Chapter 52 Dudley
Chapter 52 Dudley
Neither of them had slept, their time together was too precious to waste it being asleep. The world seemed determined to keep moving too fast. It seemed like they had only been laid in bed for mere minutes before crisp shards of morning light started to assault their eyes through the tall window.
‘We need to talk.’ Dudley whispered kissing Draco’s cheek.
‘You better not be breaking up with me as soon as I put out.’
Dudley giggled and pulled Draco closer to him.
‘It’s about the horcrux.’ He didn’t like saying the word, he knew it would ruin their perfect moment. Draco stiffened and they both looked at Draco’s clothes abandoned in a heap on the floor. The horcrux was still in Draco’s robe pocket.
‘What about it?’ Draco asked.
‘I need you to promise me something.’
‘What?’
‘I need you to promise me, that if a time comes where you’re faced with a choice between me and the horcrux. You have to promise me that you will chose the horcrux.’
Draco sat up. Dudley did too.
Draco’s lip was quivering, he wouldn’t look at Dudley, he stared into his lap and slowly traced his fingers around his stump.
‘But what if I don’t want to.’ He barely said the words, his voice cracked and broken.
‘You have to.’ Dudley pulled him back into his arms and rubbed his back with small circles.
‘The horcrux is more important.’
‘Not to me it’s not.’
‘Promise me?’
‘O-okay.’ Draco agreed, reluctant but resigned. Dudley knew that Draco could see that this was the right thing and he felt some tension leave his body.
The light continued to pour in through the window slowly illuminating the room.
They laid in bed a while longer drinking each other in.
Until Draco let out a shocked squeak.
‘Ouch!’ He held up his forearm to reveal his mark. Voldemort was summoning his followers.
‘I have to go!’ Draco rushed out of the bed and Dudley couldn’t help but admire the sharp lines of his perfect body as he frantically ran around the room searching for some appropriate clothing. He grabbed a green shirt and black trousers from his wardrobe and hastily threw them on. He smoothed his hair down in the mirror.
‘I’ll be back, don’t move, okay?’
Draco kissed him and hurriedly flew out of the room.
As the door clicked shut Dudley instantly felt something change. The room became eerily silent. Dudley felt that he was being watched by something. The room was colder, and not just because Draco had left, the colours grew darker like someone had sucked them out of the room or turned the brightness down. He stood up, feeling the abrupt need to be dressed.
He walked to the heap of clothing they had abandoned on the floor. He separated his own clothes from Draco’s and pulled them on. That’s when he saw a small wooden box.
Draco had not put his robes back on, the horcrux was still here. A buzzing filled his ears and he was instantly drawn to it. He needed to see it, to touch it. An invisible magnet was dragging him inexplicably towards it. Dudley picked up the box, it was made of dark, highly polished wood and It was begging to be opened. He didn’t want to open it. He had to, he thought he might catch fire if he didn’t open it.
He gripped the lid and inched it open carefully, he half expected it to blow up or bite off his hand.
It didn't. But the buzzing intensified, it felt like the whole house should have been shaking with it. The ring was the same as when he had seen it on Draco’s finger all those months ago. It didn’t seem possible that a part of Voldemorts soul was attached to it. The ‘M’ was still there and the small engraved snake looked the same.
Without thinking, Dudley reached in and removed the ring from its green velvet pillow and the world was ripped from underneath his feet. Solid ground disappeared, replaced with fresh air and Dudley was falling violently into nothingness. Draco’s bedroom was gone, replaced with darkness, and Dudley was descending into the abyss.
Dudley hit solid ground with a knee shattering jolt. He landed in a pile of rubble, broken bricks and debris scattered in every direction. He coughed as he breathed in a lungful of fine dust. The bricks were dark, almost black and they’d been shattered by something, some were in half, others crushed to a powdery mess. Large, rusted metal poles, some taller than Dudley punctured the rubble at regular intervals.
It was raining here too, not hard but the wind was howling and it whipped the rain in different directions assaulting Dudley’s face from several angles and making it hard to see. It was icy cold, it stabbed at Dudley’s bare skin. His feet were bare and now they were bleeding too. The ground had torn the soles of his feet to ribbons. The sea was whipping up and roaring around him, black and angry. He was on some sort of an island.
Dudley stood completely still and wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to shield himself from the weather. He started to shiver violently. He was in shock, how did he get here? How would he get back? Was this even real? It felt real, his feet were stinging where they had been ripped by the sharp rubble and debris that surrounded him. The wind felt like knives on his skin, the dark sky was heavy above him, making it difficult to see very far.
‘Dudley…’ a hushed voice whispered from nowhere. It was deep and rumbling, Dudley could feel it low in his stomach.
‘Who are you?’ Dudley asked the air, whipping his head around to see if anyone was there.
‘What is this place? Why am I here?’ Dudley demanded angrily at the open sky when no further answer came.
‘This is your future. This is what happens if you destroy the me.’ It was the horcrux talking to him.
‘What? What do you mean?’
The voice didn’t return. After a few moments Dudley began to stumble over the rubble, feeling the need to move, to do something. Anything. Try to get out. Try to get back to Draco.
‘DUDLEY!’ Draco’s voice cut through the howling of the wind like a glass shard, and it punctured Dudley’s soul.
Dudley darted his head in the direction of the sound. Draco was here! He began to rush hurriedly and clumsily in Draco’s direction, desperate to get to him. He could see his familiar silhouette, a black figure also struggling to move swiftly across the uneven ground. They were slowly closing in on each other, each of them shouting in broken voices for the other. Dudley was creaming with such force his throat was burning. It was a nightmare, his arm caught on a stay piece of rebar and sprayed blood on the ground. His body shaking with the cold. He could hear the fear in Draco’s voice, Dudley just needed to get to him, to hold him and tell him it was okay, he was okay. They were close, maybe 20 feet apart but Draco stopped too soon, he fell to his knees and began to cry harder, tearing at the ground, throwing large chunks of broken brick behind him. Dudley continued to run towards him, hobbling over split wood, rusted metal and crumbling brick. Dudley couldn’t understand it, why had Draco stopped. They weren’t together yet. They needed to be together.
Dudley approached Draco, still shouting for him. Draco didn’t look up. He couldn’t hear Dudley, he was still wildly clawing at the ground. Blood coated his hand and his stump, the bricks he’d been moving were tearing them up. Dudley could see what Draco was digging for now. It was him. Dudley lay buried in the rubble. Draco’s breathing was haggard as he exposed more and more of Dudley’s dead body. He was naked, his torso covered in whelts, slices had been taken from him and his leg jutted out at an unnatural angle. He was a bloody mess. Draco leaned over him howling with anguish, tears falling unbidden, making tracks through the dust on his face. Draco was kissing his dead forehead and stroking his filthy hair. He looked broken. They both looked broken.
Dudley tried to touch Draco to show him he was here, he was okay, he was alive. But his hand fell straight through Draco’s back. He wasn’t real. That thing half buried in the rubble was the real.
‘What is this? Why are you showing me this?’ Dudley spat the words at the swirling sky above him.
‘So you can make a choice.’ replied the disembodied voice.
‘This is your future if you destroy the ring but If you leave now this will never come to pass. I am only showing you the truth.’
Dudley stared at the scene unfolding in front of him. His own dead body, broken and bloody. The man he loves tear stained and distraught screaming at him to ‘come back! Please come back Dudley!’ Tears sliding off his nose and landing on Dudley’s bare torso. It was too much.
‘Take me back please. Enough. Take me back.’ The words left Dudley a defeated whimper. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again he was back in Draco’s bedroom. He was warm and his feet were no longer bloody but the tears on his cheeks remained, and they kept coming. His heart was hammering out of his chest, adrenaline still coursing through him.
Dudley placed the ring back into Draco’s pocket and retreated as if it might suck him back in again. Dudley sat himself on the side of the bed, head in his hands. He tried to take a few steadying breaths. Had he just witnessed his own death? The image of his rain-battered, pale, naked body half buried under rubble was burned on the inside of his eyelids. The strangled desperation of Draco’s voice replayed itself over and over in his head.
Was that truly his future?
He sat there for a while contemplating what he had seen.
In the end he came to the conclusion that it made no difference. He had always known death was most likely waiting for him at the end of this journey, he was surprised he had made it this far. Draco lived. That was all that mattered to him in the end.
The horcrux had made a mistake, Dudley was not afraid of his own death. The horcrux had shown him the wrong vision. If it wanted to change his mind it should have shown him Draco’s death not his own. That might have been the only thing in the world strong enough to persuade Dudley not to destroy it. The horcrux thought like Voldemort, it believed that self preservation would persuade Dudley not to destroy it. It had been wrong, Dudley loved Draco far more than he had ever loved himself.