Little Pink Pills

Happy Birthday

The night air was hot and Harry was sweating. The thick familiar fluid spread inside his mouth, sticky and warm, over his tongue and his teeth, sliding all the way down his throat. One lonely drop escaped the corner of his lips to trickle slowly down his chin and onto the white bedclothes. He prayed Aunt Petunia would not find the stain.

It was the last night of July, Harry's sixteenth birthday, and he was celebrating it the only way he could while stuck at number four, Privet Drive - sitting on his bed, surrounded by his friends' presents and birthday cards and stuffing himself with the fudge-filled chocolate cake Mrs Weasley had sent. However, tasty as it was, that was too much chocolate. Even for him. That would make a nice headline for tomorrow's Daily Prophet, he thought to himself, smiling darkly. The-Boy-Who-Suffocate-To-Death-From-A-Chocolate-Overdose. He needed to get some water.

Standing near the door he could hear loud snores coming from his aunt and uncle's bedroom and silence from Dudley's room. His cousin was not home yet.

Dudley had changed a lot the past year. Harry suspected it had something to do with the Dementor attack last summer. Saving all his aggression for only his boxing matches, Dudley was not bulling little children anymore. He stopped hanging with his old gang, and even lost some weight. Harry saw him meeting with his new friends at the play park the week before, and immediately understood why they never met at the Dursleys house - even Dudley was smart enough to know Petunia would have a heart attack if she saw boys with long hair, bright colourful clothes and pierced faces. Especially if her precious, very normal, Ickle Dudleykins was friends with them. She and Vernon still comfortably believed their son was out every other night having nice quiet tea parties with his old friends.

Harry had a sneaking suspicion it was not tea served at those parties...

Harry sneaked downstairs and sat at the kitchen table with a glass of cold water. A low buzzing sound of electricity came from the refrigerator and he tried to concentrate on it in order to stop his mind from drifting away to places he would rather not return to, things he was trying desperately to forget. But his guilty conscious would not let him stop dwelling on them.

He did not hear the front door as Dudley came home, and he started out of his chair, almost knocking it backwards, when a voice broke him out of his reverie.

"Oh, it's only you." Dudley exhaled in relief. "I was afraid you were my mum."

The Dursleys did not allow Harry to wander the house at night and he was worried Dudley would tell his parents and get him into trouble. He looked up at his cousin's face. There was something different about him: his thick blonde hair was messy, his eyes were open wide, and the blue irises were almost entirely covered by huge black pupils. And he was smiling. At Harry. That was unusual.

"I forgot my glow sticks, so I had to come back for them," Dudley explained.

Harry frowned. He really could not care less. Why is Dudley telling him this? And why is Dudley being civil to him in the first place?

Dudley started talking so fast, Harry was not sure he was breathing at all: "I love my glow sticks I have all the colours, have you ever seen them? If you move them through the air really fast it leaves this trace of light behind them right there in the air! It's brilliant. And there are those smaller glow sticks as well that you can put in your mouth - and your mouth glows! I usually accidentally bite them and then they break and it tastes weird and my tongue gets tinted, but I still love it." He finally paused to breathe. "It's very very pretty," he concluded with a smile and a longing look in his eyes.

Harry bit the insides of his cheeks to keep himself from laughing at his, now very strange behaving, cousin.

Dudley looked at Harry and tilted his head. "Isn't today your birthday?" he asked suddenly.

"Er... yes." Harry was surprised he remembered the date.

"Ooh... Sweet Sixteen," Dudley cooed at him with a scary loving look in his eyes that gave Harry the urge to run and hide under his bed, but it was too late, and a moment later he was pulled into a tight bone-crushing hug that knocked all the wind out of him. Harry stiffened at the abrupt attack and when he felt his feet being lifted up from the floor he might have even squeaked, but preferred to believe he hadn't - it wasn't a very manly thing to do - and in that particular moment as he was pressed to Dudley's body he needed all the masculinity he could muster.

Not a moment too soon, Dudley put him down and removed his hands, to Harry's great alleviation. Harry took a step backwards, thoroughly scared of Dudley's actions by now.

"Sorry I didn't buy you any present," Dudley apologised as though nothing out of the ordinary just happened.

"It's OK," Harry answered quickly before Dudley would feel the need to express his regret in a more... physical way.

Dudley furrowed his brow in what looked like deep thought, but Harry could not know for sure - deep thinking was not something he saw Dudley doing very often. Then the big round face brightened. "I know!" Dudley pronounced in triumph.

Harry could almost see the light bulb pop up above Dudley's head.

Dudley lifted his right leg to one of the chairs and dug his hand into a small pocket that was hidden in the hem of his trousers. He took something out and held it in his fist, in front of Harry's face. "Happy birthday, Harry!"

Great, I'm getting fifty pence again, Harry thought bitterly, remembering the coin he got as a Christmas present from the Dursleys on his first year at Hogwarts. He could not think of anything else small enough to fit in that fat fist. Eyes narrowed, Harry cautiously held his palm up to Dudley, who in turn released two pink pills wrapped in a cling film into his hand.

Harry's jaw dropped. Those were definitely not coins.

"Ecstasy - the best drug in the world!" Dudley stated proudly.

Harry stared at him with wide eyes. "Ah?" he asked, too confused by now to utter more than one syllable.

"You're going to love it, trust me," said Dudley. "Just... er..." he looked around and lowered his voice, "don't tell anyone I gave it to you, OK?" He clapped his hand on Harry's shoulder with a force that could only be matched by Hagrid. He must have seen the expression on Harry's face, so he tried to reassure, "Don't worry, even if you won't like it, and there is no way that's going to happen, it only lasts for about four hours." Then he grinned and added, "The best four hours of your life that is! Have a good night." He turned to leave, but before reaching the stairs turned back on his heels. "And don't be a pig and take them both to yourself," he shook his forefinger warningly. "Share it with someone. Someone special." He winked at the still stunned Harry and went upstairs.

Harry just stood there, trying to analyse what the hell just happened. Staring at the pills in his hand he first considered throwing them away, not trusting Dudley. Then curiosity took over and he almost took one, wanting to see what would happen, thinking he had nothing to lose; his life could not get much worse anyway. Eventually, he decided to leave it for now and go to bed - he was to wake up early the next day because the Order of the Phoenix members were coming to take him to Grimmauld Place.

Dudley came trudging down the stairs and Harry looked up to see him giggling and waving madly with his precious glow sticks at hand. Harry waved back uncertainly until the front door closed behind Dudley and the house was quiet and still once more.

What a peculiar night... Harry shook his head and climbed back to his room, shoving the pills deep in his jeans pocket.

Where they stayed.

Forgotten.