AN: There's a fairly high chance that this ends up being kind of clunky and stilted. With my writers block being the way it is, however, if I have to spit out word salad to get this up then I'm just gonna spit out some word salad. I'm going to try my damnedest to give this a semi frequent update schedule but no promises, as my track record is pretty damn awful with them I have to say, and inspiration hard to come by to say the least.

(Edit: Now with some last minute additions now that I'm not half delirious from lack of sleep.)

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or various brand items that may or may not be mentioned within this work, and likely never will.

...Ch 1 Funeral Wraiths...

Marjorie Eileen Dursley's funeral is held on a particularly sunny day in late June. It is a quiet and peaceful death, alone and at home and utterly out of the blue. She'd gone to sleep one day and simply hadn't woken up again in the morning due to perfectly natural causes.

She had not been particularly close to the rest of her family. She had loved her brother in the way older siblings did, had tolerated her sister-in-law, and fawned over her nephew, but had much preferred the company of her dogs.

Dudley had never really considered the idea that she might ever die.

Which is not to say that he had been particularly fond of her, but that didn't mean he wanted her dead. She'd just been there, always a part of his life, visiting occasionally, sending gifts at Christmas and at birthdays, and often being mentioned during breakfast over sausage and eggs and the morning mail.

"Marge's got a new batch of pups." Or "Marge is off on holiday in such and such, the lucky devil."

He'd never imagined that one day she'd be gone, buried under the ground as if she'd never even existed. Would that happen to him one day, all but forgotten to anyone but family and close friends? It was an odd thought, quite unlike him, but then again things had been changing lately, the world suddenly seeming bleaker and more dangerous than it had been before.

'Harry would know.' He thought, grimacing. He didn't like thinking about it, about Harry or the things that he knew, about the warnings the small boy had given him before he had marched off to war.

Dudley didn't know what it was he was expecting around every corner, in every shadow, but it couldn't be good.

His fathers ugly sobbing was the only sound in the graveyard. He looked awful, face purple and blotchy with tears, and dressed in a large unflattering suit that was still somehow too small. Dudley's mother on the other hand just looked pinched and much too pale in her positively horrendous black dress and shawl. Dudley knew that he probably didn't look much better than his parents, the cheap suit sticky in the oppressive summer heat and crinkled from the drive over.

His mother hadn't liked Aunt Marge much, although she'd never said anything to her husband. Her in-law had been much too loud, too crude. And while a small child would think that an absolute riot, a married housewife concerned with self image would decidedly not.

She hadn't liked the dogs either.

Too much hair.

Too much noise.

It was with some relief that Dudley and Petunia quickly retreated back to the blissfully air-conditioned car shortly after the burial itself. It was too hot to be wearing black, the summer heat having rolled in with a vengeance two weeks before and cooking them where they stood.

They spent several minutes sitting there in the cool filtered air, Dudley fiddling idly with his I-pod and Petunia staring pensively out of the window, before Vernon came back pale in the face and shaking.

The drive back home was uncomfortably silent, although the building they lived in could hardly be called 'Home'.

Home had been number 4 Privet drive, not the decent sized apartment they now lived in. It was wildly different to the small suburban house that Dudley had lived in for his entire life. It had no garden, and no fences too peek over, and it was only one floor all smashed together into a tangled jumble of rooms. The rooms themselves were small, the furniture from Privet drive looking far too cramped and out of place in the whitewashed walls.

Petunia and Vernon hated it, but there was nothing they could do about it. It was acceptable, and a place to live unmolested by magical and that was enough for them, more than enough. They'd do anything to be rid of that part of their lives. Anything to be rid of the secret that they'd carried with them for seventeen long years.

Dudley didn't know what to think of the building, or the neighbourhood, or even the neighbours themselves. They weren't close to any of his friends, or indeed anything remotely more interesting than the small antiques place on the corner.

His new room was smaller and painted a particularly awful looking yellow. Yellow like runny eggs or sunflowers, he thought, nothing like the blue his old room had been. Bare too, the majority of his old pesters having been left at number four, having been far too troublesome to scrape off of the wallpaper. His computer was there on his desk, his sports equipment was stacked up in the corner by the too small window, and various bits and pieces he had collected through his life scattered about every available space.

He'd been considering moving out lately, maybe a flat share with Piers, or even branching out on his own and having a stab at university. He wasn't sure what course he wanted to take, but his A- Levels were decent enough- not brilliant but decent.

It'd be better than living here he thinks, sitting down for dinner with the rest of his family several hours later. He was finally out of that stuffy suit, and back in his comfortable jeans and t-shirts. Nobody speaks a word and even their breathing is unnaturally quiet, Vernon staring blankly at the plate in front of him and hardly paying any attention to his surroundings at all.

He was still wearing the too small suit and looked awful, all ragged, and grey, and as if the very life had been sucked from his bones.

Dudley stabbed his vegetables, idly shunting them around the plate. He wasn't at all hungry, not for unappetising casserole, and mushy carrots and peas. Maybe later he'd order a Chinese or curry, but he wouldn't eat now, sitting in stilted silence with his family.

"Whatever will happen to her dogs?" Petunia asks eventually, glancing up from her peas in an attempt to make small talk.

Vernons face twists but he doesn't say anything.

Disappointed at the failed distraction from impending boredom, Dudley looks back down and, consequently, completely misses what happens next.

The table shatters with the sound of breaking wood and smashed tableware and Vernon Dursley shifts. The boy lurches backwards in alarm, his chair crashing to the ground, Petunia freezing in shocked horror at the spectacle in front of her.

"Dad?!" Dudley squawks, nearly tripping over his downed chair as he back up.

Vernon expands upwards and outwards, skin bubbling away and clothes tearing with a wet rip. What is revealed in his place is awful, skeletal and bony, limbs too long and spindly and head too big, a pale imitation of the human form. A grotesque limb, part arm and part machine all smashed together into a metallic monstrosity, reaches forwards and-

-Petunia dies.

Dudley's mother dies.

She's there one second and a blackening corpse the next. Dudley can't help but think of burnt corpses, people who'd been stuck in the searing heat of a roaring fire and died, and how she looks just as brittle and breakable for just a moment before she dissolves. Breaks into a cloud of ash, leaving her clothes sat limply on her overturned chair.

She's gone, and Dudley's scrambling away, the monster –it has his fathers face! His fathers FACE!- turning to follow.

Dudley darts through the kitchen door and into the too small hallway, the loud crash of the table colliding with the far wall indicating that the thing was right behind him. Powdered plaster and concrete gums his nose and chokes him as the thing jams its face through the open doorway, taking out a massive chunk of the wall. It takes only seconds for him to reach his bedroom, having dropped into a panicked sprint as soon as its head had so much as peeked through behind him.

He gasped, lungs aching, ducking a fast moving something that obliterated the bathroom and kicked up even more dust. He gagged.

God, why had he decided to take up smoking? Why?! Teenaged rebellion of course but good god did he regret it! He should have known better, didn't they block the inside of the lungs or something? Stop him from being able to take in air? Air he could totally have used right now?

Dudley scrambled for his desk drawer, yanking it open. It was in here somewhere, it had to be. He'd put it right there hadn't he? Right next to his various game boy cartridges and a hoard of empty sweet wrappers.

Where was it?!

His da- that thing, that monster wearing his father's face, crashed loudly, smashing its way towards him through the flimsy apartment walls, louder with every second. It sounded like it had gotten stuck in one of the small rooms, but it wouldn't be long until it crushed its way through and got him. Not long until the thing would kill him just like it'd killed his mother, gone without a trace.

There! A glint of gold. He scrabbled at the large coin frantically with numb fingers, touching the words printed along its edge and willing them to change. Harry had given it to him last year, as a just in case, and had never bothered to take it back.

'HELP! Help me! Helpmehelpme, please!'

The monster roars ear shatteringly loud and Dudley is running again.

There's no exit, no fire escape out of his tiny window, but it's just the third floor and there were cars out there to land on if he remembered right. If he lands properly he would hopefully be able to run.

Probably.

'Please god, don't let me die.'

He yanks it open, nearly smashing the windowpane against the wall in his blind panic. There is no time, no time at all, it was right there behind him, and, from the corner of his eyes the teen could see it slowly reach for him through the open doorway.

He hauls himself through and falls.

The roof of a van is surprisingly hard. He slams into it with all the grace of a sack of bricks, his forward momentum from the jump launching him clear off the roof and to the ground below. The vans security alarm howls its protest.

He botches the landing, smashes his knees to the sidewalk and is sent sprawling from the force of it, but he's alive and the thing screams with rage. His jeans are ruined, he realises idly, and if they hadn't been mostly holes before the knees certainly are now.

A glance shows that the thing is furious, it's grotesque face curling into a terrible sneer, and it slams a fleshy metallic fist clean through the wall in its fury. It'll be stuck for a minute or two, maybe less, but that depends on how quickly it can smash itself through.

He crawls to his feet, knees aching, hands scraped, lungs protesting all the way.

And then he runs.

Nials (Previously NialsFiction)