Dudley Dursley
Unfortunately, the love he saw in the first year of life did not become the norm.
Many know that following the death of his parents, my father was raised in the muggle world by some relatives. What most do not know is that these relatives were not so loving. Harry went from a world full of love to a house full of abuse and neglect in an instant. His aunt and uncle despised magic; they thought Harry was unnatural. They treated him as less-than, and he felt that way for a long time, well, until Hogwarts.
Harry hated speaking of his childhood at the Dursleys, and I do not blame him. In order to respect his privacy, I will share only a little of the hate he was forced to endure. After all, this is a book about love.
The best way I can think to explain the way the Dursleys affected my father without digging too deeply into his trauma is to share a few anecdotes from my own life.
When I was six years old, I was told that I would have to stay in Albus's room for a week or two while some of mum's family stayed with us. I was livid. I loved my room, and now I had to put up with my arsehole brother and his snoring (sorry Albus). As a spirited and stubborn little girl, there was only one thing for me to do, and that was throw a tantrum. I remember my father's gentle tone and his attempts to calm me down. I also remember ignoring this genuine yet feeble attempt to placate me as I yelled something like,
"It's not fair! James and Albus should share. They're both boys. It's not fair, dad!"
After a few minutes of ramblings like this, interrupted with frequent screaming and banging/stomping on the floor, he got frustrated, and he yelled back,
"At least you have a room. You're free to come and go from it as you please. When you get a nightmare, mummy and daddy are just across the hall. Your brothers are next door. You want to know how I grew up, Lil? That was unfair," he took a breath, "I was locked in a closet, Lily, a closet. Now stop complaining."
I stopped complaining.
That night mum sat the three of us down (my brothers and I) and told us that dad was sorry to have yelled. She also told us, in very simple terms, that daddy didn't grow up with very nice people. None of us knew what to say. Mum just put on a muggle movie, and we all became enamored by the moving pictures on the screen. Dad eventually joined us. I cuddled up next to him, and he held on tight.
Over the years, I slowly was given bits and pieces of what happened when my father lived with his aunt and uncle. It usually came in snide remarks like,
"Ginny, I don’t need to eat right now. The Dursley's once locked me up with no food for three days. I can survive an hour."
None of us ever knew how to respond when dad made remarks like this. We all just kind of silently laughed and looked at each other for reassurance. He could usually laugh it off too, but some days were worse than most. Occasionally, something would trigger a memory or a reaction, and he would lash out or just lock himself in his room for hours.
The worst one I can remember was when I was about fourteen or fifteen. James was doing the dishes and accidentally dropped a glass bowl. It shattered into what seemed to be a million pieces. James initially cursed, but then started laughing in an "of course I broke a bowl" sort of way. My father screamed at James. And he didn't just scold him, he screamed.
I had never heard him scream like that.
About ten seconds after he finished yelling, I watched the anger fade from his eyes, and I saw a different emotion creep in—fear, guilt, shame?
"Oh my God; Oh my God," he said "James, I'm so sorry. Please, James. It's just a bowl. I don't care. Hey, I love you; I love you; I love you.”
He wrapped James in a hug and started crying—he never cried. Albus and I looked at each other in shock.
I cannot stress enough that moments like this were extremely rare with my dad. 99.9999% of the time he was the happiest, kindest, most loving father in the world. I know I just shared two stories of him yelling, but those are two of the maybe five times I can recall him raising his voice at me or my siblings. He spent every day trying to give us the childhood he never had. The childhood that was taken from him.
When I was preparing to write this book, I asked my dad about some of these memories. He held his head low in shame. He hated that we ever saw that side of him, the side that had been hurt and never healed. The side he always tried to conceal. He told me more stories of their abuse, ones that I will not share in full. Some highlights include: barred windows, belts, burns, threats, degrading language, and all sorts of other wonderful things. When hearing these stories as an adult, I finally knew what to say to him.
"You won though," I told him.
"What do you mean, Lils" he asked.
"You beat them. You grew up to be so much better than they ever were. You didn't let them hinder your growth or success. That's a win," I assured him.
"Oh yeah, Vernon would be pretty pissed that I'm all rich and famous," he said.
"I didn't mean like that, dad. I meant you grew up kind. You grew up loving. You have a happy family; you have tons of friends; you have a career. You have everything, and you got it through kindness and love." He smiled at me.
"You're pretty incredible, Lils. You know that." He laughed and wiped a tear from his eye.
"I know," I said. So no, my father did not grow up in a loving household, but he made sure I did.
Now, my dad was not the only child in the Dursley house. The Dursleys had a son who grew up with Harry. His name was Dudley. While Dudley and Harry had very similar childhoods—they were the same age, they grew up in the same house, they were raised by the same people—they also had very different childhoods. Dudley was Petunia and Vernon's pride and joy. He grew up more spoiled than you could possibly imagine.
"You would have thought he had walked on water the way Petunia and Vernon treated him," Harry recalled. Dudley was, in the simplest terms, a bully. His parents taught him to look down on others, especially Harry, and he never questioned them. He hurt people; He made friends with the wrong sort; and he kind of all-around sucked.
This may seem a rather harsh criticism of a young boy, but based on the stories my father has shared, it is pretty accurate. However, I hope it makes you joyful to know that this is not the Dudley Dursley I know.
When Harry was fifteen, he saved Dudley's life. It kind of brought everything into perspective for him. While he chose to ignore Harry for the time they remained in the same house instead of apologizing or making things right, Dudley did start to work on fixing himself. He began to question the things his parents told him. He ditched his shitty friends, and he stopped beating up children at the park. He cut off contact with his parents following university, and he started seeing a therapist. He couldn’t change what he had done in the past, but he could work to be a better person in the future. And he worked hard.
The Dudley Dursley I know is the one who reached out to Harry when I was 10. Harry hadn't heard from his cousin in years when he got a letter. I've included a picture of the letter below. Dad's real sentimental, keeping letters like that.
Dear Harry,
I know you owe me nothing. If you choose to respond, I know there's a lot we need to talk about, but (and I hate to have to ask you for any favors) there's something particular I want to talk about first. My daughter, Allie, she got a letter last week. Same kind you got—owl and everything. I want to do right by her. I want to understand and support her. I can’t be like my parents...not again. I hope you'll choose to respond, but I'll understand if you don't.
Your cousin,
Dudley
My father debated responding to that letter for a long time. When he did respond, it was just with a time and location, some muggle pub. My dad said they talked for hours, mostly about their kids and about the wizarding world, but some about their childhoods. My dad, always the big softie, forgave Dudley pretty quickly.
"I could tell he had changed," Dad said simply.
I met Dudley and Allie maybe a few months after his and my dad's reunion. They became pretty regular characters in my life after that first meeting. I mean they've been at every Christmas dinner since I was thirteen, and never once has Dudley forgotten to send me a birthday present. My dad and him would go out on their own or with Ron and George on a pretty regular basis. Allie and I are pretty close too. Being only one year apart, we spent a lot of time together at Hogwarts and at home. I was lucky to get to know her and Dudley.
My dad did still on occasion make little jabs at Dudley. He liked to call him “Big D” and tease that he needed two bedrooms. He said it was just making things even for when they were kids, but everyone around could tell it was all light-hearted fun. My dad once said that “lasting animosity takes too much energy, and I’m too tired to let something like that have power over me.”
If I was in his position, I don’t know if I would have had the strength to forgive Dudley. I hold grudges intensely. I get it from my mum (who still glares at Dudley nearly every time they interact). But Harry has always been the best of us. So, while my dad may never admit out loud that he loves Dudley Dursley, I know he does.
Notes: Dudley Dursley died five years ago in the late 2060s. Harry Potter was listed in the self-written obituary as cousin and “brother.”