"Kicked senseless is too good for the likes of you," Vernon railed. "You killed my Petunia!"
"No, he didn't." Dudley had finally spoken again. He still sounded sad, but not as resentful as before. "He was trying to help Mum."
"Oh, grow up and smell the coffee, boy! He knew what he was about, the whole damned time!"
"Uncle Vernon," Harry broke in. "Get out of the house so Dudley and I can talk."
"Who are you to tell me what to do in my own home, by God?"
Harry sighed. He'd known all along that it would come to this. "I'm a wizard, and pretty soon here, I'm going to be an angry wizard! You know what happens when I get angry! Remember Aunt Marge? Now, get off the line!"
A phone slamming down was the only reply Vernon made to that. After a moment more, Dudley quietly announced, "He went to the backyard, Harry."
"Good," Harry said shortly, then willed himself to calm down. "How are you, Dudley?"
"You called to find out that?" Dudley sounded confused.
"Yeah. Are you doing all right? It must be really hard."
"I miss her," his cousin moaned.
Harry didn't know what to say to that, since he could hardly make the standard claim of I miss her, too.
"Was it really your teacher?" Dudley went on. "Who did that to Dad, I mean?"
"Yes."
"But I saw you cursing him!" Dudley argued. "It sounded like a whole bunch of different . . . er, spells, I guess. And then this big boom and blast all around . . ."
"Listen, Dudley," Harry tried to explain. "You were right to tell me not to come to the funeral. I think Uncle Vernon really was going to kill me. I didn't do any magic, but if I had, it would have been in self-defence."
"But you were screaming curses, Harry," Dudley went on. "How can you say it wasn't you?"
Harry wasn't about to get into that, so he merely replied, "I was just trying to scare him, Dudley. But he was too mad to listen, so my teacher helped me before things could get even messier."
"Your teacher's a wizard, then."
In other circumstances, Harry would have laughed. Dudley sounded like he'd just solved the Riddle of the Sphinx, or something, when all he'd done was state the obvious. Harry didn't laugh, though. Nothing was very funny at the moment.
"Yeah, he's a wizard."
"You said he wasn't. You lied to Dad."
"Yeah, well you lie to him about a hundred times a week," Harry pointed out.
"I do not!"
"How many times did you sneak puddings and deny it?"
Dudley gave a groan. "I haven't done that lately. I'm never hungry anymore, Harry. I think I've lost two stone since I saw you."
"Well, don't stop eating completely," Harry urged, concerned despite himself.
"How are you, Harry?" his cousin asked, a question which took Harry completely by surprise.
He shifted position, leaning on the wall as he sat cross-legged. "Um, all right, I guess. I was really sore for a while, after the operation."
Dudley drew in a little breath. "Oh, yeah. I'm sorry, I forgot. That's stupid, isn't it?"
"No, it's not stupid," Harry insisted. "You had enough to do, thinking about your mum."
"Yeah," Dudley acknowledged. "But I think Dad still doesn't really get it, what you did, what you tried to do, for her. It's kind of awful, actually. I didn't think much about it at the time, but I'd be scared to have an operation like that, and you're younger than I am, and Dad didn't even go sit with you, or anything. Even if he wouldn't, I could have, but honest, Harry, I didn't think of it until you were already gone. I'm real sorry."
Shocked almost into speechlessness, it took Harry a moment to answer. "Well, I had my teacher there, you know. So it was okay. Don't feel bad, Dudley. You were where you were supposed to be, with your mum."
"She never even woke up!" Dudley cried. "I didn't get to say g-- g-- goodbye!"
"I'm sorry," was all Harry could think to say to that. He heard a slight slithering noise, and darted his gaze towards it, but didn't spot Sals.
"You didn't get to say goodbye to your parents, either, though, I bet," Dudley said in a slow, sad voice. "Harry? I'm really, really sorry I was so awful to you. I mean, calling you scarhead, and little orphan Harry, and getting so mad when Mum and Dad let you move out of the cupboard, and forgetting your birthday and . . . stuff."
Who are you and what have you done to Dudley Dursley? That was the question on the tip of Harry's tongue, but instead of asking it in quite that way, he tentatively ventured, "Um, Dudley? Why are you being so nice all of a sudden?"
Harry heard a long sigh come down the line. "You remember those . . . things, Harry? In the alley? I couldn't see them, but I could feel them, coming closer until they were just all over me."
"Yeah. Dementors. I remember." Harry shivered.
"I . . . um, well I thought you made them attack me, at first," Dudley admitted. "I mean, I thought that for a while. You were already gone away to school before I realised that you made them stop."
Since Vernon had specifically said that Harry had set demons after Dudley, Harry wondered where his cousin's insight had come from. Somehow, he couldn't imagine Aunt Petunia getting it right, either. "That's true, I made them stop," he agreed.
"With . . . your wand, and some white-silver thingy galloping around," Dudley whispered.
"Yes. My Patronus," Harry explained. "Sort of a magic . . . saviour. I didn't think you saw it, though. Um, I'm not even sure that Muggles can. You can't see Dementors, after all."
"I don't know if I actually did see it," Dudley admitted. "But I know what it looks like. I bet that sounds strange."
"Er, well . . . yeah, it does."
"It's like this," Dudley explained, his voice catching a bit. "M-- M-- Mum was really worried about me, afterwards. I couldn't sleep but two or three hours a night, and those were filled with awful, horrible dreams. Like I'd never, ever be happy again. I don't think I can really explain what it was like--"
"You don't have to," Harry murmured. "I know. So, um, are you still having trouble sleeping?"
"Some, but that's because I miss Mum," Dudley sobbed, though after a few seconds he got himself under control again. "Those really awful dreams stopped after Mum took me to a . . . a therapist. Oh, Mummy and Daddy had an awful row about it, they did. Dad said it made me a Nancy boy, but Mum insisted."
"Your mum was right," Harry assured his cousin. "The therapist helped you, I hope?"
"Yeah . . ." Dudley mumbled something as if figuring out what to say, then went on, "Um, she hypnotized me, Harry. And that was when I remembered what you did to those . . . things in the alley. I don't know if I saw you make that silvery animal thing, really, but I could see you do it under hypnosis, if that makes sense. Um . . . can all wizards make those things?"
"Not all," Harry admitted.
"Yeah, that's what the therapist told me. She said you must be a really powerful wizard and I was lucky you'd been there to save me. She said those awful things were trying to suck out my soul and I'd have been a goner if I hadn't had a cousin who could stop them."
Harry dropped the phone.
"Harry?" he heard his cousin's voice asking. Harry scooped the phone up.
"I'm here. I was just surprised. You . . . you went to a therapist who knows about . . . um, people like me?"
"Yeah. Mrs Figg recommended her. Told Mum she'd better take me to someone who could understand what had happened, because otherwise I'd be locked up for a raving loony before too long. Mum didn't like it, but after a while I stopped sleeping completely, and I guess she figured Mrs Figg was right. Dad pitched a huge fit, but well, you know what Mum's like--" Another sob. "What she was like when she was determined to get her way."