Dudley shows his backbone
Chapter two
Dudley was fucked off. He was finished with his parents, finished with this humiliating facade of being an innocent little boy, finished with Harry's abuse at the hands of his parents. He was leaving and he was taking Harry with him. Harry was broken and Dudley was going to fix him, no matter what it took. He owed his cousin that much at least. Dudley kept up the 'Mommy's Little Angel' façade for one more day. Doing what he usually did to convince the monsters who called themselves his parents that nothing was out of place.
He convinced them to go out to dinner, though it didn't take much effort. His whale of a father had his shoes and coat on as soon as the suggestion had passed through Dudley's lips. The boy rejoiced at how easily his plan was falling into place, but he almost lost his cool when his father called back to him nonchalantly on his way out the door.
"Oh Dudley, the freak didn't get his lesson today, give it to him while we're out won't you? There's a good boy" the whale of a man told his son as casually as asking the boy to tape a football match.
Dudley was glad that Vernon hadn't waited for an answer before closing the door. If he had expected Dudley to reply to that command then the boy wouldn't have been able to keep his mask up.
The very moment the car turned the corner at the end of the street, Dudley ran to the cupboard under the stairs. He threw the door open and retched at the stench emanating from the small room. Sweat, blood and fear. He spotted the small bundle of rags, skin and bones that was his cousin and carefully scooped Harry up, gently cradling the younger boy his chest.
Dudley carried his cousin to the living room and laid him out on the sofa. He paused to take in Harry's appearance. Harry Potter was out cold, slumped over limply on the cushions. Malnourishment had taken whatever little body fat the boy had and he was left as easily mistakable for a corpse. He was pale and sickly looking with not even the slightest tinge of colour on his cheeks.
Dudley gasped as he saw the full extent of his father's sick abuse. Swears and profanities were carved into Harry's flesh, permanently scarring him. 'FREAK', 'WORTHLESS', 'FAGGOT' and 'WHORE' were but a few of the cruel words scattered all over Harry's body.
His father was too cruel to leave too much of Harry unscarred, in fact, the only areas left unmarked were those that could be seen clearly like his face and arms. He sighed and whispered to the sleeping Harry that he would be right back.
Vernon still believed that Dudley was on his side, hating the freak and punishing him as Vernon did. He was too stupid to notice that Dudley's 'beatings' never left marks.
Every time Dudley went to 'punish' Harry he was, in fact, helping him. Dudley always brought food that the poor boy could never keep down and did his best to treat Harry's wounds. His lack of knowledge on how to heal his friend aggravated him but he knew that it would be hard for Shadow, the gang's healer, to get in undetected and he couldn't risk being found out. It was safer for Harry to live with the injuries for a little while longer than die because Vernon found someone trying to heal him.
But then Vernon had told him something that Dudley just couldn't stand by and watch happen. The brute had been raping Harry, and worse still, he expected Dudley to do the same. He kept going on about it. How tight Harry was and how good it felt. As soon as the man had left the room, Dudley had been sick all over his bedroom floor.
Dudley reached his door, he didn't realise he'd been walking. He shrugged and continued into his room, pulling out a sports bag and packing anything of value. Money and weapons mainly, along with some clothes for both himself and Harry. He stopped outside his cousin's old room, before he had been put back in the cupboard.
He knew that Harry had not had time to take anything from his room before he was put back in the cupboard. He also knew his father wouldn't have touched any of it with a ten foot pole after he'd burned anything laying about that seemed important to Harry, lest Harry's 'freakishness' be contagious. Looking at his half empty bag, Dudley shrugged and entered Harry's room.
He looked around, his old broken toys littered the ground and unread books sat on the shelves coated with dust. He walked further into the room. Just as he reached Harry's bed, a floorboard creaked beneath his feet. Curious, none of the others did that. He pried the loose board from the floor and smirked, Harry was sneaky.
Inside the little cavern of space was a hidden treasure trove that his father had been unable to find. Sweets, cigarettes, alcohol and spell books. He studied the books more carefully, not all of them seemed to be school books, there were titles like, "Defence Against The Dark Arts: Year Five" and "Plants In Potions: How Herbology Can Be Used", which seemed normal for a wizarding school, well to Dudley anyway.
But then there were titles like, "How to Achieve Telepathic Conversations", "How to Appear Innocent, Even When Caught Red Handed", "Shadows Are the Key: A Beginners Guide on Travelling through Darkness" and "Dead and Gone? How to Raise an Army of the Dead". Dudley would've read on but there were too many books and too little time.
Dudley lifted them all out and packed them along with the sweets, cigarettes and alcohol. He was about to cover the hole again when something caught his eye. The tip of what appeared to be a stick protruding from nowhere. Dudley was puzzled about one thing, he already knew that the stick was Harry's wand, but, where was the rest of it? And hadn't Vernon burned it?
He reached into the hole to retrieve the tip of Harry's wand, hoping that it would at least bring comfort to the boy. He gasped in shock when his fingers came into contact with some sort of silky material, but when he looked into the hole there was nothing there.
Dudley frowned, he could feel it; he knew it was there, but he couldn't see it. He got a firm grip on the strange material and pulled, it came out easily and Dudley did his best to fold it and put it in his bag.
He looked back into the hole and saw that more things had appeared. Harry's wand was now complete so he packed it, deducing that his father had destroyed a decoy. The hole also housed a piece of that weird paper that Harry used. Dudley unfolded it, but it was blank, he decided it must be important because Harry had hidden it so well and so he put it into the bag. There was one more thing in the hole, a small, black, leather bound book; a large portion of which seemed to be subtly repaired.
Dudley flipped through it and found them all to have the same fault line as the cover, it was as if it had been run through with something, each page was blank except the first which said: "The Diary of Tom Marvalo Riddle." in large, looping handwriting, clearly not the scrawl of his cousin. He packed it. He checked to make sure that the hole was empty; he even felt around to make sure nothing else was invisible.
When he was sure that it was empty he stood and looked around Harry's room for what could be the last time. He started walking back to the living room, but as he passed his parents' room a thought struck him, why not leave his father a little goodbye present?
Dudley smirked and sprinted down the stairs, dumped his bag near the door and ran to the garage. He picked up a can of red spray paint his father used to touch up his car after the paint chipped while he was slamming the door on Harry's head.
He planned his gift as he ran to his parents' room. He finished about ten minutes later and stepped back to admire his work.
Everything in the room was sprayed with the words, 'FREAK', 'WORTHLESS', 'FAGGOT' and 'STUPID'. The same words scarring Harry. After some thought Dudley added two more words, 'MONSTER' and 'RAPIST'.
He sprayed his signature on his father's pillow then turned to a cupboard at his father's bedside, he opened it and entered the combination to the safe concealed inside. He took all of the money telling himself that it was a tiny portion of the compensation Harry deserved. He stuffed the money into his pockets for now then he turned and left. He was rather preoccupied trying to work out how long he and Harry had until his parents returned.
He checked his watch and saw that they had been gone for two hours, with the amount his father ate accompanied by the fact that his mother would demand that they get all the courses available, lest they look cheap to all the other diners (who were all obviously watching them like hawks), they wouldn't be back for another hour and a half at least.
He entered the living room and found the sofa that he put Harry on was empty. He felt a slight panic pool in the pit of his stomach; he calmed himself down and went looking for him. He didn't have to look long before he found his cousin.
Harry was sitting on a kitchen counter, swinging his battered legs and eating a slice of toast. He looked up when Dudley entered the room and as he smiled a shit eating grin he simply said,
"I like toast!" then continued eating.
Dudley chuckled at his cousin's child like nature and jumped up beside him. He may as well let Harry enjoy his toast; it would probably be coming back up soon enough. He was amazed at the other boy's strength. Less than an hour ago he had been passed out on he sofa, yet he had managed to drag himself to the kitchen and make toast.
Harry decided to start a conversation between bites. "So" he said "where are we going to go?"
Dudley thought for a second and answered "I think it's about time you met the whole gang".
Harry dropped his toast and looked at Dudley with excitement shining in his eyes.
"Really?" he asked.
Dudley smiled; he had already considered Harry a member of the gang even though he had never met most of them in person. Dudley nodded in confirmation and was engulfed in a surprisingly tight hug from Harry.
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" Harry repeated this so fast that Dudley could barley understand him.
Dudley called Harry's name multiple times before Harry looked up at him with his big green doe eyes, rimmed with blood and bruises. He frowned and looked at Harry's clothes. Vernon and Petunia had taken any clothes that had actually fit Harry and sold them, forcing Harry to once again wear Dudley's oversized clothes, though not before the couple had slashed them into rags.
Dudley had been slowly sneaking clothes home for Harry. In the two weeks that Harry had been home, Dudley had gotten him at least three sets of clothes which he hoped would actually fit the undersized teen. Dudley frowned and Harry noticed that his cousin's gaze was directed at his attire.
"I can't meet them looking like this!" wailed the smaller teen from his place in Dudley's arms.
Dudley chuckled.
"I don't see the amusing part of this! I can't meet your gang looking like I just walked in off of the streets!" Harry wailed again. Dudley smiled and told him about the clothes.
Harry immediately had tears in his eyes and wrapped his arms tighter around his cousin's waist.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Dudley asked. Harry sniffed and looked up at Dudley, emerald eyes shining,
"No one has ever bought me clothes before, I always transfigured my own".
Dudley decided not to ask what 'transfigure' meant and instead held Harry until his tears stopped.
"Come on; let's go get your clothes then we can leave". Harry beamed at him and followed him to Dudley's room.
He gasped when he saw the clothes laid on Dudley's bed. Harry could tell which set were for Dudley because they were very large
'Note to self' Harry thought 'look up weight loss spells',
For Dudley there was a t-shirt with a ribcage at the front and, upon closer inspection, a pair of bony angel's wings on the back, a pair of baggy jeans adorned with chains and some black trainers that he had drawn on with a marker.
Harry saw his own outfit and had to restrain himself from running to it. He had a white tee shirt with 'Angel (in training)' written on the front in Dudley's handwriting, a pair of bright green skinny jeans and a pair of black, knee high, lace up boots.
Harry got changed as quickly as his various injuries would allow and bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, humming hoarsely to himself whilst Dudley changed. Harry was grateful for his new clothes, but they hung off of his skeletal frame. The wide collar of his T-shirt slipped down his shoulder every few minutes. Dudley peeked at the boy every so often as he changed, worried that Harry would collapse again at any moment. As soon as he was ready, Dudley showed Harry his parting gift to Vernon.
Harry did something not very befitting of a Gryffindor, he sneered and spat on his uncle's pillow then signed his name beside Dudley's with the spray paint. Harry checked his old bedroom over for anything left behind and then, they left. Left Privet Drive, left Surrey and walked into the night.
It didn't take long for Harry to remember that the Ministry couldn't monitor him anymore; they thought they could, but that tracing spell was a fake. He had removed the actual tracing charm and replaced it with a duplicate that did not work properly.
Harry had discovered how to remove a tracing spell and replace it with the duplicate in one of the dark books he had ordered by owl from Malum and Poena's Emporium of the Dark Arts in Knockturn Alley just before he left Hogwarts for the summer.
Once he remembered that he could, in fact, do magic, he stood at the roadside and flung out his wand arm. Dudley thought that his cousin had finally gone mad, that is until the biggest bus Dudley had ever seen came careening around the corner. Not only was it large, Dudley noted, but it had three floors and was a violent purple colour.
Harry noticed his cousin gawping and smirked.
"It's called the Knight Bus" he said just as it came to a screeching halt in front of them.
"Well", said Dudley "if it doesn't quiet down, then it's going to wake the whole street!"
Harry laughed
"No it won't" he replied. "Non- magical people can't see or hear it at all".
"Right you are Mr. Potter!" said a pockmarked young man from inside the monstrous contraption with a smile.
"We are completely incognito" he continued, speaking more to Dudley. "I am Stan Shunpike, your conductor for tonight, I will be-" Stan paused, casting a glance at Dudley, and then turning to Harry.
"Is this young man magical, Mr. Potter?" he enquired.
Harry frowned
"No" he replied, slightly confused as to where Stan was heading with this.
"Well then", Stan said "how can he see the Knight Bus?" Harry opened his mouth, then closed it again, then opened it, then closed it and shrugged.
"I don't know" he said honestly. They both turned to look at Dudley who looked just as confused as they were.
Stan shrugged and said "some questions are best left unanswered. But if you do find the answer, I would be privileged to hear it".
Harry assured him that if the question was answered, then Stan would be the first to know.
They boarded the bus paying for beds and hot chocolate, foregoing the toothbrush. When Stan asked them where they needed to be taken, Harry shrugged and looked at Dudley, who rattled off an address in Muggle London.
"London?" Harry asked, "How on earth do you get to London and back, without being caught?" Dudley smiled
"Easy", he replied, "you simply tell mummy" he sneered the title, "that you want to buy her something special with your pocket money, she'll buy it like a shot, not care how long you're away and even give you more money!" he flashed a grin and pulled a huge wad of cash from his pocket.
Harry laughed at his aunt's stupidity,
"But," he asked, "What happens when you come back without anything and no change?"
"Simple, you ruin your clothes a little and tell her you got mugged" Dudley said, "which also results in her feeling guilty for being the reason you were out, which results in more money, dumb bitch". They both burst into riotous laughter, until an old lady with a stuffed bird perched on her head shushed them, at which point they subsided into quiet giggle fits.
By the time they reached their stop an hour later, Harry was fast asleep. Dudley regretfully shook the battered boy awake as gently as he could. Before leaving the bus Harry had a quick word with Stan.
"We were never here and you didn't see us" he insisted, subtly slipping the older boy a bag of galleons.
Stan nodded and with that Harry followed Dudley across the street, down an alley and into an old, rundown looking building with a large metal door. Dudley, in typical Dudley fashion, swaggered up to the door and knocked three times. A slit in the door that Harry hadn't noticed before opened up to reveal a pair of hard blue eyes. Those eyes widened when they saw Dudley and their owner hastened to open the door. As soon as the door was open, Harry could see that the building, although run down and empty looking from outside, was, in fact, a nightclub. Harry smirked slightly at the pounding music and gyrating bodies crowding the dance floor.
'I think I'm going to like it here' Harry thought to himself.
….
Meanwhile, Arthur Wesley's Muggle obsession was still in full force.
Upon learning that his modified Muggle car had actually worked, Arthur had placed an undetectable expansion charm on the interior of the garden shed and continued to mess about with muggle objects.
He had already made a television that automatically turned on if anything of interest to you was being shown, a fairytale book that, instead of having the story printed had small dolls act it out, and a rubber duck, for bathing.
He had more than enough money for all of his experiments. After all, he had Ron and Ginny watching Harry Potter and reporting back to Dumbledore, and he was paid handsomely for their work. The youngest Weasleys didn't complain about any of this. They had each been promised something of their own. Ron would receive fame and Ginny would get Harry, with whom she was desperately in love.
Arthur had no plans to tell the rest of his family about the money.
The twins were like Potter's bodyguards and big brothers, they protected him from anything they deemed a threat. Molly thought of herself as the boy's second mother and fussed over everything to do with him. Percy was forever shredding evidence against Potter at the ministry and listening out for any plots against him and Bill and Charlie, although they barely knew the child, were also very protective of him.
He had told himself that it was for their own good. They would feel so guilty if they knew members of their family were using Potter. It was for the greater good.
Arthur Weasley's thoughts were beginning to sound quite a lot like Albus Dumbledore's.
…..
Hermione Granger was in a bad area of London.
She had been shopping with her parents when they had gotten separated. She had stopped to look at a skirt in a window display and had been swept away from her parents by the bustling London crowds.
Hermione's brain was a very crowded place. She had several internal voices which conflicted on a regular basis. So often in fact, that she had named them.
There was a rather dominant part; this was the brave and stubborn side which she called her Gryffindor side. There was her brainy side, slightly smaller and less dominant than the first. She called this one her Ravenclaw side. There was her Slytherin side. Small, but still there. It made her sly and pompous and spurred her on when she had punched Draco Malfoy. There was her light side which was getting smaller every day as she witnessed the stupidity of the Order of the Pheonix as they blindly followed Dumbledore. Hermione thought of herself as firmly in the grey. Not caring who won the war and siding with nobody.
It was her Ravenclaw side which realised that she was being followed. Ravenclaw told her to work out a plan which would end with nobody getting hurt. Gryffindor however, was telling her to turn around, pull out her wand and put whoever was following her in the hospital. Slytherin was whispering dark curses in her mind to accompany Gryffindor's plan and the muggle in her wanted her to run as fast and as far as she could.
In the end she followed the muggle train of thought and bolted down the street. She couldn't concentrate with her head giving her so many suggestions, she didn't notice when one of her pursuers pulled out a gun. She did notice however, when a bullet lodged into her leg.
She fell to the floor with an agonised scream and looked behind her. She had rounded a corner just before she was hit and couldn't see her attackers. She almost screamed again when she felt a pair of hands close in an iron grip around her upper arm. But she didn't scream, because when she looked up she saw a pair of startling green eyes, bright enough to startle her into silence.
Hermione's captor dragged her quickly into an alley and hauled her to her feet, but made sure to keep her weight off of her injured leg. She broke eye contact and the spell she seemed to be under which was keeping her quiet. Her scream was silenced by a gentle hand.
"Be quiet!" her captor hissed, "'Mione if you don't be quiet then they'll find us!"
Wait a moment, Hermione knew that voice.
As soon as she recognised his voice she relaxed and her captor let her go. He quickly had to catch her again however, when her knees gave out. He lowered her onto the ground and stood at the opening of the alleyway.
The men who had been chasing Hermione ran past the opening and on down the street. Her captor stepped into the street and called out to them
"OI!" he screamed at them
Hermione didn't pay attention to the conversation. She was in shock at her captor's appearance. He had changed quite a bit since she had last seen him.
He had gotten a few inches taller, now just shy of six feet. And he was pale, really pale, unnaturally so even, but somehow he didn't look sickly. His hair had grown extremely long and had been streaked with a spectrum of colours. His style seemed different, very different. He was wearing black, torn skinny jeans and a tight T-shirt with the name of a popular muggle band printed across his chest.
Hermione looked at her own outfit, a white top that she had slashed at the back and right jeans, she had changed a bit too.
Hermione was pulled out of her thoughts when three gunshots sounded. She jumped and looked up to see her captor standing over her pursuers with a gun. The three men weren't moving. Hermione hobbled slowly across the street and into the arms of her captor.
Harry chuckled, "I missed you too Mione" he told her