Author's Note: This was going to be a lot longer when I first published it but I realised it didn't need to be anything more than this oneshot so I've done some major edits and here it is!

I'd search in the direction of JK Rowling for the owner of these characters rather than me but it's up to you. x

Who doesn't love a happy family?

By all accounts, Dudley Dursley should have been an idiot. He'd always looked a little cartoonish, no matter what his mother thought. His blond hair and blue eyes were mixing with a rather whale-like weight and consistently over-tight clothes (the result of a mother who refused to believe her son was that big). Luckily his cousin Harry Potter bore the brunt of his ridiculousness, with his own oversized clothes, broken glasses, dull personality, and utter friendlessness, Harry made a much easier target for bullies than the largest kid on the block. Who would risk bullying something that would crush them if it fell over? This could have led to Dudley becoming a bit of a bully himself, especially with the way his father tended to bully his cousin, in fact it was quite likely that he should have been a bully. But he wasn't. His cousin had put an end to that in quite a roundabout fashion.

Just earlier that week in fact Dudley had had his friends over, they came over as a group at least once a week with their mothers organising playdates together but they normally just watched tv. Today wasn't a normal day, Dudley had gotten angry a few days past and had broken the family's TV. This meant that there was nothing for the boys to do and after several hours of brainstorming (they really weren't that smart) they still hadn't come up with anything. They were starting to get bored of sitting around doing nothing when they'd seen Dudley's cousin Harry clamber out of his cupboard and inspiration struck. They decided to try out a new game, the main idea of which was to see just how many times they could hit Harry as a group. There was no end result to this game and so the fact that they couldn't count past ten didn't bother them as they could just start again, and so they got to work.

They hadn't been playing for long when they encountered the first problem. it seemed that whenever Dudley, or one of his friends hit Harry (or as he was quickly becoming known around Dudley's house, The Freak) they felt as if they were getting hit themselves. It took a fairly long time for this to sink in, but by the time it had the whole group was absolutely covered in bruises. Harry himself was probably the most confused by all this but Dudley thought it was oddly familiar. Every night when Dudley went to bed he had a few moments of panic after the lights turned off due to his fear of the dark. Because of this he'd discovered that he could create a big glowing light above his head that let him go to sleep easier. He didn't know what it was exactly, but what his cousin Harry was doing just felt the same, even though it didn't look like it. Somehow Dudley knew that whatever it was he did at night before bed was the same thing Harry did when Dudley's friends attacked him. This hit Dudley hard but it mostly glanced off his thick head, he felt it on an instinctual level but he was only four and he would never have been able to explain any of it.

Explain it was what he had to do however, when the day after his friends had come over his mother threw a fit at his cousin Harry for floating a plate of biscuits towards himself. Dudley again recognised on an instinctual level, that his cousin was doing something he could have done as well. Which was why what had happened next had hit him so very hard. After Harry had floated the biscuits towards himself (in full view of Dudley's mum) she had pounced on him and had nearly screamed the neighbourhood down. She had yelled about freaks doing freakish talents and how she should never have taken him in. She had spanked him until he was absolutely bawling, then she had thrown him into his cupboard and slammed the door on his face, leaving him there for at least four hours. While he may not have been the brightest Dudley had begun to realise that his mum didn't like whatever it was that he could do and he began to get rather scared of what would happen if she found out he could do freak stuff too. It hadn't helped that when she was done terrorising his cousin, his mum had come back to him and said "Don't you worry my little ickle Diddykins, I'll make sure that freak can't do anything to us, don't you fear."

But Dudley had feared, he'd feared that he would get discovered, that his mum would start to hate him and that she'd make him stop making the lights at bedtime. So he had done the only thing that had properly made its way through his rather thick head. He had gone to his cousin for help.

After his cousin was allowed back outside, Dudley had taken him back behind the shed and had threatened him (more with his fists than his four year old vocabulary) not to tell anyone else what he saw. He then showed Harry the lights he could make and waited nervously. It occurred to him only now that Harry could run and tell his mum before he could pummel him and once the secret was out it wasn't going back in.

It was a tense few moments for Dudley, some of the scariest in his life but finally, after his cousin's face flashed with emotions ranging from terror (at the thought of getting caught) to delight (that he wasn't alone) he nodded and they sat for a while, for the first time in their young lives communicating with each other nicely. Eventually the boy's came up with a faintly laid out plan, namely that they would pretend Harry could do the freak things and not Dudley. That way if Dudley accidentally did something freakish his parents would be able to blame it on Harry.

The problem with this whole plot, was that four year olds tend to be very selfish, and the whole crux of Dudley's plan rested on Harry taking the blame for everything that Dudley did, when he had the chance to get Dudley in some real trouble that his parents couldn't just brush off. This led to a few squabbles between the boys during the next day in which Dudley was both too afraid to lose and too afraid to win, lest his parents find out about his magic. In the end it was Harry who had decided on the compromise, namely that he and Dudley work together. Dudley would give Harry some of his food (the poor boy was always hungry) and stop hitting him with his friends. Harry would then cover for Dudley any time he needed it.

And so it was that Harry prevented Dudley from becoming a bully. It was a close call, because if Dudley had been even marginally smarter he would have realised he could just blame all his magic on Harry anyways (and maybe even do some on purpose to get him in trouble) but a deal was a deal and it was too late by then anyhow.

By the time the week had come and gone the plan had been fully laid out and it was time for Dudley's weekly playdate. As usual Dudley's friends showed up and they played together but this time Dudley got Harry to join them. It turned out to be a very good thing because Dudley accidentally made Piers' face turn an unnatural hue of orange but it cemented something between them. It made them more than just cousins. From that point on they were friends.

Just over six years later the two boys had become much closer despite some rather big differences in personality. Both of them had changed quite a lot, with Dudley looking much less clown like (mostly due to his having returned to a rather more average weight) and Harry looking much less forgotten, fitting into Dudley's clothes much easier after having gained some. The boys actually ended up roughly the same size and because they spent so much time together they had taken to many of the same facial expressions. While they behaved differently around their teachers and peers for the safety of their secret, their mannerisms were nearly identical. Another big change in them was their personalities, over the years Harry had become the friendliest child imaginable while Dudley had become fairly charming. This started the day Dudley convinced his parents to give Harry his own room without using his fists, and it had continued ever since.

Overall the two boys were the best of friends with both caring for each other a great deal. This always worried Dudley's parents, both of whom were afraid of Harry (they had stopped calling him the freak under fears of what damage it could do to Dudley) doing something to their son but there was nothing either of them could do since they could refuse their son nothing, even having a freak as a friend.

Still, something both Petunia and Vernon feared more than what could happen to their son was what would happen on the boys' eleventh birthdays. They knew their son would escape the drama of a letter announcing his freakishness but they feared what would happen when Harry got one and worse, what would happen if he went to a freak school.

For years both Petunia and Vernon had been encouraging their son to drop the dead weight, despite the academic success they achieved when working together, or the popularity they had earned at school, the fact that Dudley's temperament improved drastically after befriending Harry, or that he became the perfect son, never seemed to impact their desire to separate the boys and their last ditch effort was to send the boys to separate schools.

Sending Dudley to Smeltings and Harry to Stonewall High seemed like the perfect idea and they had begun to plant the seeds early on. They told the boys that a bit of separation would do them good and that they couldn't afford to send both boys to Smeltings as it was far too expensive. They convinced Harry that he couldn't hold his cousin back from life and they told Dudley that his education was more important than his friends. For years before they were even required to register for high schools they planted these thoughts. They thought that if Harry was sent to freak school then it would still axe the friendship but this way it would hurt Dudley less since they had been expecting to go to different schools anyways. They also figured that any doubt in the boys minds about each other would cause them to have an easier time convincing Dudley to hate Harry later on.

What the parents hadn't counted on however, was the reason Dudley and Harry needed to be friends. Six years hadn't changed the fact that Dudley still occasionally had bursts of accidental magic and while he had remarkable control for someone of his age and did nowhere near the amount of accidental magic that Harry did, he still needed a scapegoat, just in case.

This meant that the morning when Petunia and Vernon finally decided that it was time for them to enrol the boys in high schools they were very surprised to find an absolute and complete brick wall facing them in the form of their son. They brought it up over breakfast and Dudley spent over an hour convincing them that Harry needed to go to Smeltings with him. The only interruption during the extremely long breakfast was an entirely unnoticed flap of the letter slot in the front door opening but by the end of Dudley's speech no one would remember it, least of all Petunia and Vernon who shakily agreed with Dudley and wandered off to take a mid morning nap, already thoroughly worn out from the day's events.

This left Dudley and Harry alone for the morning and with nothing to do they decided to go upstairs and play video games. As they were walking up however, they noticed a small pile of letters by the door. Dudley was content to leave them there as had his parents, but Harry picked them up, noticing something about the first one, it was addressed to him.

Dudley, pausing in his ascent of the stairs looked over his shoulder to see what his cousin was so preoccupied with and was stunned to see the letter. He almost called out for his parents to yell at them for what he assumed were enrolment papers for Harry to Stonewall High, but, taking matters into his own hands instead, Dudley hurried over to his cousin and snatched it out of his hands, it was then that he noticed the second letter with his own name. Confuzzled expressions upon their faces Dudley and Harry walked back to the table with shaky hands to read the letters. And were they glad they did! The letters stated that the boys were wizards and had a place at a school called Hogwarts. They were informed that they could send a reply by owl saying whether they wished to attend the school or not, which confused the boys, but they were still fairly excited and after finishing the letters they decided to see if they could find an owl.

They didn't have to go far because just outside the house and sitting next to the mail slot was a very large grey owl. The two boys looked at each other and grinned before waving at the owl, which was already staring at them, and coaxing it in the house.

Sitting back at the table the two boys decided to start crafting a reply to the letter. They said how excited they were to find out they were wizards and they said just how much they would love to go to a school for magic. Then they said that they weren't sure where to get anything off of the list and asked if the school could send someone to help them out. They also mentioned that Dudley's parents disliked it when they did anything magical (naturally exchanging the word freaky to it's counterpart) and therefore asked if whoever came could not tell them and instead keep it a secret. Then Dudley decided to add that they wouldn't be allowed to go to this school if his parents knew about it and asked if there was a way to make it look like they were going to Smeltings Academy.

With that they were done and after they had both signed the letter they turned to the owl to try and attach it to its leg. Dudley was going to get some string but they realised there was already a little leather string and pouch attached to the leg of the bird. They tied the letter with the string and each boy patted the bird, offered it some breakfast and watched it fly out the open back door.

The two boys felt the excitement fade a little as they realised it would be a while before they heard anything back, and so they rushed upstairs to play video games like they'd originally intended.

It wasn't too much longer before a reply came to the letter the boy's sent, it was again sent with the same grey owl but was this time addressed to both the boys. In it they were informed that the Deputy Headmistress, one Minerva McGonagall would be conducting the Muggle-Born-Outing in precisely one week's time in order to collect equipment for those who were not raised in the muggle world. She specified that because they wished to keep their magical powers quiet she would be able to make a house call to collect the boy's if they were waiting outside at 9:00am. She also wrote that she highly disapproved of any sort of dishonesty and while the school understood that some students had no choice she would implore them to talk to their guardians and find a way to work through their problems.

The following week was slow as it dragged out leading to the boy's first magical encounter but exactly a week later, at 9:00am the boys were waiting in the yard outside their house. They'd told the elder Dursley's that they were going to the library for the day (not an unusual occurrence) and thus they had the whole day free.

Meeting Professor McGonagall was quite the experience, Dudley learnt that day not to call animals names after he called an impressive looking tabby cat pregnant "or she soon will be with the way Tibbs is looking at her", and Harry learnt that he wanted to be an animagus so the morning was off to a good start. The Knight Bus was a treasure to both boys and they used the trip to weasel out all the juicy gossip about the magical world and the way it worked from the Professor, namely that she had almost married a muggle years ago but hadn't been able to bear the secrecy. How the boys got such a strong woman to open up to them was a mystery for the beginning of the trip up until she explained how similar the boys were to Harry's father and one of his friends. This led them into a discussion of the real gossip in the wizarding world and before they knew it they were standing amongst a group of future-fellow-students and their respective parents.

The rest of the trip flew by smoothly, McGonagall sent them down to Harry's trust vault on their own while she sorted out which students would get robes first and which would get wands, the rest browsing through pets and cauldrons. Before they knew it Dudley and Harry had a mindblowing amount of gold and were off buying their belongings. The Professor allowed them to find their own items having a measure of trust in the two after they way they had handled themselves so far and the pair bought themselves the best of everything, together being resourceful enough to find the best bargains.

One thing that both boys wanted was a pet, they knew however that they would be unable to take something like an owl back home and so when the reached the Magical Menagerie they realised that the only pet they could realistically take home was a cat. With a cat they would be able to say that old Ms. Figg from next door had offered them up since one of her cats had had kittens recently. After touring through the store they found their hearts set on a pair of Siamese kittens that would make fine familiars one day.

The last two stops for the boys were to get trunks for all their school stuff, which they ensured had pet-carrying compartments and quickly stowed away all their new belongings so their hands were free. They opted for the feather light trunks once they realised how heavy the things would be and took a while to move all their belongings again, and then once more when Harry decided he preferred the yellow-tan trunk to the black one. Dudley opted out of this final move.

After this the boys went to the very last store, Ollivanders, the wand shop. Overall Dudley found this to be the worst store as the wizard inside almost completely ignored him and raved about Harry in a totally over the top way. What was so curious about him? He was standing right there! Still, Harry's wand was actually quite nice, ebony the man said, with a phoenix feather core and the silver trimming, carving, and hilt of the wand were quite remarkable. Dudley's wand was similarly carved and it had a nice small blue stone but it wasn't quite as striking as Harry's. It was elm rather than ebony with a unicorn tail hair core.

Overall the boys were fairly happy with their purchases, and so upon meeting back up with Professor McGonagall they were delighted to receive tickets to the train for school and miserable when they heard the trip wasn't until the first of September. After explaining to the once more gathered group how to get onto the platform, the professor took the two boys home to deal with the repercussions of new school trunks (there was a sale near the library) and new cats, the excuse for which they'd already planned out.

The wait until their school started was even worse than the wait to meet Professor McGonagall but it was filled in with a multitude of lies in the form of fake letters from Smeltings. These letters instructed the elder Dursleys on how to get their charges prepared for school, for example they were to drop them off at kings cross on September 1st, they were to pay the tuition with checks in the post (the disparity in prices from Smeltings to Hogwarts going into a trust vault at Gringotts for Dudley), they were to allow the children to find their own supplies and were ordered not to give the boys any money for this endeavour (the excuse being that it built character) and so on.

This meant that by the time September first rolled the boys were well prepared and the adults knew what to do.

On the way to school the boys filled their nerves by reading one of the extra books Professor McGonagall had suggested, Hogwarts a History, and tried to guess what house they were in and how they would be sorted. It was hard to do without alerting either Petunia or Vernon but Dudley and Harry were managing it, both the elder Dursleys still too stunned, after years of preparation, that the boy would not be going to Hogwarts and they really were just that amazing at stamping out magic.

The platform was a delight to the two boys and the train ride even better, they met a pair of twins that were as in sync as Harry and Dudley were when they were together which was pretty exciting to them and they spent the train ride with a seperate set of twin girls from India.

The best part of the whole day, the part that topped everything was the sorting, excited to be housed together Dudley was the first one up and sitting under the hat it said to him that nowhere else would suit him like Slytherin, the hat considered Hufflepuff for a half second because of the loyalty he'd always shown his cousin, but the ambition, and cunning that he valued more than anything were where his motivations in life lay so he was happy to go where he belonged.

A few names down and the twin girls they shared the train carriage with were up. This was the first moment that Harry began to worry as each twin was sorted into a different house and still not the one Dudley was in, he'd thought you were sorted where your trainmates were. Harry's turn was about in a flash and under the hat was the moment his world shifted. No where near his cousin's placement, the hat said to Harry that he was a Hufflepuff through and through, espousing literally every value and basing his life around them before he'd even heard the name! A boy that dedicated and willing to sit through punishments for things he didn't do, well, Hufflepuff was the only place for him.

Before a retort could pass through his brain 'HUFFLEPUFF' was called out and the two boy's, practically brothers, were split up.

Sparing a quick horrified look for his cousin Harry put on a brave face and went to start his new life at the Hufflepuff table.

Passing through dinner quickly, mind in a turmoil Dudley realised what an adventure he was on and vowed to do his best, any means necessary.

Fin.

A/N: My original idea for this was to have Dudley renounce Harry once he realised what being the muggle-born cousin of the boy-who-lived alone in Slytherin meant and have Harry work hard and build himself up surrounded by friendly Hufflepuffs and be happy while Dudley struggles through and earns his place in Slytherin. As you can see I rather lost patience with that story but if anyone wants to write that story all the power to them! Hope you enjoyed!