A Father's Worries
Daisy had been attending Hogwarts for some time now and Dudley was glad that his daughter sounded so happy in her letters home.
It took the Dursley family some time to get used to letters arriving by owl post. Especially his wife Diane did get a fright each time a bird flew through a window or pecked on the kitchen door.
Dudley had grown very fond of his daughter’s owl and, looking back, sympathised with young Harry.
He distinctly remembered the many fights Harry had with his Dad about keeping ‘that ruddy bird‘ locked up in her cage throughout the Summer and now fully understood the hardship that must have been for both Harry and his owl, Hedwig.
Dudley missed his daughter during the school year and especially the first term was difficult for him and Diane.
He also felt sad, when he thinks how much fun he and Harry could have had growing up, if his parents had been more accepting of his magical abilities.
He had looked around Hogwarts in amazement, when Harry brought him to see Daisy on Parents Day.
He had gotten quite emotional seeing his first Quidditch match, not just because his daughter was the new seeker for the Gryffindor team, but because he was given an insight into Harry’s world and his favourite pastime.
When Daisy ‘The Lightning Bolt’ Dursley caught the snitch and secured the win, that was just the icing on the cake.
And now he had another worry.
Young Jimmy, who was two years younger than his sister, did not seem to be displaying any signs of magical abilities so far.
He had discussed it with Harry, but that had not really put his mind at ease.
Harry said that it happens, as of course they knew from experience with his mum and her sister Lily.
It also happened in wizarding families, where you could have kids in a family that did not have magical abilities. In the wizarding world these kids were treated quite badly and were called squibs and were more or less treated like outcasts.
Dudley remembered his mother calling her sister a freak, just before that hairy half-giant gave him his little souvenir for eating Harry’s cake.
In her case that was probably also because of jealousy, but he would not like young Jimmy to turn into his mum.
Jimmy got so excited when Daisy would be home from school and tell him about all the things she had learnt. Of course she was not allowed to show him any magical spells, as she was not allowed to do any magic outside of school.
That last bit she had to run by her father a few times and Dudley did take Harry to task about that afterwards.
All those years Harry had threatened him with his magic wand had all been a bluff?
Harry had simply shrugged and grinned.
‘Hey, you were about the size of a dump truck in those days and you were a bit of a bully when we were young. I had to even the odds somehow.’
They had laughed about it afterwards, but it pained him to think that things could have been so different.
And now he is worried about Jimmy not having magical powers, which is ironic as his mother had been worried about the exact opposite when they took Harry in.
When he went to visit his mother in her care home the other day, the nurses took him aside and said that his mother was getting worse and seemed to be hallucinating a lot lately.
She was talking about a baby left outside her front door in a basket and about her sister, who was playing with a black haired boy in a billowing cape who could make leaves fly in the wind.
Dudley could not tell the nurse that those were some real memories and that she was more lucid when she was talking about her sister-in-law swelling to the size of a hot-air balloon and floating out of the patio doors into the Summer sky, then when she asked for breakfast in the evening.
The nurses told him not to indulge his mother in those fantasies, but Dudley was glad when his mum was talking about all the weird things that happened when Harry lived with them, as he now was able to put all these events into their proper context.
Poor Jimmy, Dudley thought, he would be so disappointed if he would not get his Hogwarts letter, but Dudley was adamant that Jimmy would not turn into his gran.
The lad was quite good at soccer and would love to play for one of the Premier League teams.
Maybe Dudley could look into getting him some extra training and talk to his coach about his prospects.
Draco had said that Jimmy was a natural with computers and that he would be happy to find a place for him in the family business, if the lad was interested in pursuing a career in programming.
So it wasn’t as if there would be no future for him if he had no magical abilities, but Dudley was just worried that it might sour the relationship with his sister if he did not get his Hogwarts letter, the way it had done for his mother and her sister.
When Jimmy was born he had been over the moon and had dreamed of his son following in the family tradition of going to Smeltings Academy, which was a fine school in many respects. Never in a million years would Dudley have thought that one day he would be hoping and praying that his son would be a wizard, so that he could follow in a new family tradition of attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.