It was raining something fierce that night, but Dudley didn't mind. In fact, he was glad of it, since the sound tended to drown out everything else that ran through his head at nights. Even if it was still going on when he had to go out in the morning, it'd be a fair trade for having gotten some shut-eye for once.
He was just about to get into bed when there came a sound at the door, a quick rapping. At first he wasn't sure it really was the door, not at eleven o'clock at night. Then it came again, and there was no question this time: someone was knocking.
Someone must have died, was the thought that came to him then, or rather the feeling that came into his stomach, a low burning weight. By the time it occurred to him that a death would have meant a telephone call, he was already at the door. By the time it would have occurred to him that no one who'd have wanted to call about a death had his number, he'd opened it to find the last person he'd have ever guessed.
"Oh," he said. "Hullo, Harry."
"Hullo, Dudley," said Harry, who aside from being there for some reason, was dripping, no, completely soaking wet, his clothes (ordinary ones, Dudley noticed) clinging to him and his hair plastered down around his head. "Can I come in?"
There was really only one answer to this. Or at least there was only one Dudley could give, after everything.
"Of course," he said.
*
Inside, Harry stayed dripping, though Dudley had more or less expected he'd wave his magic wand and dry off instantly.
"Er," he said, when this didn't seem to be something that was going to happen imminently after all. "There are towels in the bathroom. If you want to. You know."
"That'd be good, thanks," said Harry, and went, along with the suitcase Dudley hadn't noticed before, into the bathroom, and shut the door.
He came back out ten minutes later, more or less dry other than his still damp-looking hair, which was now sticking up in all directions, and with different (and still ordinary) clothes on.
Dudley had never been the quickest, in or since school, but he'd still managed to put enough pieces together to figure out the basic shape of things. No-one showed up at your flat in the middle of the night with a suitcase if they didn't need help. The most obvious kind of help, really the only thing it could be, was needing someplace to stay.
So, because it late, and because it really was obvious, and because otherwise he'd have had to try to find a way to politely and carefully try to figure out what was going on without managing to drive Harry off, Dudley waited until Harry was looking at him, and blurted, "You can have the guest room. If you like."
For a second, Harry looked taken aback. Maybe he'd expected to have to do the polite and careful conversation thing too. In any case, he seemed to relax a little, and said, "Alright. Thanks."
When Harry had disappeared behind the bedroom door, Dudley got himself sorted on the couch, and tried very hard to let the rain lull him to sleep. He didn't have high expectations for that, not now, and he was right: He didn't get a single wink all night.
*
When Dudley heard thumping and rustling from the bedroom, he got up and started on breakfast. Eggs, sausage, toast, hash browns, even flapjacks. By the time Harry came out, the table was covered in a volume of breakfast Dudley could have eaten by himself at twelve years old. Looking at it now made him feel a bit ill, and wonder how even two adults would manage to eat all of it.
When Harry came into the kitchen, he was frowning. Dudley had the sudden sinking feeling he'd better have gone much, much smaller with things. If it brought up bad memories for him, surely for Harry it'd be worse.
But Harry didn't say anything about the mountain of food.
"You don't have a guest room, do you?"
Dudley hadn't thought to put away the blanket and pillow he'd used, but probably it wouldn't have made a difference either way. Harry had always been quicker than him. Anyway, you didn't have to be all that quick to noticed how many doors there were in Dudley's flat, or how there were one too few of them for him to be hiding a second bedroom.
"It's rude, putting guests up on the couch," he managed, though he actually never had guests overnight, and probably would have had anyone else sleep on the couch without a second thought if he had. But no one else had spent years and years sleeping in a tiny cupboard while Dudley had two bedrooms all to himself, either. It wouldn't have mattered for anyone else the way it did when it was Harry. And that meant it wasn't really that much of a lie. "Anyway--I've made up breakfast."
"Really? I hadn't noticed," said Harry drily.
"Help yourself," Dudley added, and couldn't tell whether he was doing well in this conversation, or making a complete bollocks of it.
*
Harry ate, and ate, and ate some more. He ate so much that Dudley, after eating his own egg and hash browns, got back up to start on more flapjacks. It was easier to share the room that way, as it turned out; it let him focus on not burning anything, rather than sitting there trying not to stare at Harry, and trying to think of something to say, and worrying that whatever he tried to say would be--foolish at best, or hurtful at worst, or maybe just offensive, somewhere in-between.
In the end, it was Harry who found something to say. "Don't you have work, or anything?"
"I phoned in sick," Dudley admitted, as he walked the next stack of flapjacks over to the table, then walked some emptied dishes over to the sink. "I didn't know what you'd need. Easier to sort this way."
"Got it," said Harry. "I guess you want to know why I'm here."
Dudley really, really did, but there were enough things that he wasn't going to admit it. "You don't have to tell me. Not if you don't want to." But as soon as he said it, he had second thoughts. "I mean, unless there's another war on. You know, one with wizards and all. I'd want to know that, if there was. There isn't, is there?"
"No, nothing like that." When Dudley glanced at Harry, who'd gone quiet, he found him staring off into the distance. There couldn't have been much to see there, other than the kitchen wallpaper. "It's just. Something's happened, with me, and it--I wanted to be somewhere somewhere else. Needed to be. Truthfully."
"Oh, yeah?"
Dudley couldn't help sounding skeptical. He didn't know much about wizards and magic and all that, but he knew enough to know Harry was a Big Deal as far as the rest of his sort was concerned. He must've had friends he could go to. People he spoke to frequently. Even people he liked. People who weren't a cousin he hadn't seen in a decade, who'd treated him horribly so much of the time. Who'd never managed to reach out, even if he'd often thought about it, wanted to--
"Yeah," said Harry. "And, I was wondering if I could stay a while. Here. With you. If you wouldn't mind?"
"Of course you can," said Dudley.
After all, there wasn't really anything else he could say. Not and live with himself after.
*
Things went back to weird between them a few evenings later.
Harry hadn't protested keeping Dudley's room--or, at least, hadn't protested vigorously or for very long. And, once those few protests were done, he'd mostly stayed in there with the door closed when Dudley was home. Probably he stayed in there most of the time when Dudley was at work, too; or at least the rest of the flat was never arranged differently when Dudley got home, giving the impression no one else had existed in it while he was gone.
So he wasn't expecting it, when he was sitting on the couch watching television after work, for Harry to come sit next to him. It was a little nervewracking, especially since it was hard not to think of all the other times Harry had come to sit with him, back when they were kids. It had been something that happened periodically, not because Harry had liked him or wanted to hang out with him, but because--Dudley still wasn't sure. Of course it had never worked, because Dudley hadn't liked it, and as with anything he hadn't liked, all he'd ever had to do to make it stop was tell lies about something Harry had done, or else kick up a fit to get Harry locked up for the rest of the day.
Then there had been the summer he was sixteen, and Harry had been nearly. That was what Dudley was thinking of now. It had only happened a few times, but they were the only good memories he had of sitting next to Harry.
He wondered if Harry was remembering them, as well. And if he was, what he thought about them now. What he'd thought about them at the time. If he'd really liked it, after all, or if--
Lost in wondering, and remembering, and with half a stiffy from just thinking about what they'd got up to that summer, Dudley had lost the thread of his programme completely by the time Harry shifted so that their thighs brushed together.
It could have been innocent. With anyone else, it would have been innocent. Even with Harry, it might still be.
"Um, Harry," Dudley said. "Do you remember, back when we--"
"Yeah. Yeah, I do," Harry said.
Dudley brushed Harry's leg lightly with his fingers. Down by his knee, at first, then trailing up. Harry didn't object. He didn't ask what Dudley was doing, as he'd done the first time, that summer. He didn't tell Dudley to stop, as he also hadn't done, back then. Soon Dudley's hand was pressed against the bulge at the front of Harry's trousers. Rubbed him there, as Harry's breathing got rougher, the bulge growing larger and harder. Then Harry's hand was on him, too, and a minute after that there was some fumbling until trousers were opened and dicks pulled out, and then they were jerking each other with the same rhythm as each other, maybe even the same one they'd used back then.
It went on until Harry made a low sound, and shot off all over Dudley's hand. Half a minute after that, Dudley was coming, too. Then they were gasping together, next to each other on the couch. Once they'd recovered, Harry eventually got up and went back into his room and closed the door.
Somehow, Dudley slept a little better that night than he had since Harry had arrived.
*
At first, Dudley had stayed civil and careful with Harry, as much as he could. But it turned out to be hard to walk on eggshells for very long. There was a difference between the cousin he remembered hurting and the cousin he had breakfast with every morning, who occupied his bathroom at inconvenient times sometimes, and wanted to swap handies on the couch other times.
After a few weeks, the terror that he might say or do the wrong thing had faded enough for curiosity to make a go of it. He couldn't ask why Harry was here. Not when he'd already promised Harry didn't have to tell him. And asking about the sex wasn't an option, since they'd never talked about it before and talking about it now would probably ruin it (or, worse, make it stop happening). But none of that meant he couldn't ask about other kinds of things.
"Are you still not allowed to use magic outside of magical places?" he asked, on what must have been the twentieth or so breakfast he'd spent waiting for bacon to fly out of the frying pan, or any other strange thing to happen. None of which had. In fact, nothing strange had happened around Harry at all.
"Er, what?"
"Um." Dudley was abruptly struck with the sense that he should have stayed careful instead of venturing into questions. "It's only that you haven't done anything magical since you've been here. Not that I'd noticed, at least. I thought I remembered it being alright now that you're not underage, but maybe I'm wrong?"
"--You weren't wrong," Harry said, in a way that came off very careful indeed.
"Oh. Well. I don't mind if you do use it, while you're here," said Dudley, although the thought of magic still made him nervous, no matter how brilliant it was when he really thought about it. "I wouldn't be...I don't mind."
"I'm allowed to use magic any time I like," Harry said, even more carefully. "I just can't use it right now."
"Oh."
Harry put an empty plate on top of another one, and stacked the silverware on top of them. Just as it seemed he didn't mean to say anything else, he added, "It's--it has to do with why I'm here."
"Oh. Well, you don't have to--"
"I've been meaning to bring it up," Harry said, steamrolling over Dudley as he tried to say that not only was it alright that he hadn't, but it was none of his business besides (no matter how much he really did want to hear about it). "I wasn't trying to leave it this long. It's just that it's been nice for there to be one person who doesn't already know."
Vaguely, Dudley recalled again that Harry was something of a celebrity, in the wizard parts of the world. Less vaguely, he nodded to show he understood. Then, less vaguely yet, he took in Harry's flat tone, and flatter expression, and there really couldn't be all that many things that could make a person look and sound like that.
"You're sick, aren't you?" he asked, miserably. Here he'd thought he was doing a good thing, letting Harry stay here, and instead all he'd been providing was a hole for him to die in. Who'd want to spend their last days in this cruddy flat? He wouldn't. There was no amount of handies that could make up for that. If he were ever to find out he was dying, he'd never come back here. Instead he'd pick a direction, go until he came to somewhere beautiful, and stay there until the end. "How bad is it? How long--how long do you have? Is there anything that can be done?"
By the end of this, Harry was staring right at him for once, with a wide-eyed expression that could have meant anything, mostly because Dudley had never seen him wear it before (or if he had, it had been a long time ago, before he'd thought about Harry as a person, or cared very much about how he looked).
"Er," Harry said. "About five months. I'm not sick, though. Not really. It's just that I'm pregnant."
*
You're having me on," Dudley said, a few minutes later. He was never quick, and in this he was downright slow: slow to work through it, slower yet to react, slowest yet to become actually rather pissed about what Harry was trying to feed him. "Men can't have babies, even if they are magic. That's not the way anything works. You don't have to tell me what's really going on if you don't want, but you don't have to lie, either."
"I'm not lying." Harry said it so firmly it was impossible not to wonder if it could be true after all. Dudley lapsed into a silence that was two parts confusion to one part hurt as Harry went on: "I didn't know it was possible either, until my magic stopped working. Turns out loss of magic is the first thing that happens--for witches and wizards, both. Apparently, using magic after a certain point can splinch the baby. So, most people's bodies shut their magic down until things are safe again."
"What's that?" Dudley asked. "The 's' thing."
"Er. So. When you Apparate--that's moving between one place and another instantly, by magic--you can leave parts of your body behind. Only if you do it wrong, aren't paying attention, that sort of thing. It's called splinching, when that happens. And the same thing can happen if you do any magic while you're pregnant. Only the part of you it mucks with, then, is...it."
"Oh."
"Anyway, it was alright, the first few months. Irritating, obviously, but not--terrible, or anything. Then the Prophet got ahold of it--that's a paper, wizarding one. I haven't gone anywhere since without having reporters after me about it. I couldn't take it anymore. And that's why I came here."
"Oh," said Dudley, for a lack of anything better to say. It was hard to believe, but then again Harry had never been much of a fibber. Not like him. "Alright then."
*
Dudley didn't want to bother Harry with endless questions. Honestly he didn't. Especially not when it turned out Harry was here largely to get away from them. Still, they kept bubbling up inside him, and now that having Harry around felt actually normal, it was very hard indeed to keep a lid on. It was even more difficult now that he'd noticed how Harry was showing: it wasn't obvious when he was in clothes, but it had been clear to Dudley even before that Harry was starting to have less room in his trousers. He'd just thought that it was the enormous breakfasts that were responsible for his growing stomach.
"Who's the dad?" he asked, several weeks later. "Or, I guess, the mum? How does that work, anyway?"
This enquiry caused Harry to stare at him in such a way that Dudley came very close to backtracking altogether. Then he said, "One-night stand. Don't know his name."
From this, Dudley concluded everyone involved must have been quite soused indeed; for Harry didn't seem the type to sleep around enough to forget names (what they did together at nights hardly compared; whatever it was or wasn't, it wasn't the normal sort of thing, and anyway, they did know each other's names). And, since Harry was so famous, then his one-nighter would surely have sold his story to the tabloids by now, unless he hadn't remembered Harry either.
Or maybe he had, and Harry had been too quietly here to have heard about it yet.
"Oh," Dudley said. "Sorry."
"--It's alright," Harry said after a moment. It was the sort of moment that gave the impression he was making sure it really was before he said it. "I don't mind if you ask about--things."
Dudley's ears went a little warm at the idea that it wasn't alright if reporters asked questions, but it was alright if he, Dudley, were the one asking them. He casted about for another thing to ask, since it was alright. "Well. Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Don't know yet. I'm to find out at my next appointment at St Mungo's." And, before Dudley could ask: "That's a wizarding hospital."
"Oh, alright. Are you going to need a lift on the day? I can phone in sick again."
"I've got it sorted, thanks," said Harry, who sometimes had people visit, mostly when Dudley was at work, and must have sorted it through one of them.
"Alright," Dudley said, and had his next question: "Where are you going to raise it? Won't the reporters still be after you once it's born?"
"Yeah, but I'll have my magic back then," said Harry--though something seemed not quite right about the way he said it. In fact, there was something off about the entire conversation, though Dudley couldn't put his finger on what it was.
"Right," he said, all out of questions in order to peer at Harry, instead. "That'll be good."
*
Dudley thought about it, and thought about it. The way Harry had sounded, talking about it. Maybe more importantly, the way he hadn't sounded. The way he'd answered Dudley's questions, but only just; the way he hadn't gone into anything in more detail than he had to.
It could have meant he was hiding something--but Harry really wasn't a liar. What Dudley thought, what he was nearly certain it meant was something else. People who were having babies were supposed to be happy about it. Thrilled, even. Dudley might not have any personal experience in the matter, and he might not have read very many books, but every film and television programme couldn't be wrong about this. Happy was different than hiding in Dudley's bedroom, day after day. Happy was looking excited when you talked about the baby. Happy was lighting up when someone asked you questions about it; happy was going on about it, instead of answering just as much as you had to. Happy was buying stuff for it, making plans for what happened when the baby was a real true thing you could hold; and so far Harry's plans seemed to extent no further than finding out what he was having.
It probably shouldn't have taken knowing Harry was having a baby to see that he was miserable, but then again Dudley had never known Harry when he was happy, and so Harry miserable had seemed more or less normal, as long as he wasn't making a fuss about it.
"Listen, Harry--" Dudley said at breakfast, a few days after he'd finished working it out. It had taken him that long to get up the nerve.
"Yeah?" Harry said, and for a moment, Dudley faltered. He didn't have the right, did he? Not really. But he was the one who was here, and he was the one who'd noticed. He was the one Harry had come to. He'd decided a long time ago was that he'd always try to do the right thing by Harry, if the time ever came again that there was a choice.
"Why aren't you happier?" he said, before he could decide not to. "About the baby, I mean."
"Er. Who says I'm not happy?"
"You obviously aren't. Do you--I don't know, not want to have it?" Dudley's knowledge about what to do in the case of an unwanted baby was very little, but if Harry said he didn't, that would at least be a starting place to fixing it. "If that's what it is, there's got to be something we can--"
"I don't not want to have it," said Harry.
"Oh. What's the problem then?"
"Who says there's a problem?"
"Harry," said Dudley. "I just--I just want to help. Can you just let me help?"
Harry looked at him. It was not a very careful sort of look. "I don't need help."
His face was starting to go red. Dudley knew what that meant. He had fifteen years' experience in knowing what that meant. It was a look that had used to make him gleeful, knowing which of them would get into trouble when Harry blew up. Now, it just made him feel ill. He pressed on, anyway, knowing this was too important to care if Harry shouted at him, and not thinking of what else Harry might do: "But, you--"
"I don't need your help!"
"But--if you'd just--"
"STOP IT! I DON'T NEED HELP!" Harry shouted, jumping to his feet as his face went darker yet.
Dudley got up too, the better to lean over the table and also, to some extent, Harry. "YES YOU DO! IT'S SO OBVIOUS! WHY ARE YOU BEING SUCH A--"
"BECAUSE THERE'S NO PROBLEM! I'M VERY HAPPY!"
By now, Harry's face was so red it was nearly purple. Then something much more alarming happened: every plate on the table rose a foot or a few into the air, then slammed back down. Some of them hit the table and cracked in two. Some hit the floor and shattered into pieces. Still others bounced from the floor to the counter to the ceiling, and floated down in such tiny pieces from there that they'd be breathing them in for weeks.
Harry, who'd been approaching violet, went so white that Dudley, who had a healthy fear of the kinds of magic Harry did when he was upset, forgot all about that. "Harry? Are you alright?"
Rather than answering, Harry abruptly turned and went out of the kitchen. A second later, the bedroom door clicked closed.
Somehow, Dudley would have felt better if it had slammed.
He thought of following Harry immediately. Then, instead, he got the kitchen cleaned up first. It was actually a faster job than usual, since he was binning everything instead of having to soak and wash all the plates. Though he probably could have done better when it came to wiping the countertops and sweeping--but by then he'd remembered enough to be very anxious about what was going on with Harry.
He went to the bedroom door, knocked on it. "Are you alright?" Silence. "What about the baby? Did it get, I dunno, spliced?"
The door opened a crack, Harry staring out of it, looking bleak and still very white.
"Uh, that's splinched," he said. "And, I don't--think so. Everything feels the same, as far as I can tell."
Dudley considered this for a second. It didn't take very much to come to a conclusion. "You should go to St Muggo's to have it checked. I'll go with you."
"I don't need--" Harry started, then stopped. "Alright. And it's actually called St Mungo's, you know."
"Yeah, St Muggo's, that's what I said," said Dudley, but by then Harry had fully opened the door, and they were on their way out, and there wasn't really any point in arguing about it when they were going there anyway.
*
The wizard hospital was in London, of course, and of course it was the morning rush. The taxi ride seemed even longer than it actually must have been, with all the worrying Dudley was doing about Harry and his baby, and Harry probably worrying all the same things. And of course they couldn't discuss it on the way, not when the taxi driver was non-magical. All they could do was sit there, and let it be more awkward than it really had been since the first few breakfasts.
"Here," Harry said finally, to the driver more than to Dudley. The building he was pointing out didn't look much like a hospital. Then again, with magic, a hospital could probably be made to look like anything, Dudley figured. Though why it had to look like a not particularly good department store was beyond him.
"Do you want me to come in?" he asked, after they'd paid and gotten out.
"Not really," said Harry. "I mean, unless you want to."
It could not have been more clear from his look that whatever Dudley might want, Harry didn't want him to.
"I'd better find a phone box," said Dudley, who had forgotten entirely to phone in to work. This must have been the right thing to say, or at least Harry seemed relieved about it. "Here," he added, before Harry could finish turning away, and shoved the bundle he'd been holding at him, the one he'd nearly forgotten about.
"What's this?" Harry asked, like he hadn't seen Dudley grabbing everything on their way out of the flat. Or maybe he really hadn't seen, even though he'd been looking right at Dudley when it was happening. Dudley didn't know.
"It's, er, for the reporters," he said. "A disguise, you know? Like in films."
Harry seemed to take it in: the jacket, the ballcap, the tinted glasses.
"I mean, it can't make it worse, can it? Even if they do catch on," Dudley suggested, when Harry didn't seem on the verge of shouting at him again.
"Right. Thanks," said Harry finally. A minute later, the cap was pulled down over his forehead, and the cuffs of the jacket were hanging in a way that made it very clear that Dudley's arms were both longer and wider than his, and his eyes were hidden behind the dark glasses, with his usual ones tucked into a jacket pocket. He didn't look anything like himself. "Well. I'm off."
"I'll be here when you get back," Dudley hastened to assure him. "Just as soon as I've found a phone box, anyway."
*
Several hours later, Dudley had more or less recovered from the bollocking he'd gotten for phoning in so late. He'd been loitering in front of Harry's building since, leaning on one part of the wall for a while before walking a few steps to the left or right in order to resume leaning somewhere slightly different. The whole thing made him feel as if he ought to have a gang to stand around and smoke with. He was very glad when the door finally opened and let out Harry instead of another stranger or set of strangers.
"Is everything, uh, alright?" Dudley asked, though he hadn't meant to push.
Harry looked at him, or at least turned his head in a direction that might have meant he was looking at him. It turned out it was more difficult to tell where a person was looking when you couldn't see their eyes.
"Yeah," he said after a moment. "Yeah, everything is. And they said--even if it hadn't been, it could have been fixed, most likely. Anyway. Just, I'm not to get upset anymore."
"Well. Good." Then, curiosity once again getting the better of him: "Did it work? The disguise, I mean. For the reporters."
Harry smiled, just a little. It was, Dudley realized, the first time he'd seen Harry smile at all since he'd shown up dripping on Dudley's doorstep. "It did, actually."
"Well," said Dudley again, a little stupidly. There was something about Harry wearing his jacket that made him feel squirmy inside, but there was something about Harry smiling while wearing it that made his stomach do somersaults. "Good. I mean, I'm glad."
*
The taxi ride back was just as quiet as the taxi ride there, but not nearly as long either in reality or in Dudley's head.
When they were back at the flat, Harry took his disguise back off (except for the glasses, which he'd exchanged on the way). "Thanks," he said, and then, in a rush: "I shouldn't have shouted, earlier."
"It's alright," said Dudley. I shouldn't have upset you. Or--I should have stopped, once I knew I was upsetting you. I didn't mean it. To upset you. Not that much."
"Yeah, I know. I just--"
What? Dudley wanted to ask, and only just managed not to, in case it scared Harry off whatever he was thinking of saying.
Only, Harry didn't say anything, not then. Instead, there came a look over his face, not that different from the one that had been there when he'd thought something awful might have happened. Then, instead of explaining, he was crowding Dudley against the door, and before Dudley could even start to worry about what he was doing, Harry's mouth was on his, Harry was kissing him.
They'd never kissed before, not since Harry had been here, nor even that whole summer back when they were sixteen-and-nearly rather than thirty-and-nearly. It wasn't something they did. It wasn't a part of things. Except that it must have been now, because Harry was kissing him, and Dudley was kissing him back. And it was weird, probably--or, at least, weirder than it had been before, when you were occasionally giving handies to your cousin, the one who really should have been more like a brother, except for all the ways you'd never been a brother to him, any more than your parents had been his--
It was weird. It was, probably, dirty, or, or even actually wrong, maybe. But it was also...wild, in a way they weren't, when they were on the couch. And Dudley didn't want to stop, even if they probably should. And anyway, Harry had started it, this time. And Harry was tugging on him, backing away now and pulling Dudley with him, and the direction they were headed was the bedroom.
By the time they got to the bed, they'd left a trail of clothes behind them. Then they were on the bed, next to to each other and naked except for one of Harry's socks and both of Dudley's, and then Harry's leg was hooked around his waist, and Harry was reaching into the drawer of the bedside table, and Dudley had only a moment to feel hot behind his eyes about Harry knowing exactly where Dudley kept his lube. Then Harry's slick hand wrapped around him, and instead of thinking about that all Dudley could think was that it was a good thing he had proof Harry liked to be on the bottom, because otherwise they might have had to talk about what they wanted to do, and talking might have broken whatever not-really-magic spell this was.
As it was, the only thing he had to say, glancing down at Harry's stomach, which seemed so much bigger and rounder now that it was right out there in the open, was, "This won't--hurt it? Right?"
"No," Harry panted. "You can't--you couldn't do anything that would."
"Right," Dudley said. "Good," and then he was pushing in, and it had been a long, long time since he'd thought about what this might be like. He had done endlessly, at sixteen-and-nearly, but there'd never been a guarantee of having enough time alone, and anyway, he'd told himself he was only doing as much as he was to pay Harry back for saving him, the summer before. To give him something he might not have been getting (definitely hadn't been getting, Dudley had concluded after the first time, when he'd had Harry's dick in his hand for about a minute before Harry had gone off) at that wizard school of his.
He hadn't even thought of doing it since Harry had come back this time. It had been too obvious it wasn't what this was. Maybe it would have been less of a surprise, Harry hot and tight around him, but probably it wouldn't have been, because no matter what Dudley might have imagined, and no matter what he'd done with other people, he'd never been here before with Harry.
Soon, Harry was groaning beneath him. He must have wanted it nearly as bad as Dudley did, or at least it was nice to believe so, because by the time he got his hand between them, Harry only went for a couple of strokes before he was gasping and coming hotly over his rounder stomach and Dudley's flatter (or at least less round) one, and clenching around Dudley's dick that was inside him. Then Dudley was coming, too, coming within him, and even as he was finishing he had the thought that if they'd done this half a year ago, it might have been his baby Harry was having. It was another hot behind the eyes thought, though maybe from a different sort of heat. It was a thought he already knew he wasn't going to be able to shake for a long time, if he ever did.
Usually, when they were done, Harry went back to his room, what had used to be Dudley's room. Dudley wasn't sure, now, what he should do. Harry was usually the one who left, but since they were in Harry's room, which wasn't Dudley's anymore, Dudley thought he was probably meant to be the one who left. Or maybe the rules were different, now that they'd kissed and all.
He was still sitting there with the bedsheet up to his waist, trying to decide whether he ought to stay or whether he ought to go, when Harry said, "Listen, you were there."
"What?" Dudley asked, thinking that the rules must be different, after all, if Harry was saying something, after.
Harry kept on, words tumbling out in another rush: "When we were growing up. You know what it was like in that house. I mean. I'm not trying to knock them, honestly--"
"Fine if you do. I haven't seen them in years anyway," said Dudley, when he'd caught up to what Harry was talking about. Not what they'd done now, and not anything else that had happened today, but all the old things between them.
"...What, really? You don't talk to them?"
Dudley shrugged. "More like they're not talking to me. Dad's not keen on having a poofter for a son. Thinks I should have gotten it out of my system at Smeltings. And Mum...I dunno. She writes me, sometimes, but she won't--I don't care, though. I mean, I don't that much. It doesn't matter."
"Oh. I'm sorry." In probably the weirdest thing that had happened all day, or maybe ever, Harry looked like he actually was.
"Don't be sorry," said Dudley. "It's nothing compared to what they--what you--it's nothing much. Compared to that."
He wasn't about to admit how much he really did care, sometimes. Or how confusing it was to sometimes wish so terribly that he could see them around Christmastime, when even when they'd been speaking to him it had been hard to see them without thinking about all the ways they were awful. They'd been the worst to Harry, but the further Dudley was from it, the clearer he could see that they'd done plenty to him, too. He wasn't really sure how mad he should be about it, or if he was even allowed to be mad for himself--and it wasn't that he didn't care, that they weren't talking to him, but this way was easier. At least, it was most of the time.
Harry opened his mouth, closed it, nodded. "Yeah. So, I. Just. Alright. I knew I wanted to have a family, one day. But I was supposed to have more time to. I don't know." His voice had gotten quieter and quieter, as he went on, and was the quietest of all when he said, "I don't love it yet, I think. And I keep wondering what happens if I never do. If I have it, him or her, and it's here, and I don't--feel anything for it, ever. I can't believe I'm telling you this."
"You don't have to," Dudley said, and meant it, though it might have been hard for Harry to tell that, considering the way his eyes were stinging, and the way his throat was closing up, and the only thing anyone would have been able to tell was that he was getting way too close to blubbing.
"Or maybe, I don't know, you're the only person I can tell. Because you were there, and you know. I mean, you do. Right?"
"Yeah," said Dudley, and didn't say, you slept in the cupboard under the stairs until you were eleven. And you never had Christmas or birthday presents. And you were never even allowed to have friends. And I didn't even think of you as a real person until we were fifteen. And I can't believe I didn't realize how dreadful it was earlier. That none of it was normal, or even close to right. And sometimes I lie awake all night, thinking of just how not right it was. "It was--bad. Really, really bad. But I don't think--you'd never do any of that to it. No matter what you did or didn't feel. You're not like that."
"Probably not," said Harry. "But what if--what if I didn't hide it well enough, that I don't feel anything? Or, maybe I'll go too far in the other direction. Spoil it actually rotten."
"Like they did me, yeah. Got it," said Dudley, and didn't say, I've worked so hard to change into a decent person, or, I've stopped hurting people, and I really thought that would be enough, but my life is still so empty, and I don't know why. I don't know what else there is or can be. What I'm meant to fill my life with. It's been so many years, and anyone else would have figured it out by now. "I don't think you'd do that either. I mean, you're..."
"Harry Potter. Yeah. I've heard," said Harry, in a vicious, low sort of way that didn't sound like it was really meant for Dudley.
"No, you're just...Harry," said Dudley, and did say, "You saved me from the Trementor, when we were fifteen. You didn't have to. You probably shouldn't have. But you did, though. You did that for someone you hated--someone who had hurt you loads. I don't see how you could be a terrible dad. I mean, you'd have to actually work at it. On purpose, even. And if you're already so worried, then you'll be working at it from the other direction. You'll be grand, no matter what."
"It was actually a--you know what, nevermind," said Harry. "And, thanks, I guess."
*
Harry didn't cheer up or seem to even really believe him immediately, but that was alright. Now that Dudley knew what the trouble was, he could try and do something about it. The trouble was that at first he couldn't think of what that something should be. Harry hadn't really seemed to accept what Dudley had said, so much as he hadn't tried to start a fight about it. And Dudley didn't dare to try to argue with him about it, since that could become a fight, too. And then Harry might do magic accidentally again, and something bad really might happen the next time.
So, that was out. Dudley had to spend a couple days thinking about what he should do next. Then he thought of one of the things he'd noticed, when he'd figured out something was wrong. And, a few days later, he came home late, with a big box.
"...What's that?" Harry asked, when he came out of his room and got a look at it.
"What's it look like?"
"It's got a bow on it," said Harry, looking at it as if he thought it might explode.
"It's for you. It's, you know, a present," Dudley said, and abruptly remembered that Harry hadn't had presents, not like he had. "It's--you'll have to open it to know what it is."
"Yeah, I know how presents work, actually," said Harry, not looking pleased or offended, but more like tired. "What is it?"
"Open it and find out."
Harry did. His expression, once the ribbon and wrapping paper was off, once again wasn't exactly what Dudley had hoped for. It was a lot closer to a frown than to that one little smile.
"It's a pram," Dudley said when he couldn't stand the suspense any more (which was after only a few seconds, as waiting for presents was still not very easy for him). "For, you know, the baby."
"Yeah, I got that. I don't need a pram, though."
"Why not? Do you have one already?"
"No, but--"
"Well, now you won't have to buy one." It was a moment that might have felt triumphant, except for the way it felt like this gifting experience still wasn't going at all the way he'd meant it to. "Or--you can exchange it. If you'd rather have, you know, a magic one."
He had only a moment to wonder if they made magic prams when Harry said, "I don't need a magic one. Anyway, my friends are throwing me a shower next month. I'm likely to end up with five prams."
"Oh," said Dudley. There was now a hot, heavy weight in his stomach, because of course. Of course Harry had friends who were doing things for him. Nice things. Things he wanted. It was just that Dudley never really saw Harry's friends, because they usually came by earlier than evenings. That was probably on purpose, though he hadn't really thought about it before; Harry probably didn't want them to meet Dudley, for the same kind of reason he didn't want Dudley's pram. "I'll just--I'll take it back, then."
"Er." Something in Harry's face changed. "You know what--you're right. Now that I think of it, I really am going to need one. I can just tell everyone else I've already got a pram, so they'd best buy me...I don't know. Something else."
"Nappies, maybe?"
Harry made a face that more or less summed up the way Dudley felt about nappies, especially as presents.
"Little socks?" Dudley suggested. "Or little onesies."
"Maybe," said Harry. "Think I'll leave it up to them."
Remembering abruptly the purpose of this whole thing--to make Harry start looking forward to things he could do with the baby, so that he'd figure out that he did love it before it came, and wouldn't have to worry about it--Dudley said, "Prams are good. Walks are brilliant for babies. And it's not as if it can be difficult. So it won't even matter that no one ever took you out in one."
Harry was now looking at him like he'd grown a second head, or maybe another tail. "I got to go out in a pram," he said. "My parents took me. Maybe not after they were in hiding--probably not then--but definitely before."
"Oh," said Dudley, thinking he'd really stepped in it this time. Just because he didn't remember Harry not living with them didn't mean there hadn't been a time like that. There had been, of course.
But instead of chewing him out, or even just walking away, Harry said, "One second." He ducked back into his room, not even closing the door. He came back with a photo book, which he flipped around in for a minute before handing it to Dudley. "Here."
Dudley took it, and looked down. It was a photograph, of course, only the people in it moved like in a film, except somehow more alive-seeming. There was a man and a woman, standing by a pram. The man looked very like Harry; the woman looked a bit like Dudley's mum, but even more like his grandmum, in the ordinary photos he'd seen of her. The man had his arm around the woman's shoulder as they waved to whoever was behind the camera. Then, the woman seemed to laugh, and bent down to the pram, from which a little hand was sticking out, grasping at the air. She reached out with both hands, and came up again holding the baby who must have been Harry, her face nuzzling his small neck. Then the photo looped back again, to the man and the woman standing together.
"They're your parents, aren't they?" Dudley asked, and found that the heavy hotness from before had become more of a distant dull ache. If he'd never thought of a time before Harry had been there, he'd thought even less of the aunt and uncle he might have had. They were a loss he'd never felt, one Harry must have felt all this time. "They seem." He swallowed. "They look like they were lovely."
"Yeah," said Harry. "They were."
"You could be like that," Dudley said, because it was important to try, wasn't it? As long as Harry felt badly, it was important to try, even if he might not like to hear it. "You will be, I bet." When Harry didn't say anything, he added, "Sorry," without being quite sure why. For pushing it, maybe.
"It's alright," said Harry, and reached for the book.
"Can I look a bit more? I've never seen photos of your parents. Mum had some, I think, but she didn't--I've never seen them." Part of Dudley meant to add that it was alright, if Harry wasn't comfortable; that he understood, obviously. Instead, what came out was, "They were my aunt and uncle, you know."
Slowly, Harry said, "Yeah. I know. You can look, only be careful."
So that, somehow, was what they spent the next hour or two doing. Dudley turned the pages, and Harry hovered by his elbow, explaining what was going on in this photo or that one, or sometimes just looking, quietly.
*
When he came to the very last photo on the very last page, Dudley felt as tired as Harry had looked, earlier. Or maybe it was less tired and more hollowed out.
"I'm going to try, you know," Harry said, and it wasn't really have been out of nowhere this time, either. "To be like them. To be like that, to be a good dad. I've never tried as hard for anything as I will for this."
"You'll be brilliant," said Dudley. "And, I think you're wrong about not loving it. I think you already do."
"Yeah?"
If there was a warning in Harry's voice, it had gotten lost inside of something else. Dudley didn't know what it was, not for sure, but he thought what it might be was want. That Harry might want this more than anything he'd ever wanted. It was just that he didn't know it, maybe for a lot of the same reasons that Dudley had never known until it happened that sitting here, like this, with Harry, sharing something with him that was so important, was what he had wanted the most.
"You think you don't. But you didn't see how you looked when you thought something was wrong with it." It wasn't really Harry's face, because it wasn't a matter of smiles over frowns. You had to look more closely, Dudley had found. Harry's eyes would tell you everything, if you did. If you weren't too scared of what you might see about yourself to really look at them. "And you don't see how you look now."
"You really think so?" Harry asked.
"Yeah. I do," said Dudley. "And I'm going to tell you so, much as I have to."
More quiet, for a minute. Then Harry said, "You'll be a bloody good cousin, at least."
Dudley hadn't thought that far, not really. He hadn't wanted to. If he had, he'd have thought Harry would be out of his life again as soon as the baby came; that he wouldn't want Dudley anywhere near it, all things considered. But if he got to be a cousin, that meant they'd still see each other sometimes, didn't it? Harry wouldn't have said anything like that if it wasn't what he meant.
"Really?" he asked, and oh, he was definitely about to blub all over the place, completely out of nowhere. "I mean. I'll try, too."
Maybe it was the trying that was the important part. Or at least, he hoped so.