Dudley
Dudley was a bouncer at a bar in london. While walking home late at night, he comes across two women being harassed by a drunk man.
He saves them and walks them safely home or to transportation.
Gets Amelia’s number.
Later he confesses his childhood with Harry, his shame, fully believing she will think him a monster and leave him.
They have a magical child eventually.
It's a right of passage of a sort for your significant other to be shown your baby pictures, usually by a doting parent to ooohs and aaahs of how adorable your naked baby butt looked. The prospect often inspires a measure of dread and a bucket load of cringing.
For Dudley Dursley it was a thing he had tried to entirely avoid.
Dudley had done a lot of growing up since almost having his soul eaten by an invisible fear monster. Not least of which was ungrowing his bodyfat percentage.
Dudley would never be a slim man, after all under all the cake gains, was actual big bones, fancy that. So when he had reached a more healthy muscle to fat ratio, he looked quite burly.
Most people found him intimidating now, not a huge difference from his childhood, but not for being a mean bully anymore at least. He was tall, broad and strong, and he kept up boxing as a hobby and way to exercise. He was legitimately dangerous now, but far less likely to use it.
After graduating he started out as a bouncer while trying to turn his health around, and when he was fit enough to be able to jog and run, he joined military boot camp.
It was harsh on him. But the discipline, expectations and consequences of failure was what he had sorely been lacking. He viewed it as his crash course in humility.
It also looked good on his resume.
While working as a bouncer he entered a training program to become a certified security officer. Then he did a lot of different security jobs, building security was too boring for him, but event security was always lively and interesting. He even did some bodyguard work as his main strength was looking intimidating and serving as a deterrent. He was capable of backing it up, but didn't qualify for the higher risk bodyguard jobs, which was just as well as he didn't enjoy actual danger.
He wasn't brave like his cousin. He didn't pick a job in security to seek danger or play the hero, but to play to his strengths. And he did still enjoy a bit of violence and measuring of strength. He hadn't kicked that habit, only he picked opponents his own size rather than bullying those smaller than him.
He channeled much of his frustration through his boxing. Bullying made him angry these days, perhaps more than for others as it reminded him of his personal failings in his childhood. Staying out of it felt too much like enabling it, so he couldn't help but step in when he witnessed something like bullying.
In fact this was how he met his current girlfriend. On his way home at the end of the night from his bouncer job at a club, he came across a group of drunk men harassing a couple of young women and without hesitation stepped in. He was bigger, but outnumbered. He intimidated and threatened to call the police, and when the most aggressive of the bunch launched a fist at him he shrugged it off and slugged him in the face hard enough to make him drop. The rest of the group collected their friend and fled.
The women thanked him and while one of them looked unsure whether they had just traded a group of potential molesters for another one, the other woman, Amelia, fussed over him looking for injury. She reminded him then a bit of his mum. In a good way.
He explained he was a bouncer so was used to it and offered to walk them safely to their destination, or get them a cab to see them safely home.
By the end of it he had got the friendly girl's number and by the end of the week he had a date.
And now, a couple years later he had to sit through his mother showing his girlfriend his childhood pictures with pride and watching her expression morph from excited anticipation to something unreadable, and he had never been so scared.
That's when he knew he loved her. He was more scared that Amelia would be disgusted by his past than of the soul sucking fear monsters.
He had tried to avoid this as long as he could, when his mum had suggested bringing out the photo albums, by laughingly telling her not to embarrass him in front of his new girlfriend or hurried excuses of it being late and they should leave.
But he couldn't put it off forever.
He had changed enough to be able to stand up to his parents when he thought they were wrong, or cruel, and he certainly didn't let his mum disparage his girlfriend ever.
He had told Amelia that his parents weren't the best people and to not put much stock in anything they said as he didn't agree with all their opinions, and she had accepted that and stayed polite to his parents, even when they were being rude.
But though she had been very accepting of him, he hadn't told her the full extent of how bad he had been as a child.
He had said he was overweight and that his parents had indulged him, making the problem worse, and that he had been a mean child, but had eventually learned from his mistakes.
He had not told her he had been morbidly obese, spoiled beyond reason and a cruel bully beyond redemption.
She was quiet for a while in the car on their way home but eventually broke the silence.
“You did tell me some about your childhood, but I didn't really understand why you would never let me see the pictures or let your parents talk too long about it.”
Her voice was hesitant, and Dudley clenched his hands on the wheel until his knuckles turned white.
“I understand now. I’m so sorry.”
He felt blood rushing from his face and wondered if he should pull over in case he became faint from loss of blood to his brain.
“It makes sense now why you sometimes become nauseous at the sight of sweets and only eat small slices of cake. I’m so sorry you had to grow up like that.”
“What?” Dudley said numbly.
“You parents shouldn't have overindulged you like that. It may have seemed like kindness but it’s basically abuse to let a child become that unhealthy. It must have been so hard to lose so much weight. And change your whole lifestyle. I mean you’re not even chubby anymore, you’re fit and healthy and athletic, it’s an incredible feat.”
“You feel sorry… for me?” Dudley emphasized incredulously. “You don’t think I’m… disgusting and spoiled and mean?”
“Dudley, no. You were a child! You weren't responsible, your parents were. I’m amazed you’re nothing like that now, it really shows what a strong person you really are inside.”
Dudley didn’t know how to feel. On one hand he was relieved. He had been so scared she would hate him and leave him. On the other he didn’t feel he deserved such absolution. And she didn’t know the worst. After all, his parents never spoke about the worst, and the pictures didn’t show it. There were pictures that showed how mean he could be, how he would throw tantrums long after he should have outgrown them, bullied and abused his parents and friends when he didn’t get what he wanted. But none showed the worst of what he had been.
“Only there was one thing,” Amelia hesitated. And Dudleys stomach plummeted. “I thought you said you grew up with your cousin. Harry wasn’t it? That he lived with you and your parents were his legal guardians? But I didn’t see any pictures of him. Was it only for a short while?”
Dudley swallowed, his throat dry, he didn’t think any sound would come out if he tried to speak. He waited a beat, not meeting her gaze. They had arrived home and he had pulled up in their driveway, headlights illuminating the house as they stayed sitting in the car.
His shoulders slumped, his hands falling off the wheel. Then he rubbed his palm over his mouth, closing his eyes tight. And then he gripped the top of the wheel again and rested his forehead on them, hiding his face from her and huffing a breath down in the direction of his feet.
“No. No it wasn’t just a little while. It was our whole childhood, from when he was one year old until he was eleven, and then every summer until he turned 17.”
“Then why…?”