8. LIKE A FLOWER
Dudley, Harry and Neville sauntered down to the highly-polished Grunnings reception only to discover that it was raining heavily outside. Muddy water streamed across the forecourt's flagstones, running down onto the road. They looked at it in disgust through the tinted glass of the revolving doors before finally resigning themselves to staying inside the building. After basking in the suspicious glare of the security guard for as long as they felt prudent, they finally decided they might as well wander over to the canteen.
They took the stairs to the mezzanine, each privately relishing the apprehensive looks that three swaggering teenage lads can inspire in adults, especially when they look as battle-scarred and dangerous as Dudley and Harry, in particular, did at that moment.
In the canteen they ordered a pot of coffee and a plate of cheese and pickle sandwiches. Neville and Dudley carried the trays over to a table near the door, while Harry stayed behind, talking to the canteen manager. From across the room, Dudley and Neville saw her laugh, nod and take something out of the freezer for Harry. When he returned to the table, he wordlessly handed Dudley a bag of frozen peas.
Dudley held them against his eye. The throbbing pain withered to a dull ache under the ice. "Good punch," he said.
"Yeah," said Harry. There was an uncomfortable pause. "The magic wasn't too bad either." His voice trailed off part way through the sentence, as though he wished he hadn't brought that up. Dudley didn't feel any more comfortable with the subject. But he knew he'd have to deal with it sooner or later.
"So... how do you stop yourself? You know?" Still holding the peas to his sore eye, he looked from Harry to Neville.
"You just learn." Harry shrugged. "Once you accept that you're the one that's causing all the strange things that happen around you, you start finding ways not to cause them." He and Neville exchanged embarrassed grins. "Not to cause them too often anyway."
Harry drained his coffee cup and reached for the pot, pouring some for Dudley and Neville. Dudley took a swig of the hot coffee but felt a sudden chill deep in the pit of his stomach, as if jaws of ice were eating him from within.
Neville watched him guardedly. "Fleur'll be getting home by now." he said quietly.
Fleur had gone. For all Dudley's suspicions about her motives, part of him had never doubted that she'd be there. He'd taken it for granted that she'd be around ready for the next time he pushed her away. He'd jumped to conclusion after conclusion about her and, after all, she was a person too, someone with thoughts and feelings known only to herself.
"You don't think it's my fault?" he asked Neville. "Do you?"
Neville looked uncomfortable. "You should have seen the look on your face after she offered to help you with magic... If a girl looked at me like that when I tried to speak to her, I don't think I'd ever leave the house again."
Dudley laughed scornfully. "No way. It wasn't my fault. It was..." He stopped. It couldn't be his fault. Things never were. Things that he broke were just badly made. People he hurt needed to toughen themselves up. But if he wasn't to blame in this case, he couldn't imagine what was.
Harry reached for a sandwich. "Maybe you should go and see her. Take her flowers or something?"
Dudley shook his head resolutely. "Not my style," he said.
Harry snorted at this. "Since when did you have a style?" He laughed. "Look, even if you don't like the girl, you owe her an apology."
Dudley flinched at the word "apology". He gave Harry a sly look. "Since when have you been an expert on women?" he wanted to ask, but didn't. Stupid question. Harry's freak school had one advantage over Smeltings in that it wasn't single sex. It stood to reason Harry would be less fazed by girls. He nodded, turning his attention to a splash of coffee the canteen floor. "When my dad buys flowers for my mum, he always gets petunias". It suddenly struck him what an appropriate present flowers would be for Fleur and he felt a daft smile creeping across his face. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop the smile. Even so, he wasn't quick enough to escape Harry's notice.
"Ah!" said Harry with an altogether-too-perceptive twinkle behind his glasses.
"Ah," agreed Dudley blushing.
Harry and Neville looked at him. Both were smirking expectantly and trying hard not to. "So what are you waiting for?"
Dudley groaned and held the bag of peas over both eyes.
The arrival of his parents, together with Mr Weasley and Madame Bouleau in the canteen meant that Dudley was rescued from having immediately to commit to any action regarding Fleur. Mr and Mrs Dursley were looking pale and traumatised, while Mme Bouleau had on the same resigned expression she had worn upstairs outside his dad's office. Mr Weasley was trying to keep the tone of things pleasant and reasonable, but the strain was telling in the little muscles around his eyes.
"Mrs Dursley and Mme Bouleau are going to come back to the Ministry with me," he told the boys. "Mr Dursley will take you all back home."
Dudley gave his mother a questioning look, but Petunia Dursley averted her eyes and kept them determinedly lowered. "We can talk later, Dudley," she said. "I know you have a lot of questions but now isn't the time". Dudley sighed. He and the others followed his dad out of the canteen, through the Grunnings reception area and back towards the car park.
No one was particularly keen to travel in the front passenger seat next to Mr Dursley. Harry's wariness was understandable. He never got too close to Vernon Dursley if he could possibly avoid doing so and Neville's sudden twitchiness around the older man who had been nothing other than friendly and encouraging towards him made Dudley wonder whether Neville didn't have his own "Uncle Vernon" somewhere in his family that made him apprehensive of unpredictable violent outbursts. Resignedly, Dudley slid into the front passenger seat next to his father.
Once inside the car, Dudley had expected his father to launch into a tirade against "those people", and, in particular the nest of vipers he'd unknowingly been nurturing around him for the past fifteen years. Longer, if he'd really been unaware that his wife was a witch. Dudley wasn't in the mood for that particular rant. For one thing, however much he might hate the fact, he was "one of those people" and he and his family were simply going to have to get used to it. He only hoped his relationship with his father would somehow survive the day's revelations. The other thing was that he simply wanted to be left alone with his thoughts, unhappy as they were, about Fleur.
He had kept telling himself that she couldn't possibly really like him. Over and over, he'd assured himself that she couldn't really care one way or the other if he gave her the brush off. But the more he thought back on how delighted she always was to see him and the way she always interpreted his behaviour in the best possible way, the more he knew he was just making excuses for his own, inexcusable, behaviour. When he tried to see it from her point of view, he saw just how callous he'd been. Plainer people didn't have a monopoly on sensitivity. Being treated like that was going to hurt just as much whatever body you were in.
But, surprisingly, no tirade was forthcoming from Mr Dursley. Indeed, he was uncharacteristically silent. His skin had a worrying, greyish cast to it and there was something about his movements as he lowered himself into the driver's seat and turned the ignition key that suggested a sleepwalker rather than a man in full control of his actions. For the first time in his life, Dudley had a sudden, chilling glimpse into a future where Vernon Dursley would no longer be a fiery, indomitable figure, barking out orders to his employees, strong in body and personality, in complete control of his own life and that of anyone weak enough to let him take over. Everything a man should be, everything that Dudley had been taught to aspire to. Every expectation he was, suddenly, spectacularly, failing to meet. But if Vernon Dursley wasn't old, he wasn't young either. And he had a bad heart. One day, maybe only another ten years or so from now, most of that fire and strength would desert Vernon Dursley's body. What, Dudley wondered, would be left behind of his father? His love for his family and friends? His pride in his own achievements and those of his loved ones? Or just an angry, helpless, hollowed-out shell of a man, screaming in frustration at the frailties and failures of a body that had once allowed him to dominate his little world?
Everything a man should be. Dudley rolled his eyes, but not at the fast-moving landscape of office buildings they passed as they left Canary Wharf. Looming tower blocks wheeled around the car to be replaced by a flash of greenery as they passed the Westferry Circus roundabout before they plunged into the buzzing maw of the tunnel, joining the end of the southbound rush hour tailback. But was it everything a man _could_ be, Dudley wondered, as he stared blankly ahead at the line of cars in front of them. Even if it were possible to reject the magical side of himself, would it be a mistake to follow strictly in his father's footsteps? To never try to beat a new path, one of his own making?
They were travelling through the Elephant and Castle now. As the car swung round the garish pink shopping centre there, Dudley suddenly realised that to get to Little Whinging they would have to pass...
"We're going to pass through Vauxhall, right?" he asked, trying to keep the anxious note out of his voice.
"By Kennington Oval, that's right." Those were the first words his dad had spoken during that journey. They sounded hollow and distant, like an echo of Vernon Dursley's voice. "I used to take you there to see the cricket. When you were..." he trailed off wearily.
"Can you drop me off there?" Dudley asked. "I just want to go and see, um, a friend of mine." No one spoke, but he could sense, behind him, the alert, listening silence of Harry and Neville.
"A friend, eh?" said Vernon Dursley at last. He sounded dubious, but there was no fight left in him. Not today. Nonetheless, when they reached Kennington Oval, he pulled up and let Dudley out.
"Thanks, dad." Dudley gave his father a friendly punch on the arm, but Vernon Dursley didn't look at him. There were wounds that wouldn't be healed in a day. No doubt they'd leave scars on the Dursley family, but in time, hopefully, they would heal.
Once the silver BMW had pulled away, Dudley found his bearings and headed in the direction of Fentiman Road at a brisk walk, which soon became a run. Fleur's house was at the far end, towards Vauxhall Bridge Road and when Dudley arrived at her door, he was gasping for breath. Too winded to speak, at first he confined himself to banging on the door. There was no reply, but that wasn't surprising. In her upstairs flat, Fleur probably couldn't hear anyone knocking at the door.
"FLEUR!" he yelled as soon as he'd got his breath back. He knelt down on the doorstep and held the letterbox open. "FLEUR!"
"What the devil's all this noise?" said an irritable voice behind him. Dudley turned to see a harrassed-looking woman standing on the doorstep on his left. In her arms, she was jiggling a grizzling baby. "I'd just got him off to sleep."
Dudley felt embarrassed. He stood up. "I just wanted to see Fleur," he said. "The girl who lives here."
"Obviously she's not in," remarked the harrassed woman crossly. "That or she doesn't want to see you. Either way, it's not doing any good you bellowing like that."
Dudley saw her point and had to agree with it, although it still took all his self control to stop himself from flicking a V at the woman before he turned away from the door and began slouching on towards Vauxhall Bridge Road and the station there. He could catch the tube from there back into central London and then take a train to Little Whinging.
The grey evening light seemed to fold around him, giving the road an unreal, off-kilter feeling. In spite of his mood of despair, Dudley found there was something strangely liberating about the feeling that things couldn't get any worse. He was passing by Vauxhall park and the smell of recently mown grass added to his sensory overload. A raucous, laddish shout from somewhere beyond the greenery made Dudley look up. He couldn't remember the last time he was so much in the mood for getting into a fight. As he approached the corner of Fentiman and Vauxhall Bridge Road where the gates were, he turned, on impulse into the park.
Then he saw her. He would have recognised her anywhere. It wasn't just the silvery blonde hair. Or the way she moved. It was everything about her. She was walking along the path on the other side of the field.
"FLEUR!" he bawled and began charging across the park.
She stopped and looked round, a shocked expression on her face. For a moment Fleur didn't speak. She was like a statue. Then she turned and began walking quickly away from him. Dudley followed, deliberately lagging a few yards behind her. He didn't have any right to stand any closer than that. "Fleur, wait!"
What was he doing? He couldn't turn back time, he couldn't unsay the things he'd said or the way he'd said them. There was only one way forward and however much it cost him to say it, he knew he would never forgive himself if he didn't say it. Fleur looked round, her expression cool and haughty.
"Fleur. I'm sorry." He was feeling big and clumsy and stupid. He felt the situation demanded someone more eloquent. He tried.
"It's just... I wasn't... You know..." he gave up trying to excuse himself. "I'm just sorry, that's all," he finished wretchedly.
Fleur wavered. "It is no matter," she said at last," but her voice was cool. "I'm sure Mr Weasley will find you a part-time magic course. Or maybe Professor Dumbledore will give you a place at 'Ogwarts. If that's what you want."
He shook his head. "I don't want to change schools," he admitted. "I'm not exactly brilliant at Smeltings, but at least I've done four years of the subjects there. Starting at Freak School, er, I mean Hogwarts, well, there'd be a load of new subjects, wouldn't there?"
Fleur inclined her head coldly. "You're making excuses, Dudley. You 'ave to face your fears, not to run away from them."
Dudley kicked at a tree stump. "I'm not afraid," he growled.
Fleur watched him skeptically. Then she shrugged. "Fine. You're not afraid. But you are still running away."
It was true. And sooner or later, he'd have to stop running and look his fears in the face. Why not start today? "You offered to help me," he said softly. "With m-- magic," he stumbled over the old taboo word, but at least it was out. Spoken. "Will you still do that? Please?"
There was a long silence. Dudley took it as a refusal. "Well, anyway," he muttered. He was on the point of turning away. He'd said what he needed to say. He was glad he'd said it, even though it didn't make a difference any more. Even though he'd still be going back to Little Whinging and the familiar strangers of his family. Then she ran to him.
Dudley was caught off-guard and stumbled backwards a couple of steps taking her with him. It was the last thing he'd expected. They had their arms around one another and, as their lips met, the park and the darkening sky seemed to spin around them.
For a long time neither of them spoke. And when they finally did speak, Fleur didn't try to explain what it was like to be part-Veela -- to be so beautiful that she was constantly being harrassed by strange men who took her appearance as an open invitation to accost her, while most normal guys avoided her, assuming she wouldn't want anything to do with them. She didn't go into all the friendships she'd had with girls that had fallen apart as soon as the other girl began to see Fleur as a rival rather than a ally. And for his part, Dudley didn't talk about what it was like to be Dudley Dursley, the fat kid with all the toys money could buy -- and all the friends that having the right toys could buy. He didn't try to describe the anxiety that had begun to weigh down on him from the moment that he first suspected that the Dudley Dursley he thought he knew was turning out to be exactly the kind of freak he'd been brought up to hate and fear -- or the confusion he'd felt as he'd begun to discover that being "abnormal" wasn't as unusual or undesirable as he'd always thought.
Although he held her hand tightly, Dudley held his strange, unknown new feelings like a delicate flower. Scarcely daring to breathe near it for fear that the petals should bruise and crumble away. He was with this incredible girl who, inexplicably, miraculously, thought he was incredible too. Could it last? Would it hurt more to try and fail than to run from the chance of happiness? Even if it were a very slender chance. And Dudley thought it probably was. He'd changed so much in one year, what if he was still changing? There were so many things that could go wrong. He tried not to think about it. He didn't even dare to talk about it. Instead, they talked about the cool evening breeze that was ruffling their hair as they walked through Vauxhall Park. They complained about how the smell of fried fish from the Portuguese takeaway on the main road was making them hungry. They laughed about Dudley's black eye and about an oddly-shaped little terrier that squeezed itself under the mesh and then trotted proudly across the tennis court with a rubber ball in its mouth. But through these silly, irrelevant subjects they began to understand one another in ways that hours of explanation, analysis and heart searching could never shed light on.
"I know about tennis," said Fleur, "I don't know 'ow to play though. Will you teach me?"
"Sure," said Dudley. He frowned. "I don't think I want to play against you. I'd always want you to win."
"Doubles?" Fleur tilted her head to one side and peered up at him through a few silvery wisps of hair with a mischievous smile.
Dudley thought about it. He'd never played doubles and didn't know how he'd get on with someone else playing on his side. That was practically a team game. But if he did have to have someone on his team... He smiled thoughtfully. They could ask Harry and Neville to play against them. He wondered whether either of them was any good at tennis. With a bit of luck they didn't teach the game at Hogwarts.
He grinned and pulled her towards him for another kiss. "Doubles."
THE END
Dudley, Harry and Neville sauntered down to the highly-polished Grunnings reception only to discover that it was raining heavily outside. Muddy water streamed across the forecourt's flagstones, running down onto the road. They looked at it in disgust through the tinted glass of the revolving doors before finally resigning themselves to staying inside the building. After basking in the suspicious glare of the security guard for as long as they felt prudent, they finally decided they might as well wander over to the canteen.
They took the stairs to the mezzanine, each privately relishing the apprehensive looks that three swaggering teenage lads can inspire in adults, especially when they look as battle-scarred and dangerous as Dudley and Harry, in particular, did at that moment.
In the canteen they ordered a pot of coffee and a plate of cheese and pickle sandwiches. Neville and Dudley carried the trays over to a table near the door, while Harry stayed behind, talking to the canteen manager. From across the room, Dudley and Neville saw her laugh, nod and take something out of the freezer for Harry. When he returned to the table, he wordlessly handed Dudley a bag of frozen peas.
Dudley held them against his eye. The throbbing pain withered to a dull ache under the ice. "Good punch," he said.
"Yeah," said Harry. There was an uncomfortable pause. "The magic wasn't too bad either." His voice trailed off part way through the sentence, as though he wished he hadn't brought that up. Dudley didn't feel any more comfortable with the subject. But he knew he'd have to deal with it sooner or later.
"So... how do you stop yourself? You know?" Still holding the peas to his sore eye, he looked from Harry to Neville.
"You just learn." Harry shrugged. "Once you accept that you're the one that's causing all the strange things that happen around you, you start finding ways not to cause them." He and Neville exchanged embarrassed grins. "Not to cause them too often anyway."
Harry drained his coffee cup and reached for the pot, pouring some for Dudley and Neville. Dudley took a swig of the hot coffee but felt a sudden chill deep in the pit of his stomach, as if jaws of ice were eating him from within.
Neville watched him guardedly. "Fleur'll be getting home by now." he said quietly.
Fleur had gone. For all Dudley's suspicions about her motives, part of him had never doubted that she'd be there. He'd taken it for granted that she'd be around ready for the next time he pushed her away. He'd jumped to conclusion after conclusion about her and, after all, she was a person too, someone with thoughts and feelings known only to herself.
"You don't think it's my fault?" he asked Neville. "Do you?"
Neville looked uncomfortable. "You should have seen the look on your face after she offered to help you with magic... If a girl looked at me like that when I tried to speak to her, I don't think I'd ever leave the house again."
Dudley laughed scornfully. "No way. It wasn't my fault. It was..." He stopped. It couldn't be his fault. Things never were. Things that he broke were just badly made. People he hurt needed to toughen themselves up. But if he wasn't to blame in this case, he couldn't imagine what was.
Harry reached for a sandwich. "Maybe you should go and see her. Take her flowers or something?"
Dudley shook his head resolutely. "Not my style," he said.
Harry snorted at this. "Since when did you have a style?" He laughed. "Look, even if you don't like the girl, you owe her an apology."
Dudley flinched at the word "apology". He gave Harry a sly look. "Since when have you been an expert on women?" he wanted to ask, but didn't. Stupid question. Harry's freak school had one advantage over Smeltings in that it wasn't single sex. It stood to reason Harry would be less fazed by girls. He nodded, turning his attention to a splash of coffee the canteen floor. "When my dad buys flowers for my mum, he always gets petunias". It suddenly struck him what an appropriate present flowers would be for Fleur and he felt a daft smile creeping across his face. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop the smile. Even so, he wasn't quick enough to escape Harry's notice.
"Ah!" said Harry with an altogether-too-perceptive twinkle behind his glasses.
"Ah," agreed Dudley blushing.
Harry and Neville looked at him. Both were smirking expectantly and trying hard not to. "So what are you waiting for?"
Dudley groaned and held the bag of peas over both eyes.
The arrival of his parents, together with Mr Weasley and Madame Bouleau in the canteen meant that Dudley was rescued from having immediately to commit to any action regarding Fleur. Mr and Mrs Dursley were looking pale and traumatised, while Mme Bouleau had on the same resigned expression she had worn upstairs outside his dad's office. Mr Weasley was trying to keep the tone of things pleasant and reasonable, but the strain was telling in the little muscles around his eyes.
"Mrs Dursley and Mme Bouleau are going to come back to the Ministry with me," he told the boys. "Mr Dursley will take you all back home."
Dudley gave his mother a questioning look, but Petunia Dursley averted her eyes and kept them determinedly lowered. "We can talk later, Dudley," she said. "I know you have a lot of questions but now isn't the time". Dudley sighed. He and the others followed his dad out of the canteen, through the Grunnings reception area and back towards the car park.
No one was particularly keen to travel in the front passenger seat next to Mr Dursley. Harry's wariness was understandable. He never got too close to Vernon Dursley if he could possibly avoid doing so and Neville's sudden twitchiness around the older man who had been nothing other than friendly and encouraging towards him made Dudley wonder whether Neville didn't have his own "Uncle Vernon" somewhere in his family that made him apprehensive of unpredictable violent outbursts. Resignedly, Dudley slid into the front passenger seat next to his father.
Once inside the car, Dudley had expected his father to launch into a tirade against "those people", and, in particular the nest of vipers he'd unknowingly been nurturing around him for the past fifteen years. Longer, if he'd really been unaware that his wife was a witch. Dudley wasn't in the mood for that particular rant. For one thing, however much he might hate the fact, he was "one of those people" and he and his family were simply going to have to get used to it. He only hoped his relationship with his father would somehow survive the day's revelations. The other thing was that he simply wanted to be left alone with his thoughts, unhappy as they were, about Fleur.
He had kept telling himself that she couldn't possibly really like him. Over and over, he'd assured himself that she couldn't really care one way or the other if he gave her the brush off. But the more he thought back on how delighted she always was to see him and the way she always interpreted his behaviour in the best possible way, the more he knew he was just making excuses for his own, inexcusable, behaviour. When he tried to see it from her point of view, he saw just how callous he'd been. Plainer people didn't have a monopoly on sensitivity. Being treated like that was going to hurt just as much whatever body you were in.
But, surprisingly, no tirade was forthcoming from Mr Dursley. Indeed, he was uncharacteristically silent. His skin had a worrying, greyish cast to it and there was something about his movements as he lowered himself into the driver's seat and turned the ignition key that suggested a sleepwalker rather than a man in full control of his actions. For the first time in his life, Dudley had a sudden, chilling glimpse into a future where Vernon Dursley would no longer be a fiery, indomitable figure, barking out orders to his employees, strong in body and personality, in complete control of his own life and that of anyone weak enough to let him take over. Everything a man should be, everything that Dudley had been taught to aspire to. Every expectation he was, suddenly, spectacularly, failing to meet. But if Vernon Dursley wasn't old, he wasn't young either. And he had a bad heart. One day, maybe only another ten years or so from now, most of that fire and strength would desert Vernon Dursley's body. What, Dudley wondered, would be left behind of his father? His love for his family and friends? His pride in his own achievements and those of his loved ones? Or just an angry, helpless, hollowed-out shell of a man, screaming in frustration at the frailties and failures of a body that had once allowed him to dominate his little world?
Everything a man should be. Dudley rolled his eyes, but not at the fast-moving landscape of office buildings they passed as they left Canary Wharf. Looming tower blocks wheeled around the car to be replaced by a flash of greenery as they passed the Westferry Circus roundabout before they plunged into the buzzing maw of the tunnel, joining the end of the southbound rush hour tailback. But was it everything a man _could_ be, Dudley wondered, as he stared blankly ahead at the line of cars in front of them. Even if it were possible to reject the magical side of himself, would it be a mistake to follow strictly in his father's footsteps? To never try to beat a new path, one of his own making?
They were travelling through the Elephant and Castle now. As the car swung round the garish pink shopping centre there, Dudley suddenly realised that to get to Little Whinging they would have to pass...
"We're going to pass through Vauxhall, right?" he asked, trying to keep the anxious note out of his voice.
"By Kennington Oval, that's right." Those were the first words his dad had spoken during that journey. They sounded hollow and distant, like an echo of Vernon Dursley's voice. "I used to take you there to see the cricket. When you were..." he trailed off wearily.
"Can you drop me off there?" Dudley asked. "I just want to go and see, um, a friend of mine." No one spoke, but he could sense, behind him, the alert, listening silence of Harry and Neville.
"A friend, eh?" said Vernon Dursley at last. He sounded dubious, but there was no fight left in him. Not today. Nonetheless, when they reached Kennington Oval, he pulled up and let Dudley out.
"Thanks, dad." Dudley gave his father a friendly punch on the arm, but Vernon Dursley didn't look at him. There were wounds that wouldn't be healed in a day. No doubt they'd leave scars on the Dursley family, but in time, hopefully, they would heal.
Once the silver BMW had pulled away, Dudley found his bearings and headed in the direction of Fentiman Road at a brisk walk, which soon became a run. Fleur's house was at the far end, towards Vauxhall Bridge Road and when Dudley arrived at her door, he was gasping for breath. Too winded to speak, at first he confined himself to banging on the door. There was no reply, but that wasn't surprising. In her upstairs flat, Fleur probably couldn't hear anyone knocking at the door.
"FLEUR!" he yelled as soon as he'd got his breath back. He knelt down on the doorstep and held the letterbox open. "FLEUR!"
"What the devil's all this noise?" said an irritable voice behind him. Dudley turned to see a harrassed-looking woman standing on the doorstep on his left. In her arms, she was jiggling a grizzling baby. "I'd just got him off to sleep."
Dudley felt embarrassed. He stood up. "I just wanted to see Fleur," he said. "The girl who lives here."
"Obviously she's not in," remarked the harrassed woman crossly. "That or she doesn't want to see you. Either way, it's not doing any good you bellowing like that."
Dudley saw her point and had to agree with it, although it still took all his self control to stop himself from flicking a V at the woman before he turned away from the door and began slouching on towards Vauxhall Bridge Road and the station there. He could catch the tube from there back into central London and then take a train to Little Whinging.
The grey evening light seemed to fold around him, giving the road an unreal, off-kilter feeling. In spite of his mood of despair, Dudley found there was something strangely liberating about the feeling that things couldn't get any worse. He was passing by Vauxhall park and the smell of recently mown grass added to his sensory overload. A raucous, laddish shout from somewhere beyond the greenery made Dudley look up. He couldn't remember the last time he was so much in the mood for getting into a fight. As he approached the corner of Fentiman and Vauxhall Bridge Road where the gates were, he turned, on impulse into the park.
Then he saw her. He would have recognised her anywhere. It wasn't just the silvery blonde hair. Or the way she moved. It was everything about her. She was walking along the path on the other side of the field.
"FLEUR!" he bawled and began charging across the park.
She stopped and looked round, a shocked expression on her face. For a moment Fleur didn't speak. She was like a statue. Then she turned and began walking quickly away from him. Dudley followed, deliberately lagging a few yards behind her. He didn't have any right to stand any closer than that. "Fleur, wait!"
What was he doing? He couldn't turn back time, he couldn't unsay the things he'd said or the way he'd said them. There was only one way forward and however much it cost him to say it, he knew he would never forgive himself if he didn't say it. Fleur looked round, her expression cool and haughty.
"Fleur. I'm sorry." He was feeling big and clumsy and stupid. He felt the situation demanded someone more eloquent. He tried.
"It's just... I wasn't... You know..." he gave up trying to excuse himself. "I'm just sorry, that's all," he finished wretchedly.
Fleur wavered. "It is no matter," she said at last," but her voice was cool. "I'm sure Mr Weasley will find you a part-time magic course. Or maybe Professor Dumbledore will give you a place at 'Ogwarts. If that's what you want."
He shook his head. "I don't want to change schools," he admitted. "I'm not exactly brilliant at Smeltings, but at least I've done four years of the subjects there. Starting at Freak School, er, I mean Hogwarts, well, there'd be a load of new subjects, wouldn't there?"
Fleur inclined her head coldly. "You're making excuses, Dudley. You 'ave to face your fears, not to run away from them."
Dudley kicked at a tree stump. "I'm not afraid," he growled.
Fleur watched him skeptically. Then she shrugged. "Fine. You're not afraid. But you are still running away."
It was true. And sooner or later, he'd have to stop running and look his fears in the face. Why not start today? "You offered to help me," he said softly. "With m-- magic," he stumbled over the old taboo word, but at least it was out. Spoken. "Will you still do that? Please?"
There was a long silence. Dudley took it as a refusal. "Well, anyway," he muttered. He was on the point of turning away. He'd said what he needed to say. He was glad he'd said it, even though it didn't make a difference any more. Even though he'd still be going back to Little Whinging and the familiar strangers of his family. Then she ran to him.
Dudley was caught off-guard and stumbled backwards a couple of steps taking her with him. It was the last thing he'd expected. They had their arms around one another and, as their lips met, the park and the darkening sky seemed to spin around them.
For a long time neither of them spoke. And when they finally did speak, Fleur didn't try to explain what it was like to be part-Veela -- to be so beautiful that she was constantly being harrassed by strange men who took her appearance as an open invitation to accost her, while most normal guys avoided her, assuming she wouldn't want anything to do with them. She didn't go into all the friendships she'd had with girls that had fallen apart as soon as the other girl began to see Fleur as a rival rather than a ally. And for his part, Dudley didn't talk about what it was like to be Dudley Dursley, the fat kid with all the toys money could buy -- and all the friends that having the right toys could buy. He didn't try to describe the anxiety that had begun to weigh down on him from the moment that he first suspected that the Dudley Dursley he thought he knew was turning out to be exactly the kind of freak he'd been brought up to hate and fear -- or the confusion he'd felt as he'd begun to discover that being "abnormal" wasn't as unusual or undesirable as he'd always thought.
Although he held her hand tightly, Dudley held his strange, unknown new feelings like a delicate flower. Scarcely daring to breathe near it for fear that the petals should bruise and crumble away. He was with this incredible girl who, inexplicably, miraculously, thought he was incredible too. Could it last? Would it hurt more to try and fail than to run from the chance of happiness? Even if it were a very slender chance. And Dudley thought it probably was. He'd changed so much in one year, what if he was still changing? There were so many things that could go wrong. He tried not to think about it. He didn't even dare to talk about it. Instead, they talked about the cool evening breeze that was ruffling their hair as they walked through Vauxhall Park. They complained about how the smell of fried fish from the Portuguese takeaway on the main road was making them hungry. They laughed about Dudley's black eye and about an oddly-shaped little terrier that squeezed itself under the mesh and then trotted proudly across the tennis court with a rubber ball in its mouth. But through these silly, irrelevant subjects they began to understand one another in ways that hours of explanation, analysis and heart searching could never shed light on.
"I know about tennis," said Fleur, "I don't know 'ow to play though. Will you teach me?"
"Sure," said Dudley. He frowned. "I don't think I want to play against you. I'd always want you to win."
"Doubles?" Fleur tilted her head to one side and peered up at him through a few silvery wisps of hair with a mischievous smile.
Dudley thought about it. He'd never played doubles and didn't know how he'd get on with someone else playing on his side. That was practically a team game. But if he did have to have someone on his team... He smiled thoughtfully. They could ask Harry and Neville to play against them. He wondered whether either of them was any good at tennis. With a bit of luck they didn't teach the game at Hogwarts.
He grinned and pulled her towards him for another kiss. "Doubles."
THE END