Muggles at Grimmauld!
"Hey, big D!" Harry shook Dudley's hand, looking a mixture of nervous and excited. "Welcome home! Well, not my home, Sirius' home. Remember I told you and Vernon and Petunia about that escaped criminal that was actually my godfather?" He babbled on and Dudley just nodded with a small smile, looking nervously at the other people watching them. His girlfriend, Shannon, squeezed his hand.
Dudley recognised a few of the people staring (more like glaring) at him. Many of them had invaded their house last Christmas, but some he had never seen before. The twins were eyeing him up; Dudley gulped and trusted that Harry wouldn't let them do anything too painful to him. He was almost sure they would at least leave Shannon alone, since she hadn't been the one bullying Harry for over a decade.
"And you must be Shannon!" Harry shook Shannon's hand enthusiastically.
"Hi, Harry. It's a pleasure to meet you at last. Wait, Susan?"
"Shannon!" Dudley and Harry watched with identical looks of confusion as the two girls hugged, before Susan dragged her off for a catch up.
"Er, that was odd." One of the redheads scratched the back of his head, and Dudley recognised him to be the one that helped himself to their breakfast last Christmas.
"Shannon did say she knew a few huffa-whatsits." Dudley said nervously. "Her brother, Justin, is in that house."
"Justin Finch-Fletchley?" Harry asked in surprise. "He's in our year. What an odd coincidence! Aren't they filthy rich?"
Dudley nodded. "Yeah. Justin was meant to go to Eton and Shannon went to a fancy girls' school. Her parents paid for her to go to the same college Dad paid for me to go to."
"I see." Harry shook his head. "I always forget Uncle Vernon is rich, probably because of the abuse and the fact none of it was ever spent on me. Anyway, these are my friends Ron, Hermione, and Draco." Harry pointed at the redhead, the brunette girl and the blonde in turn. The redhead glared at him, the brunette nodded curtly but her eyes were sharp, and the blonde just raised a brow and inclined his head slightly.
Harry continued, oblivious to the tension. He pointed at the twins. "Those two are Fred and George. They like to confuse people with who is who though, so you can just call them Gred and Forge if you like. Only their parents, me, and Snape get it right 100% of the time, but Bill and Charlie are pretty good at it. The one on the right is Fred, left is George."
Dudley nodded at them with a gulp and they smirked at him. Dudley tilted his head and discovered it was actually pretty easy to tell them apart. He didn't say anything though, as they were still mildly terrifying.
He followed Harry into the kitchen and sighed gratefully to see Dobby waving at him from his position on another redhead's shoulder.
"That's Bill, he'd the oldest Weasley. You know Dobby already, he likes sitting there because he can see over everybody's heads. Kreacher is with Susan probably, the traitor. That's Remus, he was friends with my parents, and Sirius is my godfather. He's that one over there, as you know."
Dudley frowned. "The criminal who wasn't really a criminal?"
"Yes. So you did pay attention to my letters! Those two are Mr and Mrs Weasley, but they'll tell you off for calling them that, so it's Molly and Arthur. The lady over there is Draco's mum, Narcissa Malfoy. She's a bit scary, but don't worry, it's only her husband who hates muggles."
"Right."
"Oh, and there's an order meeting later! So we'll be trying to disrupt that again, obviously. Any ideas?" Harry asked eagerly.
"Er, no?"
"That's fine, Susan and Ginny have a million. Oh, you're going to LOVE Ginny. Especially in the mornings. She loves mornings!" Yet another redhead snorted.
The brunette girl, Hermione, whispered. "Charlie." to Dudley as Harry babbled on, before dragging him up the stairs.
~
Harry was quite impressed with Dudley. Now a more or less average size and looking far healthier, with actual muscle, he seemed far happier than he did as a kid. He settled in to Grimmauld place surprisingly fast.
His girlfriend Shannon was lovely, and fitted in easily amongst the odd group of Wizards. Harry was delighted when Dumbledore introduced himself to Dudley with a grandfatherly smile and got a raised eyebrow and a "You're the man that keeps sort of trying to kill my cousin by putting him in dangerous situations, right?". To everyone's surprise, Snape had laughed, actually laughed, and told Dudley that he was far more easy to stomach than his mother.
Dudley made his public apology, which melted a lot of the ice. He'd written a whole speech, bless him.
Once Harry's friends all got over their grudges against Dudley for bullying Harry for so long, it was like he'd been one of them since the beginning. Molly loved having him help her cook in the kitchen, and he taught her some muggle hacks that changed her life. The twins, surprisingly, took him under their wing, and Harry was slightly terrified at the three identical grins they sometimes shot each other. Ron complained at how quickly Dudley figured out how to tell the twins apart - especially kept tight-lipped on the matter.
Harry was a bit miffed if he was now Sirius' fourth favourite after Luna, Susan and Shannon, but he didn't mind too much because he got closer with Remus as a result. The two could often be found complaining about being left out. And anyway, he was still Sirius' only and therefore favourite godson, so that was a bonus.
Draco and Narcissa were very polite, but it still took them a few days to get used to interacting with Muggles. Harry knew Dudley was already fairly used to magic from Dobby, and was pleased he was no longer all hateful and scared of it.
Luna and Neville showed up with Daphne and Astoria a week before they had to go back to school, and Dudley got on weirdly well with Luna. It sort of made sense, though - Dudley had spent a lot of time with just Dobby and Harry's letters for company until Shannon came along, and everyone knew how eccentric and downright insane Dobby and Harry were.
All in all, it was a pleasant end to the Christmas Holidays. Dudley and Shannon left the day before the others had to go to Hogwarts, with promises to write and to meet up again at some point. Harry and Susan were already plotting how to sneak them in to Hogwarts. The twins had a shared apartment with Lee and Angelina and there was a spare two rooms, so they had offered them to both Dudley and Shannon. They accepted readily with the promise they would help in the shop and cook for them all at weekends. The restaurant chain they worked for offered to transfer them to one of their restaurants nearer to the twins' residence once Dudley and Shannon finished college. Harry was very pleased for them both.
~
Dudley reflected on the past week as he and Shannon began to pack to leave Grimmauld place.
Harry's life was very... strange. Where he'd once had a scrawny cousin who was scared of his own shadow and had no friends or family, he now had a thriving cousin who looked well-fed and healthy, surrounded by chosen family and more friends than Dudley could count. He also seemed happy. Really happy.
So what if Harry was a bit strange? He and Dudley had broken free from the abuse Petunia had Vernon had put them under. Harry's was worse, of course, but Dudley was also neglected, in a different sense.
When Dudley thought Harry was a bit strange, he meant really strange. He talked a lot about toads, and mould, and made a point of bringing up jam whenever the blonde, Draco, would enter a room. He seemed to have a friend in a mental hospital, Gilbert or something, and the scary Professor from Harry's school would often mention Harry intentionally antagonising a very scary evil murderer. Surprisingly, Dudley wasn't surprised.
The Headmaster of Harry's school was also very odd, and Harry didn't seem to like him much. Harry did, however, love his phoenix, which followed Harry around whenever the Headmaster visited. The only other two professors Dudley met were also very nice - one never went anywhere without a biscuit tin and was both severe and really funny, and clearly loved Harry like a grandson. She also could turn into a cat, which was cool. The other was younger and very cool, and called Harry "Chaos Bringer". Dudley wondered if it was normal in the magical world for teachers to see their students so much outside of school. He asked the twins, who he found himself actually quite liking once he got over the fear of them messing with his tongue again. The twins said it wasn't, but nothing had really been normal since Harry had joined the school.
Susan was nice, and he found out that despite being a redhead, she wasn't a Weasley. Harry seemed to spend most of his time with her. Harry's other friends didn't really seem to notice, which Dudley thought was quite funny. Hermione and Ron were still a bit off with him, but he didn't really blame them. When some of Harry's other friends had arrived, they had interrogated and threatened him whilst Harry was on a "secret mission" with one of the redheads. After that, they were much friendlier.
Dudley thought about all of Harry's friends, each with their own strange quirks and all equally as terrifying when they wanted to be.
Hermione had grown up muggle and he and Shannon could talk to her about topics they were familiar with, once she warmed up to them. However, she had a knife that she seemed to enjoy threatening to cut people's hair and beards off with (Harry later told him she'd charmed it so the hair couldn't be regrown magically). She was also obsessed with some book written by a prince, that Harry seemed equally taken by.
Ron was a bit socially awkward, but he also came up with comebacks really quickly. He repeatedly beat the scary teacher at chess, making the teacher angrier every time. Apparently the teacher, who Harry called Professor Glitter Sparkles, hated losing, and would not stop playing Ron until he beat him. Ron had a blue cloak he sometimes wore randomly, which seemed to be an inside joke and everyone always sniggered when he did so. They had lots of inside jokes, and even the ones Harry tried to explain still made little sense.
Neville, when he arrived, was very pleasant and probably the quietest in the group. He was obsessed with plants and spent lots of time out in the garden of Grimmauld Place, where he had his own greenhouse. Dudley sometimes wondered if he was using it for something else, because he sometimes came back looking all dazed and oddly sprightly. Harry told him that some magical plants could make you feel all funny if you spent too long in their presence.
Draco was quite posh, and was teased mercilessly for it. He hated jam with a passion and he was almost as studious as Hermione. For some reason, he would go bright red and splutter whenever he saw Harry wearing a weird badge that said something about fly-squashers. The scary teacher addressed Draco only as "ferret", which was almost definitely another inside joke.
Daphne was short-tempered and sarcastic, and liked to threaten people. She and Harry would bicker for hours then suddenly unite to verbally destroy someone else. They would also both cry together over a shared bowl of ice cream whenever someone got cross with them. She often seemed bemused by Harry's antics and just sort of let him drag her around to do whatever it was that Harry wanted to do, whereas if anyone else tried that she hexed them. Dudley thought it was illegal to use magic outside of school, but apparently they could in the house without detection.
Astoria was very similar to her sister, but when Dudley pointed it out he got donkey ears and green skin for it, so he never said it again.
Ginny Weasley was the youngest and possibly the scariest Weasley, especially in the mornings. She didn't lie in for as long as Ron, but she woke up extremely grumpy and no one spoke to her until she'd had her coffee. If they did, they found their room full of walking and talking gnomes. She had a stash of them hidden somewhere, and Susan told him Kreacher definitely had something to do with it. Apparently Kreacher liked Ginny almost as much as Susan and Harry. Harry seemed to delight in removing something called "people points" from Ginny at every given opportunity.
Luna was airy and eccentric, and Harry treated her like she was his little sister. The two would talk what appeared to be nonsense for hours, and if anyone ever mentioned the future they would look at her as if she had all the answers. It was funny, because sometimes Ron would have said the exact same thing as Luna, but no-one would believe him until Luna confirmed whatever it was they were discussing. Dudley enjoyed her company, as she reminded him a bit of Dobby. Once he learned her language, he found it quite easy to communicate with her.
Susan was witty and very outgoing, but also very stubborn. She was apparently plotting to take over the nation, which no-one seemed to doubt she would achieve with ease. Shannon spent most her time with Susan, when Susan wasn't with Harry who knows where. Susan was also extremely close with the house-elves, and they clearly adored her. Dudley knew Harry was jealous, especially as Dobby had told Harry outright that Dudley and Susan were his favourites. Kreacher never said anything of the sort, but he was much nicer to Susan than to anyone else. The third elf Dudley didn't see much, but when he did she always seemed to be crying. That elf spent a lot of time with Mrs Weasley and Kreacher.
Mrs Weasley was both very motherly and very scary, and Mr Weasley would ask lots of odd questions about Dudley's very normal life and world. In return, Dudley got to ask odd questions about the magical world. Mr Weasley and Harry seemed to have a weird obsession with rubber ducks, which even the scary teacher didn't comment on, even when they were mentioned at least six times a day. Harry's ex-convict godfather was clearly off his rocker, just like Harry. He, Harry and the twins would prank each other mercilessly. Well, they pranked everyone to be fair, except for the the scary teacher and the strict teacher who was also apparently a cat. Dudley thought the biscuit tin might have something to do with it, as she often patted it fondly. Susan seemed to enjoy initiating prank wars by using the house elves to target one of the four pranksters, and then watching as they blamed each other and got revenge.
Remus was quiet and friendly and Narcissa Malfoy was polite but intimidating. Tonks was funny, could change her appearance at will, and her mother was also intimidating and definitely related to Narcissa. The older two Weasleys were welcoming enough, and Dudley got on extremely well with the twins.
All in all, Harry's family and friends were the weirdest people Dudley had ever met, but also some of the nicest.
He was a bit disappointed when Harry had to leave, but then the twins had offered for him and Shannon to move into their two spare rooms once they had finished college, which made things much easier. They lived near another restaurant in the chain Shannon and Dudley worked for, and with Diagon Alley being in London, they would be very close to some of the top Universities.
It did mean they were slightly exposed to the war, but apparently Harry and his group of friends had a top-secret master plan, so he wasn't super worried.
Dudley didn't tell his parents where he was moving to. In fact, he didn't really tell them anything at all.