chins. "It's fine here."

"No it's not," Harry says, narrowing his eyes to see better in the growing dark, "and you-- you know it's not."

"Leave me alone." Dudley takes out another cigarette and this time his hand manages to find its way to his mouth before it slips out of his fingers and falls to the ground. "I don't care," he says. "I don't"

"Yes you do," Harry says, still looking hard at his face. "If you didn't, you wouldn't be shaking now. You wouldn't be punching invisible people. You wouldn't have freaked out like that during your boxing match." Dudley clenches his fists and bites his bottom lip, and for just a second, Harry starts to think that Dudley wouldn't cry if he kissed him. He would probably punch him in the face or slam him against the wall and try to break every bone in his body, and he would scream and kick and fight and keep fighting for as long as he could with every thing he had like a cheat and a coward. But he wouldn't just stand there and let it happen, and he definately wouldn't cry. Harry shudders in a way that has nothing to do with the unusual chill in the air and briefly considers risking more trouble with the Ministry by going against the Statutes of Underage Wizardry to perform a quick Obliviate on himself. "If you stay out here," he says, before pausing and trying to blink the thoughts away. "If you stay here, then I'm going to tell your mum."

"Like she'd ever listen to you," Dudley snorts. "She thinks I'm at tea with Gordon."

"No," Harry says shaking his head slowly and still feeling off balance. "She doesn't believe you anymore."

"What?"

"Something's wrong with you." Harry pauses to take a deep breath. "And dense as they are, even your parents are starting to notice."

"Nothing's wrong with me," Dudley snaps. "You're the freak. This is all your fault. This is why I hate you! I knew what you were right from the start! I knew you would do this to me!"

"I didn't do anything to you."

Dudley glares at him and shoves his hands into his pockets and takes one deep breath and then another, and Harry thinks he's probably walking as fast as he can manage without breaking into an awkward, clumsy run. "I tell myself I can just punch them in the face, sometimes," he says. "And I tell myself that'll make them go away, only they don't have faces-- not normal ones anyway . . . and that sick freezing feeling . . . it takes over and all I want to do is hide and throw up and not do anything at all. But I--I went after them that first time, remember? I went right for them."

Harry thinks, for a few moments, about telling just Dudley how stupid that was, but instead he slows his steps and Dudley regards him for a second and then does the same, either trying to achieve some strange truce or tentative agreement or just because he's tired and couldn't keep up his previous pace much longer but didn't want to be the first to back down. "You can't beat up a Dementor, Dud," Harry says. "It takes a spell-- a strong spell just to keep them from attacking-- a Patronus charm, which is very difficult, even for qualified wizards."

"I don't care about any of that rubbish," Dudley says harshly. "Shut up, will you. Just shut up!"

Harry tells himself he's trying to help and not just scare Dudley more. He tells himself he would have wanted someone to do the same, but he doesn't really believe it. "You should know what's happening," he says, smiling as Dudley's large shoulders tremble just a bit, "what's really happening."

"I know enough," Dudley says. "I know it's all your fault." And Harry tells himself he was stupid to think, even for a second, that he and his cousin had anything in common. But Dudley's the stupid one, really-- stupid and lazy and willfully ignorant.

"You don't," Harry says with a rough laugh, and he starts walking faster to destroy whatever small connection they had, all the while, reminding himself that he really does hate Dudley. "You don't know anything."

"Listen!" Dudley shouts from behind him, and Harry turns and feels his feet stop moving forwards. Dudley doesn't move either. "It doesn't matter! None of it does!" Something changes in the air, and the sounds of cars and crickets are dulled or just overpowered by Dudley's voice, which is louder than Harry's ever heard it. He takes a step forward, and when Dudley speaks next it's barely above a whisper. "I'm just telling myself what I need to, so I'm not afraid to walk out the door. . ." He clenches his fists and tilts his head back to look at whatever might be above him. "So no one can tell I'm afraid to walk out the door. I don't give a damn about any of your freak stuff. I'm just trying to figure out how to be normal again and how to make this place feel normal again."

"It's dangerous," Harry says, not feeling at all like laughing anymore. He looks at his hands and then at his feet and the pavement below them and then back at Dudley. "There are things out here, even in the daytime."

Dudley swallows hard. "Don't tell me that," he says, "just shut it."

"I'm telling you the truth."

"I know," Dudley says bitterly, still staring up into the starless sky. "I know, and I'll take my chances." He looks back at Harry, angry and urgent. "I'm not going to be shut away inside because of you or because of some dark things that aren't even human or because of anything else. I'm not. So you can just shove off, because none of this matters to you anyway."

"What?" Harry asks, and Dudley's eyes harden.

"You think I can't tell? It's ruddy obvious," he says, smirking. "Even my parents are starting to notice. You're the one who doesn't know what's happening. You're the one who doesn't care about anything anymore."

Harry tries to think of something to say, something to prove Dudley wrong about everything, but Dudley turns and doesn't look back. He just keeps walking, and Harry follows him through the empty streets and back home.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning, Harry gets another letter. This time, Ron and Hermione have combined their efforts, and it's in mostly her handwriting with mostly his words. They're counting down the days until school begins and asking him if he liked the presents they sent, and he realizes that he's forgotten his own birthday. Instead of staying up and watching for the clock until midnight, he was silently watching Dudley do whatever he was doing. And he wonders if Dudley's the reason he never got his presents, if they were stolen or if they were intercepted or if Voldemort's gathered his followers on the soil of freshly dug graves to enjoy a fresh batch of Molly Weasley's gingersnaps. And Harry can't even make himself laugh or imagine Death Eaters choking on the latest wizard wheezes. But he can imagine Dudley choking with his face red and his tongue four feet long. And he can laugh at that.

While he's cleaning up the mess Dudley left from his breakfast and wondering how anyone can be so sloppy with grapefruit and celery sticks, Aunt Petunia gets a call from the Smeltings headmaster, to let her know that Dudley won't be punished for his actions at the match, that he understands how boys can get carried away sometimes and how they do hope to have him back on the team for the next season. Harry tries to hate Aunt Petunia for the look on her face when she hears the news-- relief and happiness and pride more apparent than he's ever seen before, and he tries to hate Dudley for putting it there when all he's done is gotten lucky once again. But as much as Harry would have liked to have seen his cousin expelled and his aunt devastated because of it, he can't help but be thankful to get a day alone when she takes Dudley out shopping for new clothes to celebrate or just because he's still too fat for most of his old ones.

Harry takes a nap, because it's finally quiet and because he's been following Dudley most nights instead of sleeping. He dreams, but of nothing, of numbness and loneliness and black empty spaces, waiting to be filled, and he thinks that's almost worse than having no dreams at all. When he wakes up, it's getting dark out, and he walks downstairs and out the door without even looking to see if Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon notice.

The night is warm and windy, and he finds Dudley right after the moon has risen, leaning up against the brick wall, trying to smoke a cigarette. "What are you doing here, freak?" Dudley asks, coughing and then throws the cigarette down and starts to walk. For a second, Harry wonders if Dudley's trying to get away or if he was waiting for him all along.

"You said you were trying to be normal, right?" Harry asks, falling into pace beside him.

Dudley shrugs. "Yeah, so?"

"I think that's what I'm doing too," Harry says with a sigh, and he doesn't want to admit that Dudley might be right about anything, but there was a time he could be mad about being denied mail from his friends and never receiving presents from the Dursleys. There was a time when he could be selfish about that much at least.

"You're a freak." Dudley turns and gives him a weak glare. "Freaks can't try to be normal," he says, but Harry can tell he's not as angry as he's pretending to be. His face is blank and his eyes are suitably dull to match the dull houses and streets that make up his world.

Harry nods and searches his pocket for his wand. "It's worth a shot, besides I--"

"I'm not scared!" Dudley shouts and Harry rolls his eyes.

"I didn't mean it like that. I have it incase . . . I mean just so you're not--"

"I don't need you," Dudley interrupts with a snarl. "I don't need your m-magic, if that's what this is about."

Harry doesn't tell Dudley that he did need his magic once. And Harry doesn't tell him that he doubts he can remember of anything happy enough to conjure a Patronus anymore. He does, for a second, consider congratulating him on actually saying the word, but instead, mutters, "Yeah, sure. I forgot just how big and strong you are-- toughest guy on the street, right, Dud?"

"Right," Dudley says, giving Harry an appraising look and grinning. "Too right, I am."

Harry rolls his eyes and somehow manages to keep himself from laughing. "You know, I think getting punched in the head so many times has scrambled your brain."

"I don't get punched," Dudley says, chuckling to himself. "I punch them."

"Yeah sure," Harry replies. "I'll keep that in mind."

"I'm not scared of you," Dudley says, suddenly humorless.

"What?"

"I'm not scared of you," he repeats. "Really, I'm not. You said I was scared last night, and even if I am, it's not of you."

"We're you ever?" Harry asks, and the only answer he gets is in the way Dudley stiffens his shoulders and starts walking faster.

"I can beat the snot out of you," he says after a few moments pass, not sounding as hateful or haughty as Harry has come to expect. "I can, and I don't care if you have that thing on you either."

"It's called a wand," Harry mutters, "and it's not like I'm even allowed to use it."

"I--I'm not a-afraid of it-- not yours and not the ones those other freaks have." Something flashes in Dudley's eyes, quick as lightning, and for a second, Harry's thankful that Dudley's not a wizard, but maybe he doesn't need to be. Maybe Dudley won't ever need an Expelliarmus to take Harry's wand off of him or a Petrificus Totalus to knock Harry to the ground or any spells at all to get nearly whatever he wants whenever he wants it. But Harry pushes these thoughts away quickly, because Dudley is ridiculous and insignificant. He's never had to work for anything, and he has no right to be strong or brave or smart. Harry remembers the ton tongue toffee and the tail and the snake and the Dementors. He tells himself that Dudley is scared, and everything from his unsteady voice to the overly tense way he stands makes it all too clear-- everything except that look in his eyes that speaks of defiance and of a recklessness that Harry knows all to well.

He was anxious like that once, but now he doesn't want to summer to end or school to begin or time to keep passing so quickly that he's lost amidst the sea of too-short days coming on after another. He's not ready. He's not ready for anything. He hasn't learned Occlumency or read any of the books Remus sent him. And he tries not to think about it, just as he tries not to think that he and Dudley have anything real in common, because if he does he might get scared, and he doesn't know if that's better or worse than being weak or if it's just the same.

This isn't what Dumbledore wanted when he sent him to live amongst the dim, boring Muggles of Privet Drive. But sometimes people make plans and meddle in things they shouldn't, hoping to do good, and the results don't come out as expected. Harry knows that well enough, just as he knows that one day he'll admit that there's hardly any fear left in Dudley's eyes, and that even the hate he once felt so strongly is wearing thin. He tries to summon it again, to feel it burning in his chest and in his mind. He tells himself that slow and stupid Dudley doesn't have any right to win, but another voice creeps in, one that says he does win sometimes or at least he doesn't lose anything. And Harry can't say that for himself, not anymore.

He walks back towards Privet Drive, following Dudley, again as he wanders through dark streets and alleys, throwing stones at houses and parked cars. And he thinks that maybe the only measure of a fighter is whether they can take a hit and stay standing. Or maybe, it's whether they can get back up after a fall. Or maybe, it's whether they can keep fighting and never stop and never forget who their real enemies are, even when they're far away from everything that once mattered, even when they're tired and when they're confused and when all their dreams are empty.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next night, Aunt Petunia sends Harry to take the garbage out after dinner. It's all wrapped up in a large, moist bag so awkward and heavy that he stumbles as carries it, and it makes sick squelching noises as it flops into the banged up trashcan at the front of the driveway.

Harry turns for just as second to look back at the house, the only one on the street with its inside lights still on, and he keeps walking, not caring that he doesn't have his wand in his pocket or that Aunt Petunia expects him in to clean the dishes and sweep the floor. And he scowls, thinking about how Dudley would never have to do anything so disgusting, how he would probably throw a temper tantrum if touching so much as an old chicken bone was even suggested.

Harry tells himself he's just walking to clear his mind and to remind himself that the world is bigger than his room or the Dursley's kitchen, but his feet carry him to a small alley with a brick wall at one end and Dudley standing in front of it with his fists up blocking his face.

"Still punching at imaginary people there, Dud?" Harry asks, and this time, Dudley lowers his arms and turns around.

"No," he says. "I'm not."

"You do know there's no one there, right?" Harry rolls his eyes and forces a smile. "I guess you can't find anyone real to let them you beat them up."

"There's me," Dudley says slowly, "and now you're here too." He gives Harry a hard look, and when the alley somehow gets just a bit darker, he bites his lip and balls his fists at his side, and Harry's sure he's about to be punched very, very hard. But to his surprise, Dudley just stands there, tense and unsure, and Harry's especially glad of it, because his own feet feel planted to the ground, and he doesn't think he could run anywhere if he tried. Dudley stretches his hands out in front at him and gives them a barely perceptible nod of approval, and he shudders slightly before turning back to the wall and punching into the air. "You wouldn't be a challenge."

"What?"

"I'm fighting myself," Dudley pants and keeps swinging his arms forward. "Don't you get it? I'm the only one I have to beat." He pauses for just a second to take a deep breath and then starts to punch harder and faster than before. "You can't win against anyone, if you can't win against yourself." And that's what he's doing, Harry realizes. That's what he's always been doing. He's not just going through the motions and practicing his form-- he's fighting someone, someone he can't see, someone who isn't really there. But from the unusually intense look in his eyes, Harry can tell that it is real to Dudley, and if he squints just right, he can make out vague shadows on the dark wall moving about with each of Dudley's punches.

"Er," Harry begins, felling suddenly like he's the one jumping from side to side and ducking away from invisible blows. "I-- I think last year . . . the Dementors-- I think they did something to you."

"They're still doing something," Dudley says jabbing an elbow at his invisible opponent. "It's still cold sometimes. You just don't notice."

"Yeah, Dud, that's called winter. You can usually tell because it comes right after fall, and the nights are longer. Sometimes it even snows."

"I don't mean winter." Dudley takes a final swing towards the wall, and Harry imagines he can see the shadows falling, melting back into the ground, but then he blinks and the wall is as dark as ever, and Dudley turns around to glare at him. "They're still here, now. You just can't feel them."

"What?" Harry asks. "The Dementors? You think they're still here?"

"They are," Dudley says, wiping the sweat from his forehead onto his shirtsleeve.

"No." Harry takes a deep breath and tries to keep thinking that Dudley's disgusting rather than determined and stupid rather than sure. "No, you're wrong-- you're wrong, and you might even be crazy."

"Look up," Dudley says, and it's not an order or a threat, "just look up." And Harry does, and he sees the moon, nearly full and the skeletal silhouettes of tree branches against the night sky.

"So?"

"No stars," Dudley says, starting to walk. "No streetlights. Eventually, though, you learn how to see in the dark, and you learn to fight yourself, because you can't fight them, not really." He turns halfway back to look at Harry, who still stands where he had been with his feet still feeling stuck to the pavement. "I don't need you."

"Dudley," Harry says, suddenly feeling very cold.

Dudley's voice isn't as steady as it was before, but it's still clear and sharp. "I--I don't need you to save me."

"They are here, aren't they?"

Dudley closes his eyes and sighs and nods. Then turns the rest of the way around and grabs Harry by the arm with his bandaged hand, jerking him forward. "Come on! We have to hide!"

"What?" is all Harry has the breath to say as they tear through the streets and alleys at a speed he would never have thought possible for Dudley. And when his chest starts to burn and his as legs become less steady and as he starts to stumble over his own feet, he wonders how much longer he'll be able to keep it up, and he starts to think about stopping. But stopping would be impossible, and he knows that with Dudley's large hand wrapped around his arm, the only choices are keep up or be dragged along the pavement. So Harry runs. In a blur, they pass three of the houses that have been recently abandoned and an old wooden fence that has Big D written on it in spray paint, and then they come to a rusted dumpster that casts a twisted shadow on to the street below, and Dudley stops.

"Get in," he says, breathing hard, and Harry tries to blink the fog from his head and suppress a shiver.

"You can't be serious."

Dudley glares and Harry can tell that he is serious, probably more serious than he's ever seen him before. Harry's dizzy and exhausted, and in the dark, everything blurs together. He tries to throw a weak punch when Dudley pushes him up against the dumpster, but then he feels his feet leave the ground, and few seconds later, he's falling face-first into a sea of banana peels and dented cans and cardboard boxes.

His first instinct is to scream, but Dudley crashes down next to him and presses a meaty hand over his mouth. "Do you get it yet?" he whispers. Harry nods, even though he's not sure he gets anything at all, and Dudley is quick to pull his hand away.

Carefully, Harry crawls across the garbage, trying to avoid the broken glass bottles that shine faintly in the moonlight, and he lifts the lid and peers out to see three Dementors, hovering around one of the abandoned houses. "They're outside," he hisses, letting the lid fall and turning to look back at Dudley. "They're outside. They're right here."

"Yeah," Dudley says. "I know."

"No," he repeats, motioning towards the lid and then the smaller side slot. "Look out. They're really--"

"I know," Dudley says in a voice so soft Harry can hardly make out the words, "but I can't see them like you can." And Harry starts to wonder why he can hear Dudley at all-- why he only feels cool and numb instead of panicked, and he keeps wondering as he listens to claws beginning to scratch against the dumpster's metal frame. And without moving, he watches Dudley grabbing frantically at the underside of the lid and trying to hold it down. Harry feels like he'll soon suffocate either from the smell or the strange feeling in his head. "It'll help if you clear your mind," Dudley tells him through gritted teeth, and even in the dim light pouring in through the side slot, he can see Dudley's knuckles turning white, as something above tries harder and harder to rip the lid off its hinges.

"I can't do that," Harry whispers, trying to wipe the smashed remains of a rotten apple off his hands and thinking of how different things might be if he had been able to. "I--I tried it before."

"Just don't think of anything," Dudley says. And once, Harry would have made some remark about how not thinking of anything would hardly be a challenge for Dudley, because Dudley never seems to think at all, but instead, he leans against a corner to keep from falling over.

"It's not that easy for me," he says. "You don't understand." Dudley glares at him, then, and Harry can tell, even though he can hardly see his face over a large pile of newspapers and candy wrappers, but he's still holding down the lid, and the claws are still scratching outside, and everything else is silent. Harry lets his head lull back and closes his eyes until something smacks hard against the side of his face and lands in his lap. Between his thumb and forefinger he picks up the chicken bone and flings it back at Dudley.

"I don't understand?!" Dudley hisses incredulously. "There are things outside that can suck out your soul and make you worse than dead, and it's your fault they're here, but do you care? No, you decide to take a ruddy nap! What's wrong with you?!" He pauses, and Harry pushes aide the newspapers so he can see him scowling, "besides being a freak, I mean."

There's a thick haze around Harry, even if he can't see it, and he sits amongst the obscuring mist, wondering why his hands aren't shaking and his heart isn't beating faster. "I can't do it," he says again. "I can't think of nothing."

Dudley doesn't answer. He struggles silently to thread a bent fire poker through the inside latch to hold the lid shut, and Harry absently wonders if they'll ever be able to take it out. "Stop it!" Dudley says. "If you can't think of nothing, then try to think of something that doesn't mean anything real like bread or oatmeal. And if you can't do that-- if you still have to think about dying or whatever it is you're thinking about now, then at least pretend to think it like your stupid life actually means something, because I don't have to share my dumpster with you."

Harry tries and fails to glare back at him, as he listens to the outside sounds becoming fainter. "It's not your dumpster."

"It is," Dudley says. "It's my street."

Harry tries to laugh, but it comes out as a fit of coughs instead, and it leaves him breathing harder than he had when he was running. "Wait," he says as soon as he's found his voice again, "when Dementors come, you think about food?"

Dudley crosses his arms over his chest, fist as if he's angry and then as if he's trying to warm himself. "Shut up. It doesn't have to be food, just something plain like rice or-- or rice paper. This shouldn't be hard since you obviously don't care about anything anyway."

Harry thinks about trying to laugh again, but decides it wouldn't be worth it. He also thinks about telling Dudley that rice is a food, and some people actually eat it, even if he's only traded it for crispy bars or dumped it over Harry's head when it showed up on his lunch tray. And he keeps thinking about how Dudley's wrong about so many small, stupid things, so he doesn't have to think about the times he's been right. "Did it have to be your dumpster? Couldn't it be your tool shed or something like that?"

"This confuses them," Dudley says, shifting his fingers through the garbage, "because of the way it smells. I don't think they can see properly."

"They don't have eyes," Harry says, and he doesn't think about laughing when Dudley shudders. "Do you do this often?"

Dudley shrugs and doesn't look at Harry. "When I have to," he says. "They don't bother you as much, though. It's because you already think you'll never be happy again, like you're already used to them, and there's nothing left in you they want to take." His forehead wrinkles, and he fiddles with a paper cup in his hands. "You still have a soul, I think, just not a very good one."

Harry narrows his eyes, but in the dark, but it doesn't really help him see Dudley's confused expression any better. "How do you know this?"

Tossing the cup aside, Dudley looks up to the fire poker, still holding the lid shut and jostles it a few times before sitting back down. "Some freaks showed up last year," he says, "after the owls came and those other freaks took you away. They told us to leave the room, but I peeked in and listened through the door, while they said some strange words and made things glow different colors. Mum already knew some of the other things they talked about, but Dad still doesn't. He doesn't want to."

Harry nods and half smiles, thinking about how Uncle Vernon doesn't want to believe there's a world beyond Privet Drive or any greater satisfaction than shouting at workers below him at the drill factory or watching his son beat people up. "Yeah, I guess not."

"It isn't funny," Dudley says, twisting an old magazine in his fat hands. "They wanted to take my memory away from me. They wanted mess about in my head and make me forget, but I wouldn't let them. In the end, they said it was okay. They said I couldn't ever understand, and eventually, my mind would push it away, because we're not good at holding on to things that don't make any sense, but I did hold on, Harry. I know what you're doing-- you freaks are all fighting each other, and I don't care what they say-- I can still take you. If I have to, I can."

"What?"

"I won't-- I won't let you hurt us," Dudley says throwing the magazine at Harry's head, and Harry just manages do duck out of its path just in time.

"You can't do anything about this," he says. "It's none of your business."

"It is," Dudley says, and his voice is harsh and unsteady, and if Harry didn't know any better, he might think he was about to cry. But Dudley doesn't cry unless it's about presents or food or to get Harry in trouble or, sometimes, if he's scared, but he's been scared for a long time now, and he's getting better at hiding it.

"No," Harry tells him. "It's about magic, and you can't do magic, and it's dangerous-- it's dangerous even for real witches and wizards. You'd only end up getting yourself killed."

"Dangerous!?" Dudley screams. "Ruddy hell, I want to pound your face in! You do remember what's just outside, right? Do you think not knowing would make me safer?"

"Yeah!" Harry shouts back. "If it would keep you away from here then, yeah, I do! Besides, I thought you didn't want to know about the things that are out in the dark! I thought you were just testing yourself and trying to prove some stupid point about being brave! But if you didn't think there was any reason to stay away, you would still be sitting inside, stuffing your fat face and playing video games! And you're not brave, Dud! You never have been, and you never will be!" Harry stares across the garbage at Dudley, who's holding an empty can with his eyebrows screwed together and probably debating whether to throw it at Harry or not or how to make it hurt the most when he does.

Dudley's just spoiled, Harry tells himself, he wants everything he can't have, even if it's not something he would ever have thought about wanting before, and he's always looking for someone-- something to fight. And Harry wonders if he really may have found it when the scratching comes back harder and sharper than before. They were too loud, he thinks absently, and even if he was louder, in the end, it was Dudley who screamed first.

"Look--" Dudley begins, dropping the can, and just for a second, the sound of sharp claws against metal right beside his head makes Harry's blood runs cold and his heart skip a beat.

"Shut up," he whispers, scooting a bit closer to Dudley in the center. "Just shut up."

"No," Dudley says softly. "You shut up. They get in my head-- those things out there--they get in my head, and they try to make me afraid, and people do things when they're afraid-- things they don't mean to, because they can't feel anything else." Harry hears him pause for a second and he hears the soft rustling of the paper and the plastic bags below them. "Do you know what they make me remember-- what they make me hear?"

"Why would I?" Harry asks. "Why would I even know whether they make Muggles hear anything?"

"They do," Dudley says. "They make me hear you." And he winces and stutters slightly when a scratch from above is particularly loud. "T-they make me you doing m-magic, only sometimes, you do magic when they're not around. You made it dark at the match. I know it was you."

"That's no excuse," Harry says. "Don't you dare blame me for that."

Dudley glares at him. "You still don't get it, do you?" he asks. "None of you freaks do. They wanted to take away my memory, and you want me to stay inside. But that'll just make it easier for them-- those things out there. That'll just make me turn out they way you are and want to lie down and give up when they come near or it will make me forget the difference and think every shape in the dark can do what they can. I can't go back to school like that," he says with an unpleasant laugh. "I'd be expelled the first night as soon as the lights go off."

Harry sighs, and he thinks back to the boxing match, and he thinks about the look that came over Dudley, just before the end. And he thinks that however worthless Dudley's soul might be, Dudley's willing to fight for it with everything he has for as long as he can, and that's what he thought he was doing all along. "This still isn't any of your business--"

"This is my street," Dudley whispers, "and they're here now-- the ones to makes sure that you're safe and ones that come to get you and the things that probably can't tell the difference between us. Do you think they care about normal people? The Williams' house is empty now, and so is the Peterson's, and the Jones' house is empty, too. Do you think they care what happened to them? Do you care, Harry? Do you care about anything?"

"I--"

Dudley takes a deep breath and speaks before Harry can get another word out. "Don't you ever tell me it's not my business."

"Y-you can't fight magic," Harry says, shivering as the scratching becomes louder. "It's not something--"

"I can see or touch or feel properly when it hits back." Dudley reaches up again and, this time, manages to bend the poker more so that no amount of pulling from above will be able to dislodge it and he reaches over Harry to jam the side slot shut. "Yeah, I know, but I can still fight it."

The fog in Harry's head is getting thicker and his fingers feel like ice. "No," he says, "no you can't. It's--"

"My street," Dudley whispers, cutting him off. "What don't you get about that?"

And Harry tells himself that Dudley's only being selfish and that he's only ever been selfish and that they really have nothing in common-- that they've been separated all their lives by choice and circumstance and that being cousins doesn't make them related in any real way-- that they couldn't look more different or act more different or think in ways more different if they tried. But it's hard to stay too far from someone you're sharing a dumpster with, and without the moon's light pouring in, it's hard to make out anything in front of you that couldn't just be your own shadow. And when a wave of dizziness hits, Harry reaches out and grabs Dudley's shoulder hard, and Dudley just takes a few shaky, shallow breaths and doesn't say anything at all.

The scratching is getting louder, and the whole dumpster is shaking, and the painful screeching and sharp, metallic echoes from right over his head make Harry's stomach jump to his throat. "It'll hold," Dudley whispers, sounding desperate, and Harry follows the silhouette of his fingers as they reach up to touch the lid. "It'll hold."

Clear your mind, Harry thinks to himself, and he tries to think of nothing, but he can't. There are too many strange and muddled thoughts swirling in his head for him to just brush them all away. So he tries to think of something that doesn't mean anything real, but he can only think of Dudley, who is sitting quietly beside him and still hasn't pushed his hand away, and suddenly, Dudley means much more than he should.

Harry wants his wand. His fingers itch for it. He wants to use it to throw curses and stab it through a Dementor's face. His heart is beating out of his chest and his breaths are coming quicker, and when he closes his eyes, just for a second, the world seems to be moving fast in a way that has nothing to do with the dumpster tipping erratically back and forth. This is what it's like to be afraid, he thinks for the first time in a long time.

"It'll hold," he repeats to himself, thinking that nothing bad should be allowed to happen to him, not because he hasn't defeated Voldemort or fought any Death Eaters or lived up to any names he was given, but because he hasn't gotten a chance to do the things he really wanted to. And even if something bad will happen, even if he's less steady than he was just seconds ago, and everything is getting darker, it feels very good to be selfish.

Harry kisses Dudley, hearing faint screams in the back of his head and thinking that it might be the last thing he'll ever do and thinking that Dudley's mind is probably still on the last thing he ate for dinner. And the screams are getting louder, and this time, they're in his own voice and in his own words. And the air is getting harder to breathe. And before everything goes black, he thinks that Dudley might be laughing at him and kissing back just a little.

Seconds or minutes or hours later, when Harry opens his eyes, he can't hear anything or smell anything or feel anything except Dudley's cold, sweaty hands holding him by the shoulders and shaking him hard. He tries to tell Dudley that he's awake and alive and that he's going to throw up if the shaking continues much longer, but all that comes out is a soft moan, and Dudley quickly lets him drop back onto a few stuffed plastic bags.

"They've left," Dudley says after a few moments have passed, "but we should probably wait before going back, just to be sure."

Harry moans again, and his face is pressed against eggshells and old batteries, but he can't be bothered to do anything about it.

Dudley crawls over him and opens the side slot just a crack, and in the sharp, unexpected brightness of a passing car's headlights, he sees Dudley's hands pull him up by his arms and lean him against the stack of newspapers. "Those things really make you lose it, don't they?" he asks with a grin. "Who's Sirius, another boyfriend?"

"No," Harry manages to say, but it sounds more like a croak than a word. "He was my godfather."

"Was?" Dudley asks, and Harry nods, scowling. "Too bad," Dudley says, sounding like he almost means it, and Harry's scowl falls away when he realizes Dudley isn't going to say anything more than that.

"I could feel them," Harry whispers as Dudley tries to balance an old cola bottle on his finger, "the Dementors, I mean. I could feel them this time."

"Yeah, I could tell," Dudley says, his eyes still on the bottle. "Is Ron your boyfriend, then?"

Harry shakes his head fast. "No."

"He's not dead too, is he?" Dudley asks, screwing his eyebrows together, and looking up at Harry, and Harry shakes his head again. "What about Neville?"

"Neville?" Harry repeats.

"Yeah." Dudley shrugs and flips the bottle so it lands upside down on his palm. "You said something about him and a prophecy, I think. It didn't really make any sense."

Harry nods and takes a deep breath and remembers that it was his own voice he heard when the Dementors were near instead of his mother's and that the memories were sharper, more recent. "The department of mysteries . . ." he whispers to himself. "That must be what they make me hear now-- what they make me remember."

"What they make you scream, more like," Dudley says, smirking. And Harry grabs a rotten peach from beside his foot and throws it at him, but Dudley drops the bottle to catch it and tosses it back, nailing Harry right between the eyes. "So, is he dead too?"

"No, Neville's not dead," Harry says, cleaning his glasses with his shirtsleeve, "and before you ask, he's not my boyfriend either. I don't even like boys."

"Yeah right," Dudley says, snorting and rolling his eyes, and Harry thinks the sun must be rising if he can see that much of Dudley's face, or maybe he's just looking too hard. Maybe he's always been looking too hard for small things like crumbs and smeared jam and not paying enough attention to the way the air is changing from warm to cold and back again or a the way chorus of birds has started to sing.

They stay in the Dumpster for a while longer until more and more cars go past and they hear the voices of neighbors waking up and turning on the morning news and screaming at each other about dents in their trashcars and spray paint and thrown rocks. Harry raises his eyebrows, and Dudley shrugs and elbows him in the side before bending the poker straight and sliding it through the latch.

Harry throws the lid open instantly and stands, staring up at the sun and breathing in the fresh morning air. He swings his legs around easily and hops out and starts walking to feel the ground, solid and sturdy beneath his feet. He turns back for a second, and he thinks about helping Dudley down before deciding he can manage it on his own, but instead, Dudley topples over the ledge clumsily and lands face-first onto the pavement, and he squeals and grunts a bit as he struggles to his feet. And Harry smiles and tries not to think that he sounds just like a pig, but he really does.

"Some use you are," Dudley says, shivering despite warmth of the morning air. "I'm going to miss breakfast because of you, and my new shirt is ruined. Mum'll be mad at you for that." He starts to walk, and shortly afterward, he starts to complain loudly about how hungry he is and how tired he is and how much his feet hurt from walking, and he's Dudley again-- fat and stupid and just a bit scared. And Harry couldn't be happier to see him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As soon as they're back at 4 Privet Drive, Dudley heads straight for the kitchen, which is hardly surprising, and Harry watches him pause only for a second to glare at the grapefruit on his placemat before picking it up and dropping it in the trash can. "You know," Harry says. "I think that was your breakfast, and it doesn't look like you're going to miss it all that much. What would your mum do if she knew her Dinky Duddydums wasn't eating right?"

"It was disgusting," Dudley says, sticking his tongue out as he pulls a chocolate cake, a batch of jam roly-polys and a bowl of custard from the refrigerator in one giant armful. "And anyway, Mum's not here. She had to go to the tailors to pick a few things up."

Harry sits down and pokes at his own much smaller grapefruit with a fork and briefly wonders how anyone who can spend an entire night shut in a dumpster without complaining can be visibly appalled by a piece of fruit. "Still have to get your knickerbockers and tailcoat specially made then?"

"No," Dudley snorts, sitting down across from him and going a shade pinker when the chair beneath him lets out a painful sounding groan. "I don't, alright. Just shut it, will you!"

"Of course not," Harry says, "because you're obviously sticking right to your diet."

Dudley doesn't look at him as he takes the lid off the custard bowl. "I am."

Harry smiles and shrugs and runs a hand through his hair, dislodging an orange peel and a few scraps of paper. "You know, that cake is for Mr. Mason's retirement party, and the rest is for the neighborhood bake sale."

"Not now, they're not," Dudley mutters, grabbing a large handful of chocolate cake and shoveling it in his mouth all at once so that his cheeks puff out even more than usual, and he holds the tray up to Harry's face. "Ou Wan?"

"No," Harry says, wrinkling his nose. "Actually, now I feel like I'm going to be sick."

"Ementors!" Dudley exclaims moving the tray back and forth right beneath Harry's nose. "Good oor ou."

"No," Harry says, "it's really not." But then, he remembers how chocolate takes away the shakiness and the weak feeling that always comes from Dementors being too near, and he shuts his mouth so he can't be wrong anymore. Dudley is filthy from sitting in the garbage all night, and he has chocolate smeared all over his face and stuck to his fingers, and his fat still shakes when he talks, but all Harry can think is that he doesn't look nearly as disgusting as he should.

"You might as well have some," Dudley says, finally swallowing and setting the tray down on the table. "You're going to get blamed for eating it anyway."

Rolling his eyes, Harry sticks his fork into the cake and takes a bite. It really is good, and he makes sure to get a few more quick bites in before Dudley finishes the whole thing, and then he walks up to his room and falls into bed exhausted.

Harry dreams while he's asleep and while he wakes up for just a few short moments when the explosions coming from Dudley's video games are particularly loud and while he's in that strange in-between place where nothing seems real and all the world's colors blend together until there's nothing left but the soft grays of rain clouds or dishwater. His dreams aren't anything big, really, just images and tiny snippets of conversation-- grass growing, sunlight over water, hellos and goodbyes. They're not much, but they are something. They're much more than he's had in a long time, and he holds them tight until the pictures and the voices become sharper, more defined, and he tells himself that he won't forget ever again what it's like to dream, even if he must one day learn to clear his mind completely.

That night, Dudley's waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs, holding his Smeltings stick, and for a second, Harry wonders if he's going to get his knees bashed in, but Dudley just nods and says, "I like to use this to bang up people's trashcans sometimes." And Harry supposes that to Dudley that might make sense, so he nods and rolls his eyes and steps past Dudley and out the door. And he's shocked by the quiet and the stillness of the air, so shocked that he can't find his feet to move him past the front landing. And he thinks of time slipping past him, leading towards whatever the end will be and the feeling of falling fast from somewhere very high and of rows and rows of identical houses running along empty streets. And he shivers.

"Come on," Dudley says, pushing him forward and then whispering, "Just make it so that no one can tell."

Harry swallows and nods and follows Dudley as he wanders through the streets and watches as he stops for a while to practice his punches in front of the brick wall. And he thinks that Dudley must have quite a lot of muscle under all that fat, which he knew all along, really. But he never wanted to admit to himself that Dudley might be strong in any of the ways that actually matter. If he didn't know better, he might think Dudley's appearance was part of a brilliant deceptive strategy, because no one would expect a particularly ridiculous, dumb-looking Muggle to be able to hold Dementors off for an entire night, and even knowing that Dudley is only as large as he is because he eats far to many of the things he shouldn't doesn't really change anything. "I know you're staring at me," Dudley says, rubbing his forehead and turning around, "and don't give me any rubbish about not enjoying the view either." Harry sighs and bites his lip to keep from laughing, and with a soft, electronic fizzle, a streetlamp just beyond the alley lights itself.

On the way back, Dudley does use his Smeltings stick to bang up trashcans, but only the ones of the empty houses, and he uses it to hit Harry in the head, but not very hard and only after he feels his eyes glaze over and starts stumbling over his own feet. And he takes a few deep breaths and thinks of taking his chances rather than being locked safely away and that being afraid won't make him weak, and maybe if he keeps practicing, no one will be able to tell. Maybe, one day, he won't be able to tell either. And if that day is in the future, he can let it come and look forward to it and be excited about something again.

There are places to go, still, beyond Privet Drive and Magnolia Crescent, an ocean to see and an airplane to fly on through clear skies and over sunlit fields. He can meet up with his friends again, and he can tell them that he never got his birthday presents, and they'll buy him more. And maybe he can drop a few hints this time, let Hermione know that he's not actually interested in daily planners or books on historical Arithmancy and let Hagrid know that his cooking is inedible for anyone without razor sharp teeth. Maybe he can be selfish for once like Dudley has all his life. Harry doesn't know if that counts as happy or if it even counts as a memory, but he holds those thoughts in his mind and smiles.

"Let's go back," Dudley says, finally. "It's dangerous out here, even for a freak like you."

"You can't tell me what to do," Harry says with a smirk and reaches into his pocket for his wand. And he doesn't know whether he's trying scare his cousin or feel more like himself or just start a fight, but when he kisses Dudley, it's like getting a good punch in when the opponent is distracted and his defenses are down or throwing an unexpected curse or pulling up from a perfect Wronski feint.

Harry knew Dudley wouldn't cry, but to his surprise, he doesn't fight back either. He doesn't kick or scream or elbow. He just laughs against Harry's lips and mutters, "I knew it, you freak. I knew it." And overhead, the moon rises, and the stars begin to flicker on.

The End