Chapter 13: Chapter 13
Life has changed a lot for Harry in the past couple of years. As he and Dudley work together to empty out the spare bedroom that had been used to store Dudley's extra toys from past holidays for all of his life, Harry Evans finds himself… almost at peace, in a way.
It helped that Dudley was gifting him with anything he wanted from the massive collection of presents. A lot of it went completely unused. While Dudley certainly had fun playing with the choicest of his gifts each year, there was only so much one boy could handle when it came to entertainment. And besides, for much of Harry's life, HE'D been Dudley's entertainment. Games like Harry Hunting and the like had kept the other boy engaged for hours on end, until eventually he and his friends either caught Harry and messed with him, or Harry managed to get away and they got bored.
That was in the past though now, and after his first year at Smeltings, Harry liked to think he'd matured a lot. Dudley certainly had. If Harry was being honest, he didn't really care about any of the toys or games that Dudley was offering them, not truly. While he was taking a handful here and there to avoid seeming ungrateful, most of them were pretty out of date despite their pristine status at this point.
He might be able to sell a few of them over at Smeltings to supplement his income from his summer job, but all in all, what Harry really wanted, more than anything else, was what Dudley had. Not a toy, not a game, but the thing that Dudley had been gifted with and Harry had not. Magic.
It's hard not to be jealous about Dudley and his magic. The other boy hasn't talked too much about Hogwarts, mentioning it only offhandedly here and there. Harry hasn't been home all that much this summer, so mostly, he's missed out on all the stories. Even when Harry asks Dudley for tales of his year at the magical far away castle, the other boy has gotten taciturn about things, a word that Harry learned just this year at Smeltings.
Having spent much of his life as his family's chore boy, looking after his disabled mother once he was old enough and being treated like shit by his cousin and his aunt and uncle, the idea of being able to do magic was incredibly compelling to Harry. It would make all those times Vernon had called him a freak worth it, in his eyes.
But… Harry supposed he wasn't really allowed to complain. If he HAD turned out to have magic, then who knows what the Dursleys might have done to him. Harry might be young, but he was smart enough to realize that only Dudley's status as their precious son had tempered Petunia and Vernon's reaction to the boy turning out to be magical enough for acceptance at Hogwarts, School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
And even with the fact that he was his son, Vernon still seemed to be struggling at times with the knowledge that Dudley could do magic. The man had never and likely would never raise a hand or his voice against Dudley as he had with Harry over the years, but he had pulled away from the boy, throwing himself into his work.
If this bothered Harry's cousin, he didn't show it. Of course, Petunia was as close as ever to Dudley on the opposite end of things, so he was probably still getting plenty of parental affection from her. Meanwhile, Harry's status as a squib was enough for him to suddenly be a real member of the family, Petunia and Vernon both treating him so much better than before, practically overnight.
Even this, emptying out this room with Dudley, was actually FOR Harry. Once the room was emptied out, cleaned up, and furnished, Harry was going to get it as his own personal space.
He can't help but blush as he flashes back momentarily to Petunia giving him the birds and the bees talk.
"You'll need your own room now, Harry. You and Dudley are at that age where girls start to interest you, and I don't want you to start experimenting in the same room as your mother. Silly girl might even try to help."
Needless to say, Harry HADN'T needed the lesson. Petunia was more than a little late, in fact. Boys went through puberty way before girls did after all, and his first year at Smeltings had been eye opening. While it was an All-Boys Private School, that did NOT mean it wasn't without its… well, it's nudies. Put simply, Harry had seen it all.
He would never ever be able to look at his mother that way though, even if she was plenty beautiful. Not only was Lily Evans his mum, but she also wasn't… she wasn't all THERE in the head. She never had been there in the head, just like she'd never really been capable of being there for him as a parent. He loved her, really he did, but Harry had been more of a parent when it came to their relationship then Lily was.
He couldn't possibly see him doing any of the stuff he'd heard about at Smeltings with his mum. It would be wrong, not just on an incestuous level, but on a moral level. She wasn't able to consent, being not all there in the head.
Knowing all he did already about the 'birds and the bees' didn't make it any less mortifying to hear it all again from his aunt. Petunia meant well, Harry was sure of that… and wasn't that a strange thing to be sure of. But it was nevertheless horrifying, and the worst part was, Harry couldn't stop it, he couldn't escape it. He certainly wasn't about to tell Petunia he'd already gone through all of the things she was describing. He HAD in fact experimented with his mum in the room, though he'd been very quiet and careful not to ever attract her attention.
He wasn't going to tell Petunia that though, and so after a long and harrowing in depth explanation of the birds and the bees from an aunt who he was surprised to say he knew meant well, Harry found himself here, in the spare room with Dudley, processing all of the toys into junk or keep piles so they could turn the room into his bedroom.
Their relationship had really gotten better over the past couple years, even before Dudley had got accepted to Hogwarts and Harry had gone off to Smeltings. His cousin hadn't bullied him in a long time… but it was a testament to how far they had come that Dudley was willing to talk about what he was currently talking about.
"Sooo yeah. That's the kind of girl I think I'd bang in a heartbeat, and maybe even be willing to shack up with. But hey, what about you cous?"
Blinking, Harry pauses for a moment. He'd been half-listening to Dudley wax on poetic about the perfect woman, which involved a lot more physical attributes then Harry thought was appropriate, and not enough focus on the mental attributes, like her personality or mind, but at the same time.
"Uh… well…"
Dudley just grins, not accepting the deflection this time around, despite it working in the past.
"C'mon mate, you've gotta have some idea. Mum means well, I know she does, but let's be honest… we've both been men for years now. Puberty hits way earlier for us, don't it?"
It did, it did… Harry flushes and just lets out an awkward laugh as he rubs the back of his head.
"I guess I'm still looking, heh. I don't really have any sort of girl in mind at the moment."
Unfortunately, Dudley wasn't buying that.
"Uh huh, sure. What about that girl who drove you home from work the other day? She's your coworker, yeah?"
Blinking at that, Harry thinks about the older girl.
"Rebekah? Uh, yeah, she's my coworker, why?"
Rebekah… Rebekah was cool. She was a bit on the chubby side, with red hair and freckles and a nice smile that had dimples in it. She was also a couple years older then him, and old enough to have a car at that. She'd driven him home a few times, which had been nice, but not only had Dudley seen her because of it, Harry was pretty sure Petunia had as well and this WHOLE situation was solely because he'd accepted a car ride from a coworker. Not that Harry minded, it WAS resulting in him getting his own room…
"Yeah, your coworker. I saw the way you looked at her, Harry. It's either you like 'em chubby, you like 'em ginger, or you like 'em both."
Harry blushes red at that and ducks his head even as he shakes it.
"Don't say that, she's just a nice girl…"
Really, it wasn't about Rebekah's looks. Sure, Harry had a bit of a crush on her, but not because she was chubby or ginger, it was because of who she was as a person. His cousin, for all that Dudley had stopped bullying him and acted more like family to Harry for years now, was really quite the shallow person, wasn't he?
But of course, Harry wasn't about to say that. Dudley had all the power in their relationship, and not just because he had magic. Which meant Harry knew better than to do anything but smile uneasily and take his lumps as the other boy teased him over Rebekah and his crush on her.
"I'm sure she is Harry, I'm sure she is. But tell me, has this nice girl featured in any of your wank fantasies?"
As Harry ducks his head some more and Dudley laughs, he still doesn't mind it all that much. Their relationship is far better than it was before, after all…
-x-X-x-
Eventually, Dudley does let them get back to sorting toys. Not without some further playful ribbing about 'Rebekah'. Honestly, Dudley wanted Harry to follow his dreams… so long as they didn't involve magic or trying to change the future back to what it would have been before Dudley had come back in time and stolen Harry's magic.
That meant being a little unwilling to talk to Harry about Hogwarts, it meant keeping things focused on the other boy and his love life, so Dudley didn't accidentally mention someone like Draco or Hermione. Harry… Harry couldn't be involved in anything magical. Dudley was worried that it would result in some weird Deus Ex Machina that would leave Harry once again on top and Dudley once again on the bottom.
But that didn't mean Dudley hated his cousin or wanted him to be unhappy. Harry Potter could rot and die, but Harry Evans… Harry Evans would be allowed to have a nice, normal life as a muggle. And with this new room of his, it meant that Harry would no longer be in the way if Dudley ever wanted to have more fun with his aunt. Lily would be all but defenseless, all by herself, completely reliant on Dudley and Petunia for all her needs as Harry grew further and further apart from his poor ole mum and further and further away from his destiny in the Wizarding World.
Of course, even as Dudley made sure that everything continued to go according to plan, he couldn't help but be amused. Rebekah was a nobody, not even someone that Dudley had known back in HIS version of a muggle life. She was just some chick who worked at the same fast food restaurant as Harry for the summer before returning to school.
She could have been hot, Dudley figured, if she just watched her weight a bit better. As it was, the chubby ginger girl was a four at best, and Dudley was going to be surrounded with nines and tens in a few more years once the female students at Hogwarts all grew into their own. It reminded him of a word that wasn't even a thing yet back in this time period. But it was a word he recalled hearing a lot before he'd traveled back in time.
His cousin Harry was likely going to end up being a simp for a chubby redhead simply because she was nice to him, instead of bagging and tagging lots and lots of hot, sexy witches like was his destiny originally. Dudley had usurped that destiny when he'd usurped Harry's magic, or so he liked to think. He WOULD get everything the Harry Potter from his future had gotten, no matter what he had to do to make sure of that.
Meanwhile, Harry Evans would be entirely content and satisfied, remaining blissfully ignorant of everything he had missed out on. Just as it should be.
-x-X-x-
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