Chapter Text
It started in Year 12.
Well, it actually started before that, when his freak of a cousin saved his life, maybe.
Or when some of the kids in his classes took exception to the way he behaved and set out to teach him a lesson.
But Dudley would always remember that Friday afternoon, in Year 12.
He had just finished recounting an episode from when he was 10 or so, when he and Piers had made an absolute mess of their classroom and blamed Harry for it. When he told that one, his childhood friends always laughed so hard they ended up needing the bathroom.
Surrounded by his new friends, all seven of them sitting on the wooden benches and picnic tables on their school’s grounds, he wasn’t expecting a different reaction. That probably was his mistake.
He stopped chuckling when he realised he was the only one doing so.
“What?”
His friends exchanged looks, their faces getting grimmer by the second.
Daisy seemed confused and a little tentative. She had strawberry blond curls and pouty lips, and Dudley didn’t want it to be strange that he liked her because she had a flower name. She put her thin hand on his arm.
“Dudley… doesn’t that seem really mean?”
Will picked it up,
“Yeah, imagine being that kid. It must have been hurtful.”
Dudley looked into Daisy’s sad eyes and wished to make it right.
“Nah, don’t worry about it. It was fine.”
But Daisy didn’t look reassured, furrowing her eyebrows and firming her voice,
“It doesn’t seem fine to me.”
And of course, Clarissa had to say something. She already looked on the warpath like she always did when they talked about something she didn’t approve of.
“Why are we tiptoeing around this? If his parents were in on it, it sounds like straight-up abuse!”
Dudley scoffed but no one refuted her words. He was starting to get frustrated.
“You’re not taking it as it’s supposed to be.”
“How are we supposed to react to humiliation? Hn?”
He couldn’t believe Luke was taking their side too. He thought Luke, of all of them, could appreciate a good prank, but looking around the group and seeing everyone apparently against him, Dudley’s expression darkened.
“What is your problem? It’s just supposed to be funny.”
“It didn’t sound funny to me,” murmured Daisy, averting her eyes.
“Really, Dud, this is sounding a bit like abuse,” Will admitted.
“Would you stop throwing that word around?! He took the blame for a spot of trouble, so what?”
Rey, who had been quiet until then, stared at him.
“You said your teacher instantly believed you and punished him. Then your parents further punished him at home, by not letting him eat and closing him in his room like those were normal practices that regularly went on in your house.”
Dudley curled in his shoulders, regretting sharing that story. It had been funny in his head!
“Did you think that was normal ?”
“You’re overreacting! That’s just the way things have always been! There’s a mess, he gets punished. That’s it.”
“And not once have you wondered whether that was acceptable?!” Clarissa seemed ready to jump up from the tabletop she sat on.
“What was there to wonder about? That’s the way things were! He wasn’t– I mean he isn’t–“
It was like Clarissa had smelled blood, and went right in for the kill.
“He wasn’t what? A little boy? A human being deserving of basic decency?”
Dudley was getting angry at that point, but when Daisy whispered,
“Your family ?” he deflated like a balloon and shook his head to try and clear it.
“You just don’t get it.”
Will nudged his foot with his.
“C'mon then, Dud, make us get it. Explain.”
“He was just–” Clarissa was already glaring at him, “The freak. Alright? He was just the freak, he’s always been since I can remember. Just that freak my parents didn’t want around but were forced to keep.”
His heart was beating too fast and swallowing his own spit was harder than it had any right to be.
No one spoke.
The silence became so thick that it felt like it was pressing on Dudley from every side. He didn’t know why he had said that. He didn’t know how to make this situation better.
He felt like these were his first real friends and he was ruining everything because of Harry .
Clarissa’s fists were curled so tight that her dark knuckles paled.
Rey, Luke and Laure, the ones that had mostly hung back during the whole conversation, exchanged a look. Then Rey spoke before Clarissa could explode all over them.
“I think we need to know more.”
“Why? You’ll only get upset.”
“You realise what you’ll say will upset us. Yay, progress,” deadpanned Laure, who had been mutely staring at an unspecified point over his left ear for most of the discussion.
Dudley passed a hand over his face and swore under his breath.
Then he started talking.
Putting it all out there, all at once… He had never done that.
He didn’t think he liked it.
And his friends stared at him throughout, shushing each other and grabbing hands when it seemed like they would fly.
When he stopped speaking his throat was dry.
For a long minute, no one reacted.
Then Daisy dropped her head on Laure’s shoulder, and Will took it as his cue to break the silence,
“Was–” he cleared his throat. “Was it really the whole neighbourhood?”
Dudley shrugged, not knowing what to tell him. As usual, Clarissa couldn’t let things lie.
“Well, was it? Or did you exaggerate?”
Dudley glared at her, because why would he lie about such a thing?!
“It’s as I said, no one in the neighbourhood stopped us. But I guess they all thought he was a little criminal anyway–“
“Wait, what?”
Dudley didn’t even have the energy to roll his eyes.
“I guess my parents spent time spreading around the street that his parents were dirty no-goods and he was– a bad apple or some other rot.”
Clarissa’s eyes widened, her cheeks flushed in rage, and she pushed her dark hair behind her ear almost violently, even if the curls sprung right back as they always did.
“Un-fucking-believable. Criminal profiling since he was a little baby. If he were black then…”
Dudley shifted awkwardly, and he saw Luke’s eyes zone in on the slight movement like a... a snake on a mouse or something.
“Er–“
“What.” His voice was so flat, it couldn’t be called a question.
Clarissa looked quickly between them.
“No, don’t tell me. Is he?”
Dudley licked his lips. It didn’t help.
“I guess his dad’s family was Indian or something?”
No one looked anyone else in the eye.
“Indian or something. Of course. Great. Will you be telling me that he was better than you at school and your parents hated him even more for that?”
Finally, a bloody question he could answer.
“No. I mean, he was worse than me.”
“What, in general?”
“No, in every subject.” His friends exchanged weird looks. “He wasn’t allowed to do better than me.”
What they had been more or less been trying to prevent happened. Clarissa jumped to her feet from the tabletop she had been perching on.
“Of course not! How could the brown kid do better in school than the white one! And everyone in your whole community was alright with the brown kid being chased around, mistreated and who knows what else. Of course! Way to make me lose hope in the average British family.” Luke put a hand around her shoulder and gently tugged her so she’d sit next to him on the bench. Daisy had turned her face further in Laure’s shoulder.
Dudley had to say something.
“No, but– it’s fine now!”
“Certain things stay with you all your life!” Clarissa didn’t start pacing only because Luke was still holding onto her, and Rey, from his vantage spot sitting on the table, had brought up his right hand to massage the back of her neck. She still made her displeasure felt. “And you said your parents barely fed him!”
Daisy sighed.
“Oh, who knows how he is now.”
“He’s fine. Seriously. He went to a different Boarding School when we were 11. In the arse-end of nowhere. We’ve only seen him during the summer hols from then on.”
His mates didn’t seem to know how to react to that.
Luke’s lips bent in a way that was too bitter to be called a smirk.
“Ran away at the first chance, hn?”
Dudley shrugged again. Not like he could tell them about the giant that kidnapped his younger cousin.
The silence stretched.
Not too long after that, the group broke up, exchanging quiet goodbyes. It was getting late, and everyone had too much on their minds to start up a nice conversation about another topic.
Rey, who had the room two doors across from Dudley, walked with him in silence until they reached their dormitory.
“Hey, Dud.”
Dudley answered just as quietly,
“Yeah?”
“Maybe we were a little harsh with you… you remember? With the bullying.”
“Course I do.”
Rey passed a hand through his thick black hair in a move that was so reminiscent of Harry it made Dudley shudder. He didn’t know why Reyansh and Harry both being brown had never really clicked in his mind. It did then.
“We thought you were just another kid used to getting everything you wanted. But if your parents straight up raised you to think that was the way to behave– I suppose I get it. But, Dud… us making fun of you for three days was a lot for you. Can you imagine a child’s whole life?”
“I– I never thought about it like that.”
Rey stared at him with his big, dark eyes.
“Of course you didn’t.” He sighed and put a hand on his shoulder. “Of course you didn’t, Dud. Why would you.” Then his friend turned around and entered his room, leaving Dudley in the semi-dark corridor feeling empty in a way he had never experienced.