Cousins
Thursday, 1 October 1998
The day had started out normal; sleeping in after Astronomy, breakfast with Theo, training with the founders, Ancient Runes. Then, Harry was at lunch before the second half of Runes, his whole class had sat down together at the end of the Ravenclaw table, something they’d been doing more and more since no one had told them to stop. He was half listening to the conversation happening around him, but mostly just thinking about what he’d do with his afternoon, when a vaguely familiar owl swooped in and landed in front of him, extending its leg.
“Who’s it from?” Draco asked from across the table.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Harry said, reaching out to grab the letter.
“Did you check it for curses?” Hermione asked, leaning over to look at Harry around Neville.
“The wards won’t let anything cursed through,” Susan said from a few seats down.
Even though Susan was right, Harry was a rather paranoid person, so he pulled out his wand and ran a diagnostic.
“I’m going to start calling you Mad-Eye if you don’t stop acting like that,” Susan said, rolling her eyes.
After shooting Susan a cheeky grin, Harry tore open the seal on the envelope. Two pages dropped out; one sheet of parchment and one sheet of lined notebook paper.
Harry grabbed the parchment first.
Harry,
As I told you in my letter over the summer, I’m attending St. Andrew’s for Uni and started a year late because of … everything … last year. Most of my classes are on the magic side, but I’m enrolled in two classes in the Business School. On the first day of my Finance class, I sat down next to a boy who was rather friendly. We got to talking and I asked where he was from, he told me Little Whinging. I thought that was odd because I remember you saying you were from there. Then he asked where I’d gone to school. I said Hogwarts and was ready with the old excuse of it being a private boarding school in Scotland when he grinned at me and asked if I knew someone by the name of Harry Potter.
I said of course I know Harry, how do you know him?
I’m sure you know who I’m talking about by now, but he told me he was your cousin. Over the last month, I’ve gotten to know Dudley rather well. We work together on assignments, and he’s introduced me to several of his friends from his own secondary school. He’s become a great friend, so when he asked if I had some way to get ahold of you, I let him know that we wrote to each other every so often and he asked if I’d be willing to send a letter for him, I agreed.
I remember you speaking very little about your family, so I’m guessing that it wasn’t a great situation. But Dudley has confided in me that he hasn’t spoken to his parents in nearly a year and that he’d really like to have a better relationship with you.
I’m not sure when your next Hogsmeade weekend is, or if you’re able to get away whenever because your whole class is of age, but I think he might want to meet up with you, and I really want to meet Teddy.
Hope you’re well.
Love always,
Cho
The conversation around him had tapered off, everyone was looking at Harry trying to figure out what he was reacting to and what, exactly, his reactions meant. It was rather rare to see Harry Potter in a state of genuine shock.
Not noticing the confusion of his peers, Harry set aside Cho’s letter and picked up Dudley’s. It was short and to the point;
Harry,
I’ve met someone who went to school with you, and she’s told me a lot about you that I didn’t know. She made you sound like an incredible person, and I deeply regret following along with my parent’s attitude toward you, I really want to know the Harry that Cho has told me about.
I haven’t talked to mum and dad since a month after we got moved from our house. I’ve cut off all contact with them and Aunt Marge so I’m rather lacking in family, and I really want the opportunity to get to know the family I have left. Cho also mentioned that you’ve adopted your godson, I’d love to meet him.
I understand if you don’t want that, I’ve been rather awful. But I really hope you’ll consider it. Cho said there’s a village near your school where we could meet you or that you had a rather easy way of getting around so you might be able to come see us here. I am open to anything, Harry.
Your Cousin,
Dudley Evans
P.S. I stopped using dad’s name when I came to school. I want to be a good person and I couldn’t think of any good Dursleys, but I know there was at least one good Evans.
“Who’s it from?” Draco asked again.
“My cousin,” Harry said, voice hardly above a whisper.
“I’m your only cousin and I’m sitting right here.”
“We are related to Harry in the exact same way you are,” Padma said, pointing between herself and Parvati.
“Really?” Draco asked.
“Yes. Our dad and his dad were cousins, same as your mum and his dad were cousins.” Parvati said.
“I’d forgotten that,” Draco muttered.
“I really don’t think this is the time for family tree drawing,” Hermione chided before turning to Harry, “are you alright? You mean Dudley right?”
“Yeah,” Harry said, shaking his head slightly in an attempt to physically clear his mind, “he’s at school with Cho apparently, they’ve become friends, and he wants another chance. He also stopped using his dad’s surname.”
“I can respect that,” Draco said, “was his dad like mine?”
“A war criminal?” Neville asked, “I rather think not.”
Harry huffed out a laugh at that before saying, “if you mean an abusive dick then, yes, Draco, his dad was exactly like yours.”
“I meant just a generally awful human, but I guess that qualifies.”
“Are you going to write back?” Ron asked from next to Hermione.
“I think I’ll write and ask if he’d like to meet up,” Harry said, “it sounds like he’s at Uni for business at St. Andrews.”
“Dudley Dursley is at St Andrews?” Hermione said, sounding rather shocked.
“He was an absolute dunce in primary, but he did go to a private boys school for secondary and I believe he did rather well,” Harry reasoned, “well, he must have to go to St Andrews.”
“Is that a good university?” Theo asked, “I know they’re one of the schools that has graduate studies in magical subjects, but I don’t know much about the muggle side.”
“It’s the top uni in Scotland,” Hermione said, “from everything I know about Dudley it was rather a shock that he’d ended up there.”
“Can I see the letter, Harry?” Neville asked. Harry nodded and handed it over. After reading through it quickly, Neville turned to Harry and said, “if you want to go meet him, I’m more than happy to come with.”
“Thanks, Nev,” Harry said, “but I think I’ll go alone. Well, me and Ted.”
“Should you possibly bring someone else that Teddy is comfortable with in case you end up wanting to talk to your cousin alone?” Theo asked.
“Is this your way of telling me that you think you should come?” Harry asked, smiling.
“No.” Theo responded with his best innocent face.
“I’ll think about it,” Harry said.
* * *
Harry had spent the second half of Ancient Runes rather distracted.
“Harry,” Theo said as they were leaving the classroom. When he got no response he tried again, “Harry, Hadrian, Harry James.”
When he still got no response, he grabbed Harry by the hand and pulled him through the halls, up several staircases, down another hall, through the dragon portrait, and up the stairs to his quarters where he unceremoniously shoved him into a chair at the kitchen table and started making tea.
He didn’t snap to until Theo put a cup of tea in front of him and ran a hand through his hair and then left the hand at the back of his head, playing with the soft curls at the base of his neck.
“Love,” Theo said in a soft, quiet voice, “what’s on your mind.”
Harry leaned into Theo’s touch and let his eyes flutter shut, “my hair’s getting long.”
“It is,” Theo said, “do you like it, or do you want to cut it?”
“I like it for now.”
“I like it too,” Theo said, scratching lightly at the back of Harry’s head, “now can you tell me what’s really on your mind?”
Sighing, Harry leaned forward and pressed his face into Theo’s neck. Theo turned slightly to press a kiss into Harry’s hair, “do you want to lie down love?”
When Harry nodded, Theo stood up and grabbed Harry’s hand again and gently pulled him into the bedroom, “do you want to change out of your uniform?”
Silently, but looking as though he was in deep thought, Harry pulled off his robe and hung it on the back of the door before kicking off his shoes and unbuttoning his shirt. As he was unstrapping the holster from his thigh, he started to talk.
“My whole childhood I was treated as nothing. I lived in a cupboard, I cooked every meal but got to eat none of it, I did all the housework and yardwork, and I got slapped around or outright beaten for mistakes and accidental magic. Dudley and his friends had a game they liked to call Harry Hunting. It’s why I’m so fast. But he was just a kid, a kid following the example of his parents and peers. He never really had a chance to be good and as soon as he had that choice for himself, he tried.
“After the dementors, he changed. He either left me alone or engaged me in normal, if stilted, conversation and when they were moving the Dursleys before they relocated me when I turned 17, he told me that he’d never thought I was a waste of space. I want to give him a chance, it’s just that his reaching out brings up a lot of shit.”
Before Theo could come up with a response, Harry added, “also, he said he hasn’t spoken to Vernon and Petunia in a year and he’s started using the last name Evans because he said he wanted to be good and couldn’t think of any good Dursleys but knew there was at least one good Evans.”
“What do you think your mum would do?” Theo asked after a minute of silence.
“She’d go,” Harry answered easily, “I know she would because even after everything, she still wrote Petunia once a month until the very end.”
“Alright so you go,” Theo said with a nod, “do you want someone to come with?”
“I want to talk to Neville,” Harry said, “but I should probably put clothes back on first.”
“I’ll go see if he’s home.”
“No, it’s fine I’ll send him a patronus, do you want to change?”
At Theo’s nod, Harry grabbed a pair of joggers and a jumper that were probably his own and threw them toward Theo before selecting a pair of shorts and a hoodie for himself. Clothes selected, he sent Prongs to Neville to ask him to come up then promptly threw himself face first on top of his bed.
Theo changed and then sat down next to Harry and started scratching his back in an attempt to calm him down. He’d just started to relax when they heard the front door opening, “in here!” Harry called out. A moment later, Neville stepped into the room dressed in almost the exact same outfit as Harry.
“Merlin you two really act like twins sometimes,” Theo said with a laugh.
Looking up to see what Theo meant, Harry smiled then patted the bed next to him. Neville flopped down face first and then turned his head to look at Harry, “what can I do, Haz?”
“Come to St. Andrews with us.”
“Us?” Theo asked.
“Family trip.” Harry declared with a nod.
“I’m family?”
“Course,” Harry said, not noticing the smile that declaration brought to Theo’s face. Neville noticed though and just smiled up at his brother’s boyfriend before turning his attention back to Harry.
“Alright, when?”
“Saturday morning? I’ll owl Cho and have her pass it on.”
The group fell into companionable silence for a few minutes. Just when they thought Harry had fallen asleep, he spoke up, “do you think Dudley’s a squib?”
“What makes you say that, love?” Theo asked.
“We know mum came from a squib line, her da was a squib and I’d bet her mum had magic somewhere in her blood, so logic says Petunia was a squib as well and mum just ended up fully magical somehow, do you think it passed down to Dudley as well?”
“It’s possible, are you asking just for information’s sake or do you have some other thought?”
“Mostly just information, though if he’s a squib I could get him an owl then I wouldn’t have to use Cho or send Hermes to wait for a response.”
“We have an ancient familiar who keeps telling us how bored he is without all of Dumbledore’s random notes to send.” Neville reminded Harry.
“Oh yeah,” Harry said before climbing out of bed with what appeared to be a Herculean effort and walking over to the writing desk to pen a note to Dudley asking if he was free Saturday morning, “do you think it’ll freak him out to have a giant flaming bird appear in front of him?”
“Almost definitely.” Neville responded.
“Sick,” Harry said with a slight grin before calling, “Fawkes! Could you come deliver a message please?”
The bird appeared instantaneously, Lord Slytherin finally listens, he trilled, where shall I take this?
“To my cousin Dudley Evans, he goes to school at St. Andrews. Could you please make sure he is either alone or only with Cho Chang when you deliver this?”
Of course, Fawkes responded, pass it over. I’m ready to be useful again.
Rolling his eyes at the phoenix’s dramatics, Harry handed over the note and watched as Fawkes disappeared in a cloud of smoke.
“Do you think he was always that dramatic? Or did he learn it from Dumbledore?”
“Have you met Godric?” Neville asked.
“Ah,” Harry nodded, “good point.”
“My life has gotten exponentially more insane since you two walked into it.” Theo informed them.
“Happy to be of service,” they responded in unison.
“Do you want to call for Teddy now or take a nap first?” Theo asked.
Glancing at his watch Harry mulled it over before deciding, “it’s nearly his naptime. I’ll call for him now and take a nap with him.”
“Just don’t roll over on top of him,” Neville suggested.
“I won’t,” Harry said, “I don’t move much in my sleep, especially now that I’m not sharing a skull with a Dark Lord who tortures me through my dreams.”
“He tortured you through dreams?” Theo asked, apparently having not heard that particular story yet.
“I’m really not sure if it was on purpose or not, but if I slipped into his head in my sleep I could feel echoes of his torture of others so that was super fun.”
“Can we not talk about your nighttime strolls into Voldy’s mind?” Neville said, “get your son. I’m staying by the way. I was about to take a nap when you asked me to come over.”
“Fine,” Harry sighed, “Theo you staying?”
“I haven’t been to my dorm in a week, I’m not entirely sure I remember where it is.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Harry said with a laugh before calling out for Mimi.
The elf appeared a couple of minutes later holding a sleepy looking Teddy, “good afternoon, Master Harry,” she said, “Little Master is ready for a nap.”
“Thank you, Mimi,” Harry said reaching out for the little boy, “I’m ready for a nap too. We’ll be in here, you should go get some rest.”
“Thank you, Master Harry,” the elf said with a nod before popping out of the room.
“Hi, cub,” Harry said, smiling down at Teddy and running a hand through his sandy curls, “nap time?”
Teddy let out a huge yawn in response.
Laughing lightly, Harry said, “alright, beta, it’s time for sleep.”
“That’s a new one,” Neville said.
“Not all that new,” Theo told him, “it means son in Hindi, Padma and Parvati are teaching him so they can bring him to India to meet the other Patils.”
“That’s great, Haz,” Neville said with a smile, “how’s it going?”
“Pretty well, turns out I’m weirdly good at learning languages.”
“Hadrian, you spent the first year and a half of your life with your dad speaking Hindi, your mum speaking English, Sirius speaking French, and Remus speaking Welsh, we don’t actually know what your first language was.”
“That’s a good point,” Harry told Theo, “I think I’ll end up trying to get Teddy to call me baba or da so Remus will always be dad.”
“That’s a great idea,” Neville said, “can we talk less about languages and more about going to sleep now?”
In response, Harry laid back down with Teddy on his chest, who promptly fell asleep the moment he was horizontal.
“Just like his da,” Neville said with a light laugh.
“I don’t fall asleep anywhere near that quickly,” Harry argued.
“You do, love,” Theo informed him, “especially when you’re exhausted.”
“Whatever,” Harry said, “everyone shut up and go to bed.”
Neville pulled a pillow down and laid on his side, reaching out a hand to join Harry’s on Teddy’s back before promptly falling asleep. Harry fell asleep soon after.
Once he was sure they were all asleep, Theo stood up and grabbed the camera off Harry’s desk and snapped a quick picture of the trio before getting back into bed, grabbing his book of the bedside table, and settling back against the pillows.