Accidental or Not ~ A Vows a Vow If You Have the Right Conviction ~
Chapter 2: 1902 words
Dursleys House
Dudley thought it would be a good idea to show the disparity between the majority of the house and the spaces meant for Harry.
As he walked room to room, Dudley made sure to take notes of anything that came to mind, like how Harry isn’t allowed to sit on the furniture in the living room and the same can be said for watching Telly. He’d witnessed Harry receive punishment and be locked up for doing both. Harry’s been cooking meals since before Dudley could even really remember clearly, but not just cooking, all the other house chores as well. Impossibly long lists that an adult would struggle with all so he could be more easily punished when the work hadn't been completed by the time his dad got home. How he was punished for bouts of uncontrolled magic that happened more often when he was injured, tired, or overly stressed. How he's watched him be punished for even getting better grades than Dudley and forced to lower the quality of his work.
Duds had to take a moment to admire how smart his cousin had to actually be to consistently get the correct amount of questions wrong to get an average low grade and still be below him on the assignment. Meaning Harry would not only need to really know the material but also how well Dudley knew the material and to be able to accurately guess. He made sure to note that Harry was only moved to an actual room after his parents were panicked about his school letter being addressed to the cupboard under the stairs. Unbeknownst to his parents, Dudley had actually kept one of the letters from the big burst before his dad dragged them on a manic trip around the country before finally settling at that hut on the ocean. What could he say, all the letters had been cool at the time…
That letter had wound up being the only solid reminder that his cousin was actually magical and that a magical society really existed alongside their own. Even with the derision, he had held toward Harry, he hadn't been able to drown out the wonder he felt too. He knew he wasn't magical, or else he would have gotten a letter before Harry had, but in all honesty that never bothered him, it was more his parents' aversion to letting him talk about magic, even in a general manner. Harry can't be the only kid at Hogwarts that lives with a non-magical family, so while he’s sure there are heavy regulations, Dudley doubted the Magical World would segregate them completely. Meaning it had to be his parent's bias that kept him from this wondrous new world.
There had been one time after Harry's 3rd year when Dudley had snuck a peak at one of his cousins' school books before his mom caught him and started a shrill lecture about ruining his brain with freakish ideals. But that peak would stick with him over the next two years till now. It was a book for a class about creatures. Dudley hesitates to call them animals cause they were like none he’d ever seen before. Nonetheless, he now frequently dreams about this little creature that lives in trees called Bow Truckles. Dudley wondered if Harry had ever seen one, the pages had been annotated so he knew their topic had at least been covered.
Finishing up with the photos of most of the main floor, Dudley makes his way over to the cupboard. Dudley can't help the wave of sick feeling that threatens to spill over at any moment. Other than quickly grabbing a book 2 years ago when it was full, he hadn't seen inside the cupboard while it was empty of the trunk since Harry was still living in it full time. Using the key they stash under a potted plant, he slowly undid the lock and opened the door after taking a photo of it still closed as well as the key location. Seeing the inside broke something else in Dudley's chest.
He had never really had the chance to look even when he was young, the door never staying open long enough or there being no light when it was. The first thought he had was that it was tiny. He had seen his dad put Harry in there for 2 days at the beginning of the summer, and couldn't fathom how claustrophobic it must have been. Bringing his camera up to an eye he didn't realize was watering, Dudley took photos of every nook and cranny of the small enclosure. Other than items being shoved against the wall to make room for the trunk, his parents hadn't touched the room. There were a couple of bottles of cleaning chemicals by the door but their smell hardly did anything to cover the odor of body fluids and distress that seemed to have seeped into the 5 walls and door.
Dudley found his eyes drawn to a little broken toy soldier that seemed to be hidden in the corner. He felt an involuntary smile twitch on his lips. He remembers breaking them all and throwing a fit to get a cool grow-your-own crystal tree kit he never ended up using. With a deep breath, Dudley made his way upstairs, repeating the process with the other rooms before getting to his old ‘second bedroom’. He got photos of all the individual locks on the door and of the sparse room still containing some of Dudley's own old and broken toys. He made sure he noted that those were never Harrys and that Harry even scavenged through them to get parts to fix things like Dudley's old alarm clock or a journal Dudley hadn’t liked the color of. Finishing the room, he's about to start uploading to his computer when he remembers it’d probably be a good idea to get photos of the yard and garden, as well as photos of the awards his mom had ‘won’ for having the best yard in surrey. A yard that she barely lifts a finger for outside of the summer months when Harry was here to do all the actual maintenance.
That done, Dudley finally leans back in his desk chair and pops the memory card into his computer to start downloading. When about 6 of the nearly 300 photos were uploaded, Dudley was struck with a sudden horrible thought. Over the last year he had really gotten his study routine down and realized he isn't as dimwitted as he had always been led to believe, he just learned differently. And Once he tried to engage himself in his work in a different way along with tutoring, math happened to be one of the subjects that clicked with him. Now, Looking at his computer and camera sitting on top of this desk, he feels the dread that's been following him around all day rise up again.
While he knew his family was moderately well off. How could his parents Possibly be able to afford all the gifts of designer clothing and top-of-the-line electronics they gift him? Things, that up till recently, always ended up destroyed within the year simply because Dudley knew Petunia and Vernon would replace them with the newest model? How? Not only that but between how his mother dressed and the frequent and lengthy family vacations, it seems they've somehow always lived well above what his dad could ever hope to make at the drilling company.
Getting up from his desk seeing that the download had only gotten to image 23 during the time he'd been thinking. Dudley made his way toward his parent's bedroom, blessing his luck that his dad is at work today and he'd convinced his mom he was okay and didn't need to be smothered. So she scuttled off to play bridge with her ‘friends’. His parents had made an alcove in their room into a semi-office where they kept all the documents. Having followed his dad around since he was little, he knows Vernon keeps the key for the file cabinet in a hide-y hole under the desk. Dudley took a deep breath, other than sneaking a peek at Harry's book, he had never gotten into something inside the house he was explicitly banned from.
The cabinet he was starting with had 4 long drawers that all opened under 1 lock, he was curious about what was in the drawer they left unlabeled. It had piqued his interest last year when he realized that other than that one drawer, everything else in the office was meticulously organized and labeled so that both his parents could find the documents they needed.
Dudley felt a stab of disappointment when inside was a separate locked box. Getting ready to push the drawer back in, he pauses. When he was little he found a key one time when playing with a pair of his dad's cotton socks under their bed. While it seemed like a long shot, he didn't really have any other starting places. Moving over to their bed, Dudley lays down on his stomach to get a more comfortable position. Due to his dad's size, he doubts he put it in a place hard for him to bend down and get. Sure enough, there was a little old inconspicuous box tucked in the corner of the bed and nightstand, Feeling a little giddy at finding it pretty fast, he dumps the key inside onto his hand and places the box in the same position he found it in so that he doesn't forget later.
Inserting the key, he felt his heartbeat quicken when the key turned in the lock with a soft clicking sound. Inside it looked like his dad had separated the contents into a couple of different folders. Grabbing the biggest file he was confused when he saw that all the contents were from a bank called Gringotts, flipping the page his confusion quickly turned to concern and disbelief. Neither feeling of which had anything to do with the title ‘wizarding bank’ under the logo, and everything to do with it being an invoice for a transaction going from a Potter Vault to his parent checking account for a payment of more than 5k pounds a month. Quickly leafing through the rest of the papers shows that they go back as far as the first month Harry lived with them.
The nausea that he’d already been keeping at bay all day reared its head again and he ran to the bathroom to clear his stomach. Every time they locked his cousin up without food and told him that he was a burden and a waste of resources, they were actually getting paid five thousand pounds a month. He felt a chill run down his body at the mental math. His family had taken almost 1M from his cousin all the while abusing him at every chance they could. As sobs wracked his body, he swore with everything he had he’d do whatever he could to right his wrongs against Harry. As soon as he finished his vow, the room lit up with a sparkly light as if his promise had been acknowledged by a higher being. Duds stumbled out of the bathroom surprised, his shocked brain trying to make sense of what he just saw. Had that just been magic?