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A New Beginning.

By Jon08



Rating: K+ I think, slight bad language by Dudley.



Disclaimer: I have no rights to these characters, they being the sole property of JK Rowling and am making no money from said story.





I have always thought that a lot is left out of the books about Dudley. What did he see when the dementors attacked him? Why did he put that cup of tea out for Harry? Did he try to change himself because of it?



Chapter 13



On Monday after school, I collected my photographs and paid 12 Sickles. I was eager to see the first wizard photos I'd taken and the results, so I was looking at them as Iwalked home. As I walked in the front door, I hastily struggled to hide the photos in my backpack, but was too slow.



"What are you hiding Dudley?" Mum asked.



"Er... nothing. Just some pictures I took of the university."



"Not now Mum, I've got homework to do."



"Well, just let me look at them and you go start on your homework."



"No it's ok Mum, I'll show you later." At least I could get upstairs and remove the wizard photos.



"I am quite capable of looking at some pictures on my own. You can explain some of them to me later," with that she took the packet from my hand. "I'll call you later for tea. Now go mad do your homework. I want you to pass those exams."



I looked back at her and headed slowly up the stairs. Ok, I'd find out her attitude to magic soon enough, either she'd flip her lid and perhaps throw me out, or... Ireally didn't know what else could happen...



I retrieved my phone from the backpack and dialled Justin. "Justin it's Dudley, I may be in trouble!"



"Why? What's happened? What have you done?"



"You know I went to see Bristol to see that university, well the second day was playing tourist of a sort. I took the Knight Bus to Godric's Hollow and with the help of the driver; Ernie took some wizard photos of the area. Mum saw me looking at them and she's got them now. I have no idea how she's going to react. I may find myself homeless."



"Surely it won't be that bad? You think she's been listening in on Potterwatch sometimes. So she can't be that bad?"



"Problem is, I think Dad is also home, and if he see's those wizard shot's, it's out on my ass. His attitude is still the same. I don't think a day has past when he's not ranted about 'ruddy freaks' and their 'unnatural ways'. If he gets hold of them, well I might not make it out of here alive."



"You really think that, you want me to come round?"



"You can't, remember the Fidelius charm. You don't know my address or how to get here."



"I'll catch a taxi, I'm coming round and I'm bringing my wand."



"Ok, but keep your wand out of sight unless necessary, I don't want any trouble if we don't need it. Just say we are going to help each other revise. That'll be believable. See you shortly." I sat in the bedroom looking despondently out the window, hoping that Justin would arrive before the trouble began.



A taxi pulled up outside and Justin got out and paid. I ran to the stairs, but Dad had answered the door before me. "Hello Mr. Dursley, I'm here to revise with Dudley."



"He's upstairs." Dad said moving aside to admit Justin. "Dudley, it's Justin!" he called up.



"Thanks' Dad! Just come up Justin." Justin came up the stairs and we went to my room and closed the door behind us.



"No extreme reaction from your Dad, so I imagine either your mother either hasn't found the offending pictures yet. Or not told him if she has."



There was a knock on the door,"Dudley can we talk about something?" She sounded like she was trying to hold back tears. I looked at Justin; he had his wand in his hand. I opened the door slightly; her eyes looked a little red, as if she'd been crying to herself. I opened the door wider to let her in. No getting out of this I needed to know. Mum entered the room and noticed Justin there with his wand pointing at her. She swallowed loudly, "Hello Justin, I see you've been keeping secrets from us like Dudley. Dudley, how long have you known that Justin was a wizard?"



That sounded encouraging, no outcry, just a little shocked. "Since the second time I saw him. He saw me reading the 'Daily Prophet' and asked me if I was a wizard too!"



"What's the Daily Profit?"



"It's Prophet, as in prophecy and it's a wizard newspaper."



"How long have you been reading newspapers and where have you bought a wizard one?"



"From the newsagent's. They're in plain sight if you look properly." Justin reached into his bag, rummaged around and from the bottom, pulled out his copy of today's paper. Handing it quietly to Mum.



She looked at the 'foreign language' paper in her hands. "What language is this in? I didn't know you spoke any foreign languages?" I removed the wand from my pocket and handed it to Mum, nodding to the paper. With the wand in her hand, she looked at the paper again. "Oh!" she dropped the paper on the floor, her face going white.



"Mum, you need to read this, it's family news."



'The Boy Who Lived 2. You Know Who 0.'



'If you haven't heard the news, what rock have you been hiding under for the last two days? Once again, the worst criminal in our world is DEAD, defeated by Harry Potter in the early hours of Saturday morning. After a devastating battle in which the Hogwarts staff, older students and member's of 'the Order of The Phoenix' battled Death Eaters, Giants, Werewolves and Dementors, the final battle took place as a duel between Harry Potter and You Know Who.

The fact that Harry Potter had survived came as a surprise to everyone present at the battle as previously 'He Who Must Not Be Named' had claimed to have killed him attempting to flee the school. He had called all the staff and pupils forward to witness his triumph. Hagrid, the half giant friend of Harry was carrying what appeared to be Harry's Body in his arms. Neville Longbottom a long time friend of Harry charged the Death Eater ranks and was stunned by a curse. He was put in a body bind curse, and had the Hogwarts sorting hat forced upon his head to change his house allegiance, from Gryffindor to Slytherin. in a display of Gryffindor like bravery he pulled the sword of Godric Gryffindor from the sorting hat and cut the head off 'You Know Who's' snake familiar.

Battle was joined again between Death Eaters and what some sources have come to be calling 'Dumbledore's Army'. It seemed as if everyone was under some kind of magical protection, the spells of the Death Eaters, even down to the killing curse would not work on their opponents.

All fighting on both sides stopped though when a familiar voice cast a shield charm and suddenly there was Harry Potter shedding his invisibility cloak. He challenged 'You Know Who' to a duel tormenting him by using his old Muggle birth name of Tom Riddle. In athrilling display of wand work, Harry potter triumphed, disarming 'You Know Who'whilst he was casting the Killing Curse which rebounded and killed 'You Know Who'.

In a later interview 'The Boy Who Lived' said that he owed his victory to several others, including Albus Dumbledore, Hermione Granger, Ronald Weasley and surprisingly Severus Snape...'



Mum dropped the paper as if bitten. "Mum! What's wrong?"



"How was he? He... that fellow Snape involved? I remember that awful boy from when we were children. It was him who first took Lily from me."



This was news to me. Mum had never mentioned knowing any wizards before. Justin had a perplexed look on his face as well; he couldn't understand what connection there could be between my Mum and professor Snape. From what he had told me, Snape had been one of the most prejudiced teachers at the school. "Tell me how you know him Mum."



"It was when my sister, Lily, was about 10; we were playing in a park. Lily was swinging higher and higher, I know now that it was her magic manifesting, but then it was frightening. A strange boy who lived in the rougher area of town told her she was a witch and they started to become friends, talking about Hogwarts and magic and how Lily was a witch. One day I called her a freak when he had caused a tree branch to fall on me. I don't think I ever spoke to Lily properly after that. I always called her 'freak' and tormented her about her difference. At the end of her 6th year, she came home from school and never mentioned Severus Snape again. Our parents were a little pleased about that, they'd never been particularly enamoured of him, he was a little creepy and came from the worst part of the town. After Lily's last year she was all for James Potter, married him and moved away. I refused to go to the wedding, I was invited. I was also told about Harry's birth, but I threw the letter away. Then one day, Harry was on my doorstep with aletter from Dumbledore. He was all I had of Lily. I hated him because he reminded me of her, but at the same time he was all I had left of her. I was angry that she'd been killed and just forgotten and Harry had just been dumped on us." She sniffed, and let out a long sigh. "I couldn't forgive the wizard world for that, but I knew you were getting information from that radio. I saw it one day in your room and realised it had to be magical. No tuning dial, no aerial. So I listened in sometimes, and today I saw your photos! Where did you go to get them? I never knew where Lily and James lived! I never knew there was a memorial to them,"she sniffed again, "or that the magic world even cared."



"Mum, I think you should finish reading the article. You might learn some more..."



'Snape, a man he accused last year of the murder of Albus Dumbledore, his predecessor as Head of Hogwarts. It is his contention that this murder was what he says is called 'a mercy killing' by muggle authorities, but still looked on as murder. Dumbledore was dying from a curse and knew he would die within the year, he made Snape promise to kill him as an act of mercy rather than allow a fellow student of Harry Potter commit an act of murder.



Potter further claims he has proof in the memories of Snape that one of the reasons that he became Head of Hogwarts was to protect the students. Madame Pomfrey, school healer also stated that on several occasions Snape had given her potions to help students that had been badly injured in detentions with the Carrows, although Snape told her to keep quiet about this at the time.



Potter stated that Snape had arranged for him to find the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, when it was most needed in the quest to destroy 'You Know Who.' 'He led me to it using aPatronus, which was a doe, the same as my mother's had been. He had loved her quietly all his life.' Potter also stated he would be trying to get a posthumous Order of Merlin for his old potions master.'



Mum looked hard at me. "When did you start wanting to know more about Harry and Magic? You always used to follow mine and your Dad's lead in your attitude towards him."



"When he saved my life from those dementors. I saw what I had been like, abully, a terrible cousin to him. We should have been best friends, and you told me he was worthless, a freak. I believed you. That experience made me start to question everything you had told me. I realised that Harry was a better person than me. If it had been the other way around and I was the one who could have saved his life at that point, I would have run away."



Mum looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time. "I never knew you felt like that. Although I was proud of you when you told Harry he wasn't a waste of space."



"Mum, there's more to it than that. I've been trying to get in touch with Harry for months now. I sent him a birthday card, a late one Iknow, but I tried to apologise to him. I don't think he got it though. I also asked some friends of his from school to talk to him when they went back, but he didn't return in September. All this year, he's been risking his life on some brave quest to finally avenge Aunt Lily and Uncle James and we've been hiding here. Safe and sound. When we're finally allowed to go home I want to try and find him, I want to say I'm sorry. I'm going to try and be the cousin I should have been all our lives."



"Petunia, dinner's burning!" came a bellow from downstairs.



"Coming Vernon," she called back down the stairs. "Justin would you like to join us for tea, just hide your wand and don't mention magic to Vernon!Dudley hide those wizard photos but bring the rest down with you!" With that she went downstairs to salvage the dinner.



Justin quickly put his wand away in his bag. "Well that wasn't the reaction you were expecting!"



"No, but at least I know her feelings about it. Dad's never going to change though. There isn't a single day that goes by when he doesn't complain about the bloody freaks and all the inconvenience that they've put us through. He can't seem to see that we deserved to have been left to the mercy of the Death Eaters. I know if I'd been treated like he had all his life, I wouldn't have cared what happened to us."



"Dudley, Justin, dinner!" called Mum from the bottom of the stairs. We slowly went down to dinner.



Dad gave me a fierce look over his moustache, "just what you been saying to upset your mother. You've not become involved with any of these bloody freaks have you?"



"Now. Now Vernon, nothing of the kind." She looked at me as if to say, let me deal with this. "I was just all emotional over some photographs Dudley took. Photos of a university he could be going to. Our little boy is growing up. He'll soon be going into the world on his own. Dudley show your father the pictures of the campus." I handed the photos to Dad as we sat down.



Conversation over dinner was nonexistent as Mum looked apprehensively at me about the photos, obviously hoping I'd removed the wizard ones. Dad was shuffling through the pictures, sometimes frowning, sometimes looking impressed. It was hard to judge what he was thinking about.



As Mum began clearing away after dinner, dad looked at me. "Nice enough place Dudley, but don't think much of the student accommodation. It's a bit small. You might want to let us help you with that. Can't have our young man in such basic conditions, eh. I mean I want my successor to Grunnings to have the best at university."



I looked at Dad, I still hadn't told him about my choices in this matter and now wasn't the time, I definitely wasn't going to work for him at Grunnings. But I decided to put one point forward. "No Dad, I don't want any help from you in that way. I want to experience the whole of university life, including the accommodation. I want to be a normal student. If I'm living somewhere else I'll miss out on the interaction with other students. Making new friends is all part of the process. I've learnt that here. I've made friends with Justin and some others even met a girl I like. I don't want to miss out on that at university."



"Who's the girl Dudley? Is it that Lisa who's been here acouple of times with you and Justin? Not sure I approve. Doesn't seem our sort, if you know what I mean?"



"No Dad, I don't, Lisa is a perfectly nice girl, attends our school. Her brother, Richard, is apolice officer at Tintagel police station."



"Oh! Police in the family, good that. Always pays to have the police on your side."



"I wouldn't count on that Dad; she threatened to have me arrested if I wasn't the perfect gentleman to her. Of course I have been, but the threat was there."



"I should bloody well hope you have been the perfect gentleman. Always brought you up to be."



Justin and I made our excuses and left the table to continue 'our revision. Justin sat back down in my room. "Your Dad definitely still prejudiced then. What are your plans anyway? I know you want to go into social work and I can understand your reasons why. But how will you break that news and your reasons to him."



"Don't know yet, haven't worked those details out. There was a knock at the door, "come in!" Mum came in with some juice and acouple of glasses.



"I thought you might like this while you revise; tell me Dudley how did you get to this village where the monument is to Lily?"



"I took the Knight Bus from Bristol."



"Night bus, you mean you went overnight?"



"No! K-night Bus Mum, as in knight in shining armour. Do you have that card that we were given when we first arrived?"



"I'll go and get it." She quickly left the room and came back with a plate of biscuits. She took the card from a pocket in her dress and handed it to me. I handed it to Justin, who took his wand from his bag and made a few passes over it with his wand and handed it back to Mum. She looked at me with a puzzled expression.



"Have you ever noticed anything odd when you've been using that card to pay for groceries or get money from the cash machines?"



"Well I did wonder that I was never asked to enter anumber, but I assumed that was because it was a new type of card. I've never seen one like it before. I've never been asked to sign anything either in the shops."



"That's because of magic Mum. If you hold the card in your hand it show's you things hidden by magic. The local newsagent stocks the Daily Prophet newspaper, but all you probably noticed is aforeign language paper. The local library has an entire selection of magical books and periodicals, but you need to be holding the card to see everything. If you would like to go to Godric's Hollow I'll make some enquiries about cost and get back to you tomorrow."



"Thank you Dudley, I would like that." She left, leaving Justin and I alone in the room.







Please review. I thoroughly enjoy reading your reviews of my story and I hope you continue to enjoy it. This chapter just seemed to happen. Dudley picked up the photos and well everyone knows how inquisitive mothers are. I'll update as quickly as Ican.