Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter, or anything else mentioned in this fan fiction.

Summary- Dudley has learned a valuable lesson, and his whole life is changed because of it, but is it changed enough that when he falls for a girl who's a witch, who will he choose? His parents or his love? No OCs, post DH.

AN/Hides/ this is the chapter where we find out who Dudley is going to be paired with! At least one of my reviewers has already figured it out, but for the rest of you… well, that's what this chapter is for!

You might wonder why some of the order seem so accepting of Dudley already- It's because they already know how Dudley's been helping the order. The only reason the trio don't know is because they were on the run for most of book seven, so no one thought to tell them.

I would like to give huge thanks to everyone who reviewed this story or put it on alert, or favorites.

Harry Potter sat with his two best friends, Ron Weasly and Hermione Granger in a café in London, not far from the leaky cauldron. It was actually, the same café the three had been at when attacked by Death Eaters the previous year, and if it was up to them they would not be there at all.

"Hello, Harry, sorry I'm late," Ginny said, sitting down next to Harry.

"Where were you?" Harry asked his girlfriend.

"Oh, just having a chat with mum," Ginny responded in an innocent enough tone. Harry shrugged and continued scanning the street. Ron went back to muttering darkly about the coffee, but Hermione looked up sharply and raised her eyebrows at Ginny, seemingly curios about aforementioned conversation, but Ginny averted her eyes. Neither of the boys noticed this.

Five minutes later, Ron said, "Let's go, he's not coming."

"Ronald," Hermione said, annoyed, "we can wait a few more minutes."

"I don't see why you even wanted to meet with him," Ron muttered grumpily, his arms folded over his chest, "You've always said he hated you."

Harry just shrugged.

A voice from behind the foursome said "Harry?" and they all turned around to see a tall blond boy with a small scar on his right cheek and a decidedly nervous expression on his face.

Harry gaped, and the boy smiled anxiously, "Do you recognize me?"

"Dudley?" Harry asked, "You've lost some weight, haven't you?"

Dudley nodded sheepishly, and dragged a chair over from the next chair to sit beside Ron, who promptly slid his chair closer to Hermione.

There was a decidedly awkward pause, and then Harry said, "So… Er- Why did you want to meet with me anyway?"

"I wanted to say… um… thanks for saving my life, you know… that time with the dementors." He was staring at the table as if wishing it would come to life and swallow him. Harry suddenly felt very awkward.

"Well… you know… I couldn't just stand by and let them kiss you." He expected his cousin to react in confusion at the phrase 'kiss', and was surprised when he simply nodded and continued staring at the table.

There were another couple of minutes of awkwardness, before Ginny broke it by asking "Where'd you get the scar?"

Dudley looked up and smiled a little. "My only encounter with a Death Eater," he said.

"What were you doing with a Death Eater?" Ron said suspiciously.

So then Dudley was explaining what he'd been doing for the past year, and the others were asking questions, even Harry, who had once thought that he could never hate anyone more than his great bullying git of a cousin.

That was over- Dudley had been working hard to save lives all year. He'd been working towards the same goal as Harry. To Harry, Dudley had stopped being Dudley the bully, Dudley the leader of a gang who beat up ten year olds for fun, the moment he made the decision to help, and he was now just Dudley his cousin.

Eventually, Ron said, "So what happened with the Death Eater?"

Dudley grinned, a confident smile, rather than a nervous one, and said, "Well, apparently they were getting fed up with me ruining their stupid 'games', so they caught me while I was out of the house and dragged me to an alley somewhere. There were two of them, Bellatrix Lestrange, and some man, I don't know who, he never took his mask off, and she never said his name."

"Anyway, she started shooting curses at me, and one of them hit, and left a scar." He shrugged.

"How did you get away?" Hermione asked.

"I kicked the man and ran off. I guess they thought I wasn't that important, because they just Dissaperated away."

Ginny glanced at her watch and then jumped up in a panic, "We've got to get home, mum's planning a dinner, she's invited the whole family, and some of the order, Bill and Fleur have some news…" She and Hermione shared another look, the meaning of which all three boys completely missed, and Hermione gasped. She, Ginny, and Ron moved towards the door, but Harry didn't move. He was watching Dudley.

"Dudley, d'you want to come with us?"

A pause, and then Dudley nodded.

"That's great, now let's go," said Ginny impatiently.

-

"Everyone, I wanted to make an announcement!"

Harry looked up from his plate to see a beaming Bill at the head of the table. The level of noise dropped somewhat.

"It is my pleasure to announce that my beautiful wife and I will soon be parents!"

Dead silence, and then everyone was rushing to congratulate Bill and Fleur. Finally the noise died down, and Mrs. Weasly came out with a huge cake floating in front of her.

"Hello, Harry," said a voice behind him. Harry started and turned around to see Luna Lovegood standing behind him.

"Erm… hello," he replied. "So… having a nice summer?"

"Pretty nice, thank you," said Luna in her dreamy voice, "except Daddy cancelled our trip to Austria, we were going to look for a new species of gulping plimpies, but he's gotten a little more cautious after the ministry took me away last Christmas…" She trailed off with a shrug.

There was a pause, and then Luna said, "I think your friend is staring at us."

"What?" Harry said, turning around to see Dudley gaping at the two of them. "Oh, yea, Luna, this is my cousin Dudley, Dudley, this is Luna Lovegood."

"Nice to meet you…" Dudley said a most peculiar expression on his face.

And then Harry recognized it. It was the same one Ron had worn when he saw Hermione at the Yule Ball.

Dudley liked Luna.

Feeling immensely proud on having figured this out without any help from Hermione, he left, happy that they were getting on so well (He could hear them laughing from the other side of the yard, and Luna seemed deep in an explanation of… something or other, which Dudley seemed to be listening to attentively). Most people would be laughing at Luna, not with her.

Hermione walked up to him, "Hi, Harry, have you seen Dudley, Mrs. Weasly wants to know if he wants to stay the night, since it's getting dark and he can't exactly apparate…"

"Oh, yea," Harry said, "He's over there talking to Luna."

"Luna?" said Hermione, looking startled.

"Yup."

Bad ending… ah well!

I'm not happy with this chapter at all, maybe I'll go back and change it later… anyway, for those of you who think Dudley and Luna would never like each other, I'd like to point out that this is fan fiction for a reason. Like, you'd never see Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger falling in love in the books, but there are loads of fan fictions where they do.